Mindfulness Practices for Daily Life

Awareness of Emotions

The themes of the last few weeks have already given some insight into the nature of emotions. Our thoughts and our physical bodies are so entangled with the experience of emotion that the boundaries between them are almost inseparable.

The physical body contains and reflects every emotion we carry. Indeed, we carry emotion caught in the tension of muscles and joints, and in our illnesses, in a cumulative build up that occurs over the course of our lives.

It can be difficult to recognise our own emotions. We may feel something but that doesn’t mean we know its name, and even what we are able to name may be just a shadow of what we actually feel.

Even if we recognise an emotion we may be unable to accept or acknowledge it fully; some emotions are unpleasant – who wants anger for example?

Seeing our emotional patterns in life is key to understanding ourselves, but seeing them as they are, creating a space where emotions can be felt, accepted and understood, without falling headlong into them, is one of the most difficult tasks of self observation.

With a strong emotion we often go into a rapid, almost automatic response in which all sense of space and witnessing vanish.

 

Cultivating the capacity to self-observe at these difficult or enjoyable emotional intensities doesn’t come easily, so we have to start simply.

Look for moments of feeling up or down. Look at the emotional dimensions of dealing with other people.

Keep it simple, begin to observe and recognise the incidental emotions as they occur throughout the day.

 

This text is taken from Yoga With Attitude by Swami Vimalratna.
The book is available from the Yoga Association of Victoria and Satyananda Yoga Academy Australia.