Most of us spend a lot of energy avoiding uncomfortable feelings. Why on earth should we welcome them?Well, for one thing, suppressing anger, guilt, envy, fear, shame, grief and other painful feelings doesn’t really work; the more we try to numb them, the more demanding they become, draining our energy and creating tension, stress and dis-ease!Another reason for welcoming feelings is that they convey information that’s helpful to hear and digest.Finally, the strategies we devise for suppressing them—our various addictions to food, drink, exercise, overwork, shopping, TV-watching, internet surfing, or just getting into our heads and losing touch with our body and senses—create additional problems.So how can we welcome our various feeling “guests,” even the unpleasant ones?Psychologist Abby Seixas, who recommends “befriending feelings,” says: “Befriending a feeling means neither indulging nor repressing, nor trying to manipulate it in any way.” Rather she recommends the following step…

The new COVID-19 world is a world beset by fear. Unseen viral particles can be lurking anywhere. Should one find us, we don’t know for sure how we would respond. And with social patterns dramatically altered and the economy collapsing, we are losing our sense of comfort, safety and being in control, leading to a stressful sense of chronic uncertainty and anxiety. We know from many scientific studies that stress negatively affects health. But although there may be little we can do to avoid stress in a COVID-19 world, we can use self-care to decrease and minimize the negative effects of stressful feelings. For example, you can pray or meditate.  Or you can simply bring calm and non-judgmental attention to how you’re feeling.      We’ve talked before about a helpful exercise called Body-Feelings-Mind. In this exercise, you find a comfortable position in a quiet place and, with eyes closed, check in with how you’re feeling, first ph…