i have a lot of resistance to metta / loving-kindness practices, or any kind of deliberate cultivation of positive emotion, and i think a lot of it has to do with feeling like as a kid i was constantly pressured into pretending i was happier and more satisfied than i was
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the practices i've been drawn to instead, like circling or bio-emotive, have felt so tremendously relieving by contrast because they create space for me to express all the unhappiness and dissatisfaction i've been storing up over a lifetime
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focusing on negative emotions does start to feel unbalanced after awhile though. so i've also been taking more opportunities to notice what i like, what i love, what excites me - stuff that's already there but that i haven't historically focused on
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there's a tension here between something like acknowledging and accepting what's already True vs. taking deliberate action to create new Truth that i don't know what to do with yet
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the good news is that the positive and negative emotions aren't very separate anyway. a lot of what comes up for me is grief and where there's grief there's something that was loved, and i can notice and express that love too
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one of the more interesting insights i got from chaos magick shit was an emotion chart stating, roughly, that every emotion _is_ it's opposite, and their union sets are some other thing
so you can often do work with whichever half resonates
this feels v similar and that's rad
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yeah i vibes with that!
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Metta is compatible with processing negative feelings IMO. As negative emotions come up, in you lovingly welcome the emotions and allow space for them to unfold.
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These negative feelings can also seen as IFS parts, and lovingly welcoming these parts will build trust between them and your Self. Over time this trust will give them space to grieve and process their pain. Metta and IFS go hand in hand for me.
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At times it's about learning to be with any emotion where emotions were scrutinised or judged by early caregivers.
It's taking me a long time to feel a sense of peace, whatever 'guest' comes to visit. All have helpful purpose, it's just hard at times to allow equal billing to all
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Practicing to hold loving space for whatever arises is helping me. The kid in me was taught to be suspicious of any emotion. Therefore yeah, it takes much repetitive practice just to hold kind curiosity for whatever arises without acting on immediate need to 'fix' or judge it.
So much of my grief comes from expressions of love that were attacked
Love that wasn't allowed, was reprimanded
That love feels like it needs to justify its existence
So its expression can be aggressive & violent, meaning it continues to not be accepted
A spiral of grief ensues
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