I have condensed an exercise Abby Seixas offers in her book, “Finding the Deep River Within,” for befriending a feeling.

1. Take a couple of deep breaths and allow your awareness to move inward. Now recall a situation in the recent past that evoked mildly difficult or uncomfortable feelings. Choose something relatively easy to work with, like waiting for someone who was late to meet you.

2. Once you have chosen a situation, go back to it and relive it as best you can. In your imagination, slow down the experience or the sequence of events and ask yourself, “What am I feeling?” See if you can name the emotions that are present for you in this situation.

3. Notice any thoughts you may have in response to this feeling. This step is a chance to become conscious of the thoughts or stories we tell ourselves about what we are feeling. With an attitude of curiosity and nonjudgmental awareness, just notice and get familiar with the story line that accompanies the feeling.

4. Now turn your attention to your body. Ask yourself, “How do I experience this (fill in the name of the feeling you have identified) in my body?” Bring your awareness to your body and try to listen to it and observe it.

5. Staying with the sensation of this feeling in your body as best you an, let it be, allow it, give it space, breathe with it. These are all different ways of making friends with the feeling. Breathing with or breathing into the body sensations that accompany the feeling can help evoke an accepting, spacious attitude.

6. As you allow and breathe with the feeling, you can also let a sentence or gesture or image come that expresses the attitude of befriending this feeling. For example, if the feeling is fear, you can say to yourself, “Hello, fear.” A gesture of befriending fear might be wrapping your arms around yourself or stroking yourself in a soothing way.

You can adapt the process in any way that works for you. The essence is to notice, go toward, and allow yourself to experience feelings that you normally might block or move away.

Read more in Abby’s book, “Finding the Deep River Within.”

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