Mindfulness for Busy People, 2nd Edition

Chapter 8

Falling gracefully

How come we are so keen to reduce and avoid certain feelings like anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness, loneliness and grief, while feelings like joy, excitement, happiness and calm are ones we want more and more of? This may seem like an obvious question, but take a moment to think about it right now, as all of these feelings are completely natural and essential to being human.

We tend to label our feelings as ‘positive and negative’ or ‘good and bad’ because of how physiologically they feel in our bodies. The ‘negative’ stuff tends to create tension, tightness and exhaustion in the body, while the ‘positive’ stuff tends to create lightness, warmth, fuzziness and spaciousness. Any of these emotions, however, ...