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Accepting difficult emotions like anger and frustration can help you stay calm, feel better overall, and find calm on the other side.
Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/n6hm5yhz
How to do this exercise:
- Start practicing by conditioning your mind and body. Be aware of your breathing and all the sensations that occur in your body,
- Take your attention away from your body and think about a time when you felt mildly irritated or irritated. Take a moment to fully feel this emotion.
- Notice the physical sensations that arise. Then let go of that memory and refocus your attention on your body.
- Allow these sensations to change and move, give them room to change, and observe them with a sense of curiosity and kindness.
- The next time that emotion arises in your daily life, consider shaking its hand.
Today’s Happiness Break hosts:
Eve Ekman I’m a contemplative social scientist and meditation teacher from San Francisco, California.
Learn more about Eve’s work below. https://tinyurl.com/2vhuarh8
Learn about Eve’s emotional training to develop emotional balance. https://tinyurl.com/5n95m7yx
Explore Eve’s project, The Atlas of Emotions. https://tinyurl.com/mt75ytm3
Follow Eve on Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/3txahape
Other resources from The Greater Good Science Center:
How to control your emotions without suppressing them: https://tinyurl.com/4x29denx
What to do when you feel trapped by negative emotions: https://tinyurl.com/mwczxfya
How to change your brain from anger to compassion: https://tinyurl.com/57upkcfa
How to overcome destructive anger: https://tinyurl.com/49zu6whw
We look forward to hearing from you. How do you manage your emotions? Email happypod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
Find us on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/6s39rzus
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We are living a mental health crisis. Between stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and burnout, everyone can use a break to feel better. That’s where Happiness Break comes into play. In biweekly podcast episodes, instructors teach research-backed practices and meditations that you can perform in real time. These relaxing and uplifting practices are lab-proven to help foster calmness, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more, and the latest science says they directly support your health. Masu. All done within 10 minutes. For a short break during the day.
Dutcher Keltner: I’m Dutcher Keltner. Welcome to Happiness Break. Here, we’ll take a few moments to try out some practices that support our hearts and minds and help us feel happier for the rest of the day.
Today we’ll focus on anger because much of our happiness comes from gaining perspective on difficult things in life.
We can never stop being angry, nor do we want to. But we can learn how to process this emotion in a healthy way: by accepting it mindfully. Research shows that when you do this, you’re less likely to flare up in the moment. We handle conflict better, our moods are higher, and our daily lives are less stressful overall.
Today’s practice is led by contemplative social scientist Eve Ekman.
It starts with some guided deep breathing and then a little bit of irritating remembering. Because it’s often better to start small. Then observe how it feels in your body, what it’s like. Cultivate acceptance and hopefully make them feel more relaxed.
This is Eve.
Eve Ekman: Start by adjusting your mind and body, Connect your breath and body.
To do this, let’s focus on breathing. As you breathe in, become aware of the sensation of your breath and awaken a sense of aliveness.
As you exhale, relax and feel at peace with yourself.
As you breathe in, inhale that vivid sensation. Breathe out, relax and feel at ease..
Then, as you inhale, you may feel your spine lengthen and become more upright with its vividness. And as you exhale, imagine your face, chest, and belly softening and relaxing.
Next, turn your attention and awareness to your entire body, once again noticing the sensations in your face, chest, and belly. Maybe you have a feeling of pressure around your eyes, your shoulders, or your surroundings. You may notice something like heat or tingling.
Be curious and notice this feeling of exploration throughout your body.
And then we shift and move towards shaking hands with emotions. We summon our minds, our memories, our imaginations, and perhaps recall a time when we felt a little irritated or irritated.
Maybe you got stuck in a traffic jam. Maybe we feel like our loved ones aren’t listening or aren’t listening to us. Just try to see if he can recall one memory and make the details really stand out clearly. Who was involved and what was happening? What were they thinking and feeling?
Often, when we remember an emotion, we begin to feel it. And in this exercise, we use that feeling of emotion as a way to practice being with that feeling of emotion. So take a little bit more time here to really strengthen and bring out this frustration, this irritation.
So now, let go of the memory, let go of the story, and give your full attention and awareness to your body. Notice any sensations that may be associated with this frustration or irritation. What are you concerned about around your eyes? What about your jaw? Do you notice sensations in your hands or chest? What about your stomach?
And when we shake hands with emotion, we simply allow those sensations to change and move on their own.
Even strong feelings will begin to calm down if you give them the space they need. So feel or imagine them there. These senses have all the space they need.
Most of our emotions only last about 30 to 90 seconds, but rethinking your emotions can make them feel stronger and longer. So, without any plans or expectations that anything will change or move, just continue to notice and observe with curiosity and kindness the sensations in your body that are associated with this memory of frustration. .
Just focus on the feeling and give it room to shift, change, and unravel.
Whether the feeling of emotion was felt strongly or lightly, whether it completely disappeared or whether it still lingers. We can simply focus on these sensations that remain in our bodies, and a sense of genuine care and kindness towards these feelings that we naturally feel throughout our lives.
To conclude this short exercise, the next time a strong emotion arises, whether in meditation or in the world, consider shaking hands with that feeling.
