What do you do when you're feeling down?

What do you do when you are feeling down? It seems like for a lot of people I know right now, myself included, life has felt kind of like an emotional roller coaster the past month and a half. So the question naturally arises, what do you do in the midst of all of that? I can't say that I really enjoy the intense emotions surfacing lately, but they have been serving as keys to unlock greater insight into my own self-awareness.

I feel like these feelings arise in us as an opportunity to grow and transform something deep seated that is preventing the full beauty of who we are to emerge. I used to try to distract myself if feelings of hopelessness, restlessness, or sadness emerged, but now I try to sit with the feeling and ask myself why I am feeling it? What is underneath what I am feeling? I don't always get an immediate answer, but the answers do come. Sometimes they come in a meditation, but sometimes they show up in the midst of a conversation or in the middle of a meeting. The insights usually help me to uncover deep-seated aspects of myself that I have been wanting to transform, but couldn't access before.

For me, gaining clarity always has to do with feeling responses in my body. When I ask myself a question, I sink my attention down into my body and feel in my gut or my heart what is true. I continue to do this when I talk to friends or family about what I am struggling with and trying to figure out. I can always tell if I am getting caught up in a rationalization or story that I have been playing on repeat or if I am actually expressing what is true for me. If it is a story or rationalization, I feel like what I am saying is coming from my head, when I am expressing what is true for me, I feel a calm in my body and a knowing my my heart that it is true. You can experiment with this yourself. The next time you are talking about what you feel, be asking your body while you speak if that is true, or if it is really a story you made up a long time ago that isn't serving you anymore.

Please email me if you have any questions or comments. I would love to hear from you.