Mindful Tools For Anger, Sadness, Fear, And Recovery

Hi everyone, I'm Sean Fargo, founder of Mindfulness Exercises. And here in the wake of this week's tragic school shootings in Texas, a lot of people are struggling with really strong emotions of anger, sadness, depression, and fear. And I wanted to let you know that I'm feeling all of those things too. That no one is above these natural human emotions. It means that we care, that we want things to be better. We want things to be kinder and ultimately safer. In stressful moments like these, I think it's really, really helpful to remember that it's okay to feel what we feel. It's okay. We're human.

And even more accurately, I'd say it's important to feel what we feel, to give ourselves the space and the time to be with our feelings, to sense into them, to allow them to be expressed, either through journaling or verbally, and to try to soften judgments we may have around these feelings. So not judging them to be right or wrong, good or bad, but rather these natural human emotions that come and go. So if we don't do this, then what we bottle up inside becomes increasingly toxic. And the energy that we react with divides us from others and also divides us from our own spirit.

And so, in terms of mindfully feeling anger, we can ask ourselves: well, how does this anger feel in my belly or my head? How can I express it in a healthy way, either verbally or written? How can I help create real change that I want to see in the world without hatred or bitterness? For sadness? How does a sadness feel around the heart? Can I cry without judging myself? Or without judging the sadness to be right or wrong? For depression, how does this depression feel when I'm curious about its sensations in the body? Am I capable of meeting it without judgment? Am I capable of asking for a little bit of help from others or from myself? So can I feel more capable? Because you are capable. For fear. How does this fear feel inside? Can I allow it to be here just a little bit more without hiding from it? Can I open to it a little bit more within my window of tolerance? And remember that this is a natural human emotion that we all have, and that it's okay.

So for all of these questions, we're gonna be adding links to some trainings on meeting each of these emotions. Most of them are interviews and practices that I've had with Sharon Salzberg, Gabor Mate, and Rick Hansen. So links to those practices can be found below. And for some of us, the challenge may not necessarily be how to feel what we feel, but when to do this.

And so to give you the appropriate space and time to honor your emotions, I'll be offering a live meditation retreat where we'll meditate together and we'll do these practices together in a safe space where we can tend to ourselves. It'll help you to recover, to rest, to regain your sense of balance and resilience. And I'll be offering the best mindfulness meditations I can to support you through these difficult times. Whether you've done a lot of retreats or not, I invite you to join me and a couple of my colleagues, where we'll be doing a lot of these mindfulness practices together. The next retreat is early June, so I encourage you to check that out. But our retreats, we do about one a month now, from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon Pacific time. We'll meet

together on Zoom for restorative meditations, mindfulness talks, QA sessions, where we'll offer personalized guidance for you on this and times to connect with each other as well. We don't need to come to every session. We don't take attendance unless you want a certificate of completion, which we do offer. And every session is recorded for you to watch anytime, anywhere in your members area. To make these retreats more accessible, especially these days, we've lowered the price of these retreats by half. And we're also including these certificates of completion and more than $300 worth of downloadable bonuses for you if you're one of the first people to register. And to support our community even further, for a few days, we're offering 50% off most of our trainings, including the teacher certification program and our brandable curriculum. Coupon code and the link are down below, but that will expire shortly.

But I just wanted to share these practices with you in case it's helpful, in case, you know, we just need a little bit of encouragement to open to these emotions that are unpleasant. You know, of course, we want to feel happy and joyful. The paradox is that to feel those things, we also need to feel what's unpleasant as well, without deeming it to be wrong or bad. But just to feel these natural emotions.

If you have any questions about these practices, if you want to learn more, feel free to text me. You can text me at 510-800-7422. Again, that's 510-800-7422. And I'll reply with some personal guidance and some practices from my own phone. And you can feel free to ask any questions that you may have. So I hope you're doing well. I wish you well. And remember, we're all in this together. So I wish you a great day and looking forward to connecting again soon.

Bye.