Recognizing a style of how we deal with our challenges can be a great way to begin learning how to best take care of ourselves. At one level it may appear paradoxical because most of us have been raised to believe we want to feel good. That we want to appear to feel good to others and ourselves. We haven’t understood the price of suppressing feelings. This episode highlights the importance of taking some time to drop into life’s most difficult experiences. It can lead to a contemplation of needs to support having a more complete and accurate direction of how to feel and live.  Stewing is one of the other common ways to deal with challenging emotions. Like a forgotten pot of food boiling on the stove. We do not recognize that the food is there to be eaten/experienced in a way that doesn’t create harm. It can then guide us to recognize and follow our most essential needs. Many people are not aware of their feelings, or they might be aware of them but they do not want to share them. They want to appear together, happy, and cool. However, both these tendencies are what actually keep away deep connections from ourselves and each other. This is why it is so important to investigate a more nuanced way of being with our feelings. We can't deeply trust ourselves when we're having to run away or compartmentalize.

For those of you that have not yet looked at The Introspective Guides to Awareness That Heals, this would be a great time to download those for free. They identify 75 challenging emotions, 75 healing qualities, actions, and essential needs. It helps us to become much more literate at being able to both see what is difficult and to see what is healing, which gives us so many more options.

Read the transcription and listen to this episode at Awareness That Heals.