{"id":1090,"date":"2020-06-25T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2020-06-22T17:41:41","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T22:41:41","slug":"bearing-our-souls-a-crash-course-in-soothing-the-overwhelming-emotions-of-a-pandemic%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8apart-6%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8aexpressing-your-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deepcenterforgrowth.com\/candyce-counseling\/2020\/06\/bearing-our-souls-a-crash-course-in-soothing-the-overwhelming-emotions-of-a-pandemic%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8apart-6%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8aexpressing-your-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Bearing Our Souls: A Crash Course in Soothing the Overwhelming Emotions of a Pandemic\u200a-\u200aPart 6\u200a-\u200aExpressing Your\u00a0Emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To listen to an audio reading of this post, click here<\/a> or go to bit.ly\/BearingSoulsAudio6<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We find in our pain the pain we all share.<\/em><\/p>

Softening around pain with mercy instead of hardening it with fear,<\/em><\/p>

the heart expands as \u201cmy\u201d pain becomes \u201cthe\u201d pain.<\/em><\/p>

Odd as it may sound,<\/em><\/p>

when we share the insights arising from <\/em>our pain<\/em><\/p>

we become more able to honor <\/em>the pain.<\/em><\/p>\u2014 Stephen Levine, in <\/em>Unattended Sorrow<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Just when the overwhelm of coronavirus quarantine was amplified by the distress and outrage of throngs protesting against the brutal murder of George Floyd, I stared in disbelief at an unfathomable email that appeared in my inbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The message contained antiracism resources paired with exercises for ridding oneself of painful emotions in order to find peace and happiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously? Even NOW?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A huge motivation for me to write this series about pandemic emotions was that the onslaught of mental health articles that touted mindfulness, exercise, controlling what you can, and gratitude practice were grossly missing the mark. None of them addressed the anguishing, existential emotions that generate the anxiety and\/or sluggishness people have been struggling with. They mostly offered advice for distracting<\/em> from painful feelings, but not for understanding<\/em>, expressing, <\/em>and soothing<\/em> the feelings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those articles left many feeling overwhelmed, scared, and alone because their enormous painful emotions didn\u2019t succumb for long to scented body creams or yoga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many folks have written to me to let me know how validated and accompanied they\u2019ve felt by my helping them turn toward and understand their big emotions, instead of steering them to find superficial peace and serenity when that was not at all fitting to their experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My heart pounded and my hands shook when I tripped across that horrid email tying antiracism to find-some-inner-peace exercises just as I began to write this final article in the pandemic emotion series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I groaned with outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coronavirus time was already<\/em> a time when we needed help to BEAR our emotions, not tools for fixing them or ridding ourselves of them. Adding to COVID a boiling forth of long-disavowed societal trauma does NOT call for exploring inner peace!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That suggestion nauseates me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A time of collective outrage, sorrow, and reckoning is a time when we need help to FEEL the pain, to EXPRESS the pain, to SHARE the pain. NOT erase it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, I was angered by that email.Following my own instructions (offered in this very pandemic series):<\/p>\n\n\n\n