How to L.I.V.E. with Your Emotions
When we begin to check in with ourselves and mindfully listen to what comes up, it can be tricky when what we find are challenging emotions that may feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. Many of us may have learned to ignore our challenging emotions altogether, or to dismiss, criticize, rationalize away, or simply flat out reject them as a way of protecting ourselves. The problem with that is that bottling, ignoring or rejecting our vulnerable feelings does not make them go away - on the contrary, it tends to just make them louder and more insistent on being heard. The following tool offers another way of engaging with our emotions that allows them (and us) to feel listened to and understood and that helps to build a more supportive and trusting relationship with self by opening the door for action and compassion.
Try this L.I.V.E. exercise
L
Listen to your emotional response (in your body and mind)
I
Investigate the heart of the emotion
V
Validate that it’s ok to feel challenging and vulnerable emotions
Validating does not mean steeping in, or fanning an emotion, or engaging in victim mentality. It simply means acknowledging the root of the feeling and allowing that it may be fair and reasonable to feel hurt, sad, scared, etc. This form of acknowledgement helps us to not get stuck in the feeling and to instead focus on what we need in order to be ok. Also, for this exercise remember that anger is often (though not always) a secondary emotion with a more vulnerable feeling (sad, scared, hurt, etc) at its heart.
E
Explore “what would help?” and take action!