Day 16 Embrace Them with Great Tenderness

Do not fight against pain; do not fight against irritation or jealousy. Embrace them with great tenderness, as though you were embracing a little baby. Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it. The same thing goes for all your emotions.

I don’t know about you but I am not in the habit of embracing all of my emotions as I would a little baby. Usually, I want to get rid of my negative emotions as quickly as possible or if I am feeling more ‘enlightened’ then I will try to talk myself out of the ‘dark side’.

What would it be like to embrace all emotions with tenderness? What does that look like? What would it feel like? I am trying to imagine how my life might shift if I could adopt this practice. It feels like a game-changer. I say that because it feels so unlike what I have been doing AND because there are clearly areas where I need/want to grow.

One of my favorite books right now is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson. The author suggests that we take responsibility for everything in our life. I bring this up because the sentence in today’s lesson, ‘Your anger is yourself, and you should not be violent toward it.’ feels connected to the concept of taking responsibility for your life in all its shapes and iterations. Accepting our emotions as a healthy part of our being seems like it could help to make choices based on our commitments or values thus taking responsibility for our lives.

The other reading I came across today in one of my perennial favorites, The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo, was about knowing when to let go of feelings, beliefs, and baggage-real and imagined. The story he shared was timely as we enter into a new year with a list of new resolutions or promises.

If I look at all three of these ideas then I begin to see a way of being that I like as I move forward into 2018. I am done fighting with myself. I will allow myself to get comfortable with all feelings and even gain some insight into where they are coming from. Let me use my insight to inform my next steps as I take responsibility for my life. I give myself permission to set down that which obstructs my ability to move ahead. My first thought was to call this matrix a map, but it is in fact something much more exciting. It is a guide which encourages faith, patience, and trust and celebrates the world of opportunity just waiting for us to be ready to embrace it.

I have been working on a discernment tool which I will talk about more in the coming months, until then if you are stuck in your business and would like to talk, contact me: .

In gratitude,

Kristan