Lean into it. That thought alone can freak some people out…”Are you crazy? Lean into it?!? NO! It hurts!!”
People have this thought often when practicing yoga...and if you’ve taken a yoga class, you’re laughing because you know it’s true. When the teacher says “Are you feeling that resistance? Now, I want you to go deeper, lean into it a little more. It shouldn’t hurt, but I need you to stretch that muscle a little more… we need to make it stronger by making it more flexible.” Typically, by this time you are thinking the teacher is daft, crazy or quite possibly cruel.
They’re not.
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Dealing with feelings can be a lot like attending a yoga class. We often avoid the feelings we are uncomfortable with, even if doing so requires us to go significantly out of our way. As we do this, we develop feelings of insecurity about managing those uncomfortable feelings. Because we don’t practice this skill, we begin to question whether we can do it at all. We tell ourselves that awful things will happen if we feel those uncomfortable emotions. The “awful things” can vary, but they all lead our imaginations to a very scary and damaging place.
Feelings can be really uncomfortable and we often don’t know what to do, so we stuff them (figuratively… or maybe literally with Moose Tracks Extreme ice cream. I mean, not that it’s what I do or anything…) or we ignore those feelings and this allows negativity to weave itself into our daily thoughts and actions.
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The feelings that make us the most uncomfortable are the most in need of our attention. These painful feelings reside in the emotional places where our stress tolerance is the lowest. We need to practice this work and increase our tolerance, because the higher our tolerance, the stronger and more resilient we are.
So, the next time you have an emotion that makes you uncomfortable and you just want to stuff it, I encourage you to lean into it, just a little. It shouldn’t hurt, but we need to stretch that muscle a little more… so you can be stronger, more resilient and more flexible.
Good thoughts to you and yours, Amy
