All Are Welcome
Recently, in an interesting article, a celebrity discussed the psychological work she was doing to change her relationship with her difficult emotions. She explained how she envisions “a house with past emotions stuffed away in the basement, and anxieties and fears for the future kept in the attic”. The main floor holds her present moment emotions. She reported that giving each emotion its place helps her to understand them better.
In a mindfulness approach, we are encouraged to move toward our emotions, even the challenging ones. Rumi's celebrated poem, "The Guest House", offers the metaphor that we as humans represent a house or a space to welcome all temporary guests. In the metaphor, these guests represent our emotions.... including the ones that might be difficult to host. "Even if they are a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, treat each guest honorably because he may be clearing you out for some new delight." Perhaps in Rumi's house, there would be enough space to host all the emotions on the main floor.
This Guest House can be thought of as a limitless container which has ample space to house all our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations regardless of if they are positive, negative or neutral.
Our formal Mindfulness of Emotions practice presents an opportunity to notice what emotions might be knocking on our front door, which ones we might prefer to open the door for, and which emotions we might tend to avoid rolling out the welcome mat for. Rumi’s instincts and this practice we use at CMP have been validated by science. Neuroplasticity research shows us that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (which encourages us to turn towards our emotions and thoughts, and identify maladaptive thought patterns that lead to unhealthy behaviors) can literally change our brains!
For a discussion of Mindfulness of Emotions, click here.
For a guided Mindfulness of Emotions practice, click here.
(A big thank you to Lisa Sheehan for contributing this week's blog!)
