What happens if you don’t listen to how you feel?

You may find it difficult to move towards the important things you value in life.

You may have an underlying sense of unease, discomfort, fear and anxiety.

You may not be able to relate to others easily and meaningfully.

You may not have a satisfying, fulfilling close relationship with your partner.

You may find it hard to communicate with others or feel misunderstood by them.

You may not be able to manage crises and unexpected events in an effective, flexible manner.

You may try (often unsuccessfully) to control things, people and events.

You may tend to respond to people and events reactively and automatically.

You may feel that you are suffering (i.e., not living mindfully and in a fulfilling way) in your life.

What you can do

Try to let the fight of having these emotions go.

 

Here’s how

Notice what emotions are happening inside of you and name them. You can say, “Here’s a feeling of sadness” or “Here’s a feeling of being scared” or simply “Here’s a yucky feeling.”

Stay with the feeling. Notice when you have the idea that you need to go away, struggle, or fight against this feeling.

Breathe into the feeling. Breathing deeply will help you stay with the feeling. Focus on your breathing — breathe into the feeling, around the feeling and beside the feeling — and continue to breathe deeply and slowly.

Allow the feeling to be there. You can do this by stopping the fighting, rationalising and arguing that your mind is doing. Instead say, “There’s a little space inside of me that will make room for this feeling” or “I don’t like this feeling, but I will make room for it — just for now.”

Don’t be dismayed if this is really difficult — it’s very hard to manage emotions when you are feeling them intensely.

High emotions drive you to think and act reactively, and this is a habitual pattern that you are trying to break.

Remember that changing habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour takes time and practice, but we know (research tells us) that these patterns can be changed.