Emotions and how to make friends with yours.

For years, I heard meditation teachers talk about making friends with our emotions. They would say once that they accepted their depression or anxiety they were then freed by the acceptance?

What accept my anxiety and depression? No! I understood the concept, and it made sense. I read or heard it again and again, that whatever we resist persists. I did my best to “accept” my anxiety and depression while, also hoping they would eventually be gone.

My mindset shifted when my daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia. After reading and learning more about dyslexia I discovered amazing creatives like Steven Spielberg, Keira Knightley, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein were also thought to have been dyslexic. It turns out people made by dyslexia think differently. When they are learning to read, it can make life hard, frustrating, and overwhelming, but this same thinking difference allows people made by dyslexia to be incredibly creative.

That’s when it hit me that maybe my depression and anxiety are similar. I am a thoughtful, highly sensitive, and empathetic person. I care deeply about people and issues. Things upset me.

I love my job as a therapist. I love being able to connect deeply with people and put myself in their shoes to understand their experiences. I wouldn’t want to change these things about myself, and it makes sense that at times these big emotions feel heavy. It makes sense that at times these feelings can be so intense they go into full-blown anxiety, and/or depression.

For the first time, what those meditation teachers have been saying, started to make sense. I could not only accept my anxiety and depression, but now I see them as The flipside of the same coin, as some of my greatest strengths and assets.

Thought for the day: Emotions are Our Friends

It’s normal to not like difficult emotions or being stuck in states, such as anxiety and depression. At the same time, these experiences are a part of us. We might want to have a lobotomy, but if we actually could we might be erasing one of our greatest strengths.

Is there any flipside to your difficult emotions? At the very least our emotions may be trying to communicate with us.

We may need to look at different parts of our lives and make changes. Next time you have big emotions, ask yourself if there’s anything of value here.

Are my emotions trying to tell me something? Can I listen?

The light in me sees the light in you,