Sitting with your darkness
Rumi famously compared, “a joy, a depression, a meanness” to “unexpected visitors”. His stance was to allow them all in, laughing, but today, that is seldom what we do. Our default is to ignore them, to pretend or even to mask what we’re really feeling. We are guided to bury our anger, to market our loneliness as gratitude, to camouflage our grief as acceptance. We are in a world where being “positive” is seemingly the way to be, leaving little room for the reality of negative and uncomfortable feelings. This is doing untold damage to our mental health, especially considering that negative emotions are an essential and unavoidable part of being human!
I can tell you, from a clinical perspective, that it’s not helping. We know from research that the acceptance of these negative emotions, learning to sit with them, is a far more reliable path to maintaining a state of wellness. More than this, the evidence is clear, sitting with these dark emotions creates better emotional resilience and helps us to have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression.
But how?
Well the game-changer, derived from Buddhist roots, is mindfulness. Mindfulness teaches us the power of learning to sit with uncomfortable emotions - we acknowledge them, but don’t judge them. Another wonderful tool is ‘distress tolerance’. Essentially both teach you to accept and see your feelings and emotional experiences in a new light. To acknowledge that distress is a very normal, universal human experience. And these uncomfortable emotions are not only common and OK, they are important and useful to us.
Let’s take fear for example. Fear is extremely helpful to our survival. When fear kicks in, at appropriate times, it arms us with the physiological sensations that help us effectively deal with the situation. Adrenaline kicks in and our heart beats faster. Imagine if you stayed calm and relaxed if you were being threatened by a wild animal? It would not be helpful! Our fight or flight response has strong evolutionary ties.
What is acceptance?
Let’s start with this question … what happens if you try to get rid of your distress? Your dark emotions? Do you think it makes it better? Or worse? Does it go away? The answer is, it just fuels it. Think of it like a big inflatable beach ball — the more you try to push it under the water, the more it will fly back into the air. The same goes for emotions. Repression and avoidance do not work. Particularly not in the long run!
Accepting distress is not about liking these dark and uncomfortable emotions or resigning yourself to feeling miserable, it’s about seeing it for what it is - an emotion. And seeing an emotion for what it is often has a profound influence on the effect it has on you.
This is where Mindfulness comes into play. We call this learning to “watch” your emotions. Adopting an attitude of curiosity and no judgement. To simply notice. In this way we are not drawn into the chaos of these dark emotions, instead we sit with them. We label them. We observe them. We become the watcher of our emotions.
How to accept the darkness?
There is no right or wrong way to accept this state of being but below, I’ve listed some guidelines that might be of help. If it helps, you can always start with a handy Mindfulness app that will guide you through these steps.
1| Watch or observe your emotions
Your first step is to learn how to watch or observe your emotions. Think of it as learning to pay attention to them as a third party, to not buy into them. Simply notice them. Be aware of their existence. You are not your emotions. You are merely an observer of them. See yourself as looking in on them. Watching them.
2| Label them
You may find it helpful, as you are learning to watch your emotions, to label or describe them. Think of it as being the commentator on your emotions. For example, “… there is sadness, I can feel it in the heaviness of my shoulders”.
3| Be curious and non-judgmental
Pay attention to the language you use when describing your emotions. Try not categorize this darkness as good or bad. Simply let it be.
4| Apply imagery
The use of imagery can be really effective in helping you to foster an observer stance. Different imagery works for different people. But here are some tried and tested favourites:
An ocean wave
An express train
Clouds in the sky
Leaves on a stream
The idea of the different images is to learn to tolerate them. To pay attention to your emotions in a helpful way. Knowing that, in all versions, the emotion will pass.
5| Be present
Once you feel you are able to watch and experience the negative emotion, your next point of call is to gently direct your attention to the present moment. A sensory exercise here is really helpful; noticing what you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell.
6| Dealing with comebacks
It is completely normal and natural for an uncomfortable emotion to reappear. This does NOT mean that you have failed. Instead, congratulate yourself on recognizing it. For catching it. Gently acknowledge its existence and see it as another wave, express train or cloud drifting across the sky. It’s another opportunity for you to practice being the watcher of your emotions.
Remember, this is HARD. It takes practice. Particularly if you are someone who is not used to sitting with or experiencing uncomfortable emotions. Be gentle with you as you practice these exercises. It takes courage and strength to try something different. Remember that.
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