Mindfulness: Dealing with difficult feelings

The purpose of this exercise is to help you come to terms with difficult feelings. Easily we strive to keep uncomfortable feelings out of our consciousness or just ignore them. Through a self-compassionate approach, we strive to accept and explore these feelings.

Emotions often have a message for us. Grief tells us that we have lost something important to us once and for all. Jealousy speaks to which direction we would like to go. Disappointment tells us that something hasn't happened in line with our expectations. Irritation tells us that some of our needs hasn't been realized. Accepting and exploring our difficult feelings help us to identify our own needs. After identifying the needs, it is easier to correct our own activities or we can try to express our needs to others and then the likelihood of meeting needs increases. Facing and accepting negative feelings and working with them increases one's well-being in the long run.

For this exercise, you can recall the situation in connection with which you experienced difficult feelings.

Thank you to: Irmeli Laitinen, psychotherapist, FSHS, Christopher Germer, PhD , clinical psychologist and lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Kristin Neff, Ph.D., associate professor in educational psychology at the University of Texas, Austin.

Music: Serena (Longer Version) by Spheriá | https://soundcloud.com/spheriamusic Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/