My cancer diagnosis came in the early 1990s when the New Age movement was in full swing, bringing its beliefs to bear on the growing populations of people living with AIDS and cancer. Love, Medicine, and Miracles by Bernie Siegel, and Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life were bestsellers. The ideas that everything happens for a predetermined reason and that we can be entirely in control of what happens to us translated into far-reaching theories about how our thoughts and feelings are both the cause and cure for illness. According to this popular train of thought, if you wanted to heal a disobedient body, you simply needed to work on your disobedient mind. Death was essentially regarded as a failure of will. If you got sick, it was because you had not done the right things to heal your wrong outlooks. If you died, it was because you did not want to live.
I was no stranger to these ideas. As a young adult, I was an idealist with an allegiance to nontraditional lifestyles and alternative medicine, and many New Age ideas appealed to me. As far as I was concerned, our capacity for self-determination and self-healing made sense, and I was convinced I could treat any illness that came my way with a combination of macrobiotic diet, vitamins, and optimism. Then I was hit with an advanced cancer diagnosis and the prescription of a new, aggressive, conventional Western-medicine chemotherapy protocol. I started seeing people around me get sick, suffer, and die no matter their lifestyle or treatment path — children, young moms, dear friends, spiritual teachers — all of whom loved life and were committed to physical and psychological health. It was then that I was forced to reconcile my beliefs to a more complex reality.
The notion that staying alive would require a relentlessly positive attitude was a hard prescription to shake. Though it surely made sense to feel sad, scared, and upset given what I was going through, I thought that allowing myself to feel these things was a one-way ticket to my downfall, a death sentence. I kept getting caught in a downward spiral: I would feel sad, then scared that I was sad, then upset that I was scared about being sad. Fear of my fear became terror. Sadness about my sadness became depression. And being upset about being upset made me feel doomed.
My former therapist reappeared in my life to help me navigate these treacherous emotional waters. She offered me the support to notice and name my emotions, grant them space and acceptance, and observe how they would soften and pass if I did not judge them. The feelings of sadness and fear did not need to define me, nor were they my enemy. Trusting my feelings and facing them with appreciative curiosity made them no longer scary or overwhelming. They only became tenacious when I questioned their right to exist. This held true even when I faced the prospect of my own death.
My emotional landscape was one of intense vulnerability. Befriending it with respect and compassion mattered immensely to my well-being. I came to see vulnerability as the nature of the human experience, connecting me to lovability and belonging — not separating me from people. I suddenly saw that everyone had cracks where, as Leonard Cohen says, “the light gets in.” We were traveling in our tenderness together. Putting out the welcome mat for vulnerability became central to my healing.
I spent months during and after treatment unwinding the belief that having certain thoughts or feelings was going to keep me sick or even bring about my demise. The cultural messages vilifying negative emotions did not abate, but trusting that I needed my whole self to come with me into wellness, I had to assume that whatever thoughts and feelings showed up had meaning. I had already learned so much from life, and I did not want to dishonor any parts of myself — so I became curious about them instead. With time and committed practice, I became more able to turn toward sadness, fear, or upset whenever it arose, look at it directly, hold it with interest and compassion, and allow its wisdom to guide me.
We are never more than one grateful thought away from peace of heart. — Brother David Steindl-Rast
Emotions, feelings, and the thoughts that accompany them come and go like the weather. Some days, a solitary emotion seems to be our only companion. Some days we run through a whole, wild bevy of emotional weather systems between waking and sleep. And while it is we who have feelings, and ideas about those feelings, sometimes it can feel like they “have” us.
Feelings and emotions simply are. Like the breath, they are a constant. Humans have anywhere from 6 to 27 basic emotions, and hundreds of feelings, all interconnected. We can know our feelings through the somatic portal of the body, and through the cognitive portal of the mind, but many people see them as emanating from the figurative space of the heart. Some believe we experience our emotions through feelings; some see it in reverse. Emotions are essential responses to our conditions; they can be as fleeting and fascinating as clouds or sunlight. But we often approach this rugged landscape with much trepidation. With loaded histories and loads of uncertainties, we embark on our emotional journeys laden and unsettled, afraid of what might be around the next bend, or the steep climb that seems it might never end.
The word emotion literally means “energy in motion.” Emotions move us to make messes, to make love, to make change, to make art. These actions create ripples of new emotions. Even if we endure a prolonged emotional or mental state such as depression or anxiety, these experiences have nuances; we notice glimpses of distinct feelings if we offer our interested attention. As with Impressionist paintings, when we move in close to our internal landscape, we see thousands of small brush strokes. So, too, are our feelings rich with a variety of hues and textures when we regard them with close and curious scrutiny.
Gratefulness supports us as we seek to befriend our emotions with a gentler and more inclusive perspective. Vulnerability will be close at hand and heart when we do this — it is often directly behind or underneath many of the feelings that we present to the world. When we note the surprising emotional nuances on the path we are traveling, the opportunity to suffer less and learn more is available to us — as well as the opportunity to more fully enjoy the journey.
The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. — Helen Keller
Graciously coexisting with our emotions is the precondition for much of what we long for: Self-awareness. Insight. Personal agency. Equanimity. Empathy. Intimacy. If you want to live a more grateful life — and enjoy its rich rewards — you cannot bypass joining forces with the great fullness of your emotions.
Practicing mindfulness reminds us of our ability to pay attention to our internal experiences, on purpose, without judgment. Mindfulness helps us to not get carried away by a story we tell ourselves about an emotion — about how a feeling is good or bad, shameful, or worthwhile. The essential insight that emotions and feelings come and go, and that we may have thoughts about them, but they do not “have” us, can spark a small revolution. Mindful presence slows us down, allows for greater acceptance and self-compassion, and softens our feelings of being overwhelmed.
One reason to become more gratefully present to our emotions is to learn to value whatever arises. We know that resistance generates persistence and suppression generates suffering. We need to strengthen our musculature for being with our feelings as they are, honoring their offerings and guidance. Practicing being present with an emotion allows it to have its arrival, its nuanced impact, and its departure. In the gracious space of regarding an emotion with attention and curiosity, we can experience more appreciation for the great fullness of who — and how — we are.
Mindfulness makes us aware, and gratefulness wakes us up to notice the gifts within and around us. Once we have paused to take in the present moment, a grateful perspective invites us to extend our attention to whatever is waiting in the wings: The richness of our hearts. The beauty of our tenderness. The intelligence of our feelings, all of them.
✹
What is an emotion you experience often and welcome with open arms? When you embrace it fully, what other emotions come with it?
✹
What are some ways you could invite yourself to be more curious and compassionate when your emotions are challenging?
When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. — Elizabeth Lesser
It is understandable and wholly human to prefer certain feelings over others. Some are far more tolerable or comfortable. How we orient to our lives through our most common emotions is highly individual, and even dispositional or constitutional. How we experience, integrate, and express our feelings as they arise — that is what makes us unique. But having a deep emotional life that challenges and enriches us and brings us into an experience of vulnerability — this universal truth is what makes us human. And it is the source of our most gratifying connections with all other humans.
We get into trouble when we embed our feelings into strict categories: good, bad, right, wrong. This categorizing is the mind’s attempt to bring a sense of order to a terrain that it often finds inefficient and disorderly. When our mind is meddlesome and controlling, as soon as a feeling arises it wants to classify it, especially if it is uncomfortable; the mind has little patience for discomfort. So we judge it. Label it. Compare it. Shame it. Hide it. Create a story about it. We tell ourselves this emotion might last forever, or get worse. We believe our feelings will make us either lovable or unlovable. This is how our minds make a target out of our tender hearts.
When we can quiet the mind — or at least make it more of an interested observer — and hold our tenderness with compassion, we can more readily harvest the riches of our emotional lives. Here, we get to behold the potency of our feelings and the exquisite truth of our humanity. Embracing our vulnerability allows our emotional experiences the space to inform and transform us. “Vulnerability is not weakness,” says social science researcher Brené Brown. “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” To dismiss vulnerability is to deny our authenticity, impairing our ability to develop ourselves and authentic connections with others.
Grateful living helps us become more compassionate, curious, and even celebratory about our emotional lives. It helps us see that our vulnerability is the key which unlocks the door to what we are longing for in life. Grateful living can offer powerful reframes and redirection for our attention when we feel emotionally overwhelmed or isolated. And we can work with our habits of mind, as opposed to against them, learning from awareness of our moment-to-moment feelings and thoughts.
✹
How does vulnerability help you feel a heightened sense of connection in your emotional life or your relationships?
✹
What is one emotion that can be challenging to embrace? What term of endearment could you give this emotion so when it arrives, it has a character you can welcome with tender recognition?
As they become known to and accepted by us, our feelings and the honest exploration of them become sanctuaries and spawning grounds for the most radical and daring of ideas. — Audre Lorde
Our emotional lives can keep us myopic — sometimes out of the necessity for growth and healing, and sometimes because fear limits and hampers us. When we open the lens to see ourselves as part of the world and related to others through our struggles, our emotional energies become more available. We find rejuvenation of our compassion for others in our human family, for all creatures, and for the Earth. Recognizing that the suffering of one person is the suffering of all, we are compelled to know we must carry each other across the rugged landscape of life, and trust we will be carried in the process.
When our emotional self-acceptance is turned on and our blinders are off, we recognize opportunities everywhere. We can see needs everywhere, calling for our care and engagement. We know we are a vital part of this beautiful constellation, and we advance toward those opportunities, perfectly messy, perfectly needy, and perfectly enough. It is not necessary to wait until we feel suitably strong and emotionally complete to begin listening; it is these exact conditions that make us best able to serve the world and our own development simultaneously.
When our hearts are awakened to our feelings, and our feelings are awakened to guide us, we can situate ourselves in a landscape of belonging. How we perceive the whole world changes when we tune in to vulnerability and brokenness as a shared experience, not ours alone. We can step outside of our singularity and discover ourselves accompanied. It is in these resonant moments we find our calling to be of service to a larger universe. Moved to tend to the collective heart, we know we are tending to our own.
Our world awaits your heart’s full employment, not its perfect composure. Your heart awaits the wake-up call of this moment, fully embraced and fully loved for all of its broken beauty. Let wholeheartedness turn you toward the possibility that wants to be awakened in you.
✹
What emotions move me toward action?
✹
How does being grateful for my vulnerability support me to see and create greater possibility in my life and in the world?
When the
face we wear
grows old and weathered, torn
open by time,
colors
tinted as dawn
like the late
winter mountains
of Sedona
ashen and crimson.
It will no longer
be possible
to distinguish
our deepest scars
from the long
sweet lines left
by laughter.
— Dale Biron
Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky. — Rabindranath Tagore
Like our bodies, our emotions offer abundant opportunities to practice bringing gratefulness to life. We have a perpetual invitation to embrace ourselves unconditionally. Accepting and celebrating the value of vulnerability, we are set free to better enjoy the blessings inside and all around us. Here. Now. Always.
Grateful living invites us to know that our emotions are our true riches. The ability to feel deeply and respond fully to life is an unparalleled blessing. Loving with our hearts wide open and with the capacity to be “undone” by love and compassion — this supports our full humanness. To want anything other than this would be a travesty to our potential and to our world. Accepting and appreciating our emotional lives is a big yes to life.
✹
May you hold all your feelings with compassion and curiosity.
Stop. Look. Go. Practice
Being able to identify and embrace the nuances of our feelings is hugely liberating. There is good news in the fact that we can feel anything at all. It is really good news that we are tenderhearted and capable of feeling, even things we might not like to feel. It means we are human. And being human is a big, vulnerable job.
Stop: Offer your attention to being still or slowing down. Bring your awareness to the present moment and allow yourself to sink into it. Put your hand on your heart. Focus on your breath while letting your heart soften.
Look: Turn your attention to how you are feeling right now. The first thing that arises is often a story to explain your feelings, but underneath that story are other important feelings. Can you get past the story to at least one feeling, clearly? Does it arise with a name? Try naming it softly.
Now can you approach this feeling with the same kind of curiosity you might offer a child who is hurting? Can you picture bending down and offering eye contact and your full attention? Can you cultivate tenderness? Are there layers underneath the feeling? Explore its edges and girth. What is the texture? Listen to the physical sensations that arrive with these feelings. Be receptive to this wisdom. Ask how your heart would describe its current state. With kindness, allow more “feeling” words to come to mind. Speak them softly as they arise. Just as the color red can be crimson, scarlet, rose, or ruby, anger can also have shades of frustration, fear, impatience, insecurity, or resentment. Invite yourself to imagine a range of nuanced names that you could use to describe one of your feelings.
Go: Your emotions are each points of light, illuminating your path and simultaneously the paths of others. Embrace how full of light you are. Notice that you can be compassionate toward your emotions and that compassion can change the quality of your attention for other people and their struggles.
From the fullness of your compassionate heart, extend yourself with kindness to someone in need today. Act with generosity. Tend a hurt you might be able to help heal. It is amazing how easy it is to make someone’s day with an act of kindness, and it is remarkable how much a focus on helping others can ripple back, helping us feel more connected and at ease.
Perspective Prompts
As we nourish our relationship with uncertainty and vulnerability, we are more in touch with poignancy. This poignancy makes it easier to see our emotions as energy in motion, passing into and through our lives laden with gifts — if we open our doors, our arms, our hearts. We can be more readily moved by what arrives when we know that no feeling lasts, no visitation is forever. We have no idea how long we will get to have any of our feelings. Holding them lightly, with respect, curiosity, and compassion, assures them they have been seen.
Experiment with treating all your feelings with equal hospitality, knowing that they have gifts for you in this moment, and may never come again.
✹
My entire emotional landscape is in service of a wholehearted life.
If we open the lens on our life, we will see that there is no feeling we have not experienced in some form before. And survived. Or enjoyed. Mostly learned from, if we have allowed ourselves to take in its teachings. Each has made us who we are now. The surprises faced with courage, the pain met with tenderness, the challenges held with faith — all delivering us into greater aliveness. Vulnerability and love embraced with reverence — greater fullness. When we look back on our lives, we see that it is often our most challenging emotional experiences that burnished us into brighter shining.
Remind yourself of tough situations and emotions that you did not expect but that made you who you are. Know that you will be able to look back on current struggles with appreciation for their teachings.
✹
My emotions bring valuable lessons, and I invite them into my life.
We can learn to regard our feelings as serving us most when they are diversified, when our emotional landscape contains a range of terrains — all extraordinary. Variety is a blessing. The wider our capacities, the more resourceful we can be in all areas of our lives. The more we can adapt and accommodate, the more resilient we are. The more emotions we can encounter and befriend, the more riches we have to bring to our lives and the lives of others. Imagine how diminished we would be with only a single emotion through which to experience life.
Consider your emotions a privilege, each one able to bring richness to the landscape of your life when greeted with appreciation.
✹
I am blessed by the wide range of my feelings, each one a gift.
We sometimes give our best advice to people when they are facing challenging emotions. Often our best selves rise to the occasion, and what we hold as sacred can be shared. We speak from the heart of our true beliefs and we offer kindness and compassion to others. If we are able to turn this same sacred appreciation toward ourselves, we can align with what we stand for. Excluding ourselves from the attentive emotional care that we give others takes us out of integrity; including ourselves is an embodiment of gratefulness.
Make a real effort to give yourself the focused emotional attention that you offer others. Your well-being will benefit greatly when you tend yourself with such appreciation and care.
✹
My compassion is sacred, and I direct it toward myself when I need it.
If you make an effort to deepen the nourishment that comes from enjoyable experiences, you will be better able to bring your strengths in service of the challenging times in life. Instead of distracting yourself from a pleasurable moment, go into super-soak mode and absorb every bit of its goodness. Let the blessings of a pleasurable moment saturate your cells. Occupy it fully. Create such a powerful reservoir of pleasure that it can carry you through challenging times. Fill your cup to the brim so that there is nourishment for the times when you need it.
When you find yourself having an experience that magnifies grateful feelings, turn up the dial to super-soak, become even more porous, don’t hold back, take it all in.
✹
I allow myself to lean fully into the pleasing moments in my life.