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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💔💔💔
This tweet hit hard
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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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So much grief as culturally rejected love
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it do be like that sometimes huh ❤️