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
Conversation
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
3
2
65
while it is good to cathart and express negative emotions, i find that doing so in the precence of others merely pushes them onto others, no matter to how small a degree. this is why to purify negatives monks are usually instructed to go into a forest and yell with no-one around
2
1
Replying to
that really hasn't been my experience. there's a skill you can develop of witnessing other people's negative emotions without taking them on and i've been lucky enough to be witnessed by people who are very good at it. can be very healing for everyone!
Replying to
itβs fine if everyone is doing it at once and witnessing their own outpouring. that self witnessing is the point of catharsis. if others are witnessing you and gaining from that experience consistently then they are training to feed on negative energy, which you do not want to do
1
while personal skills can buffer transference, from a harm reduction perspective this is what happens in βinteractiveβ activities involving catharsis
