Why feelings of joy and gratitude can co-exist with pain and anxiety – and how to get better at experiencing them

illustration of a woman with two faces, one happy one sad
You possibly can really feel completely satisfied and unhappy about the identical factor (Image: Getty Photos/iStockphoto)

Having conflicting feelings will be overwhelming and complicated.

How can anger and pleasure, for instance, exist in the identical area?

It’s a typical expertise although, to juggle two units – if no more – of emotion directly.

Whereas it would really feel like your mind is messy, it’s a really ‘regular’ factor to expertise – and it could inform us extra in regards to the nuances and complexities of our lives.

Hardly ever, issues are again and white.

Dora Kamau, a mindfulness meditation trainer for the Headspace app, is eager to unfold this message and assist individuals discover better ease in conflicting feelings.

Talking to Metro.co.uk, Dora says: ‘Typically talking, most feelings final for 90 seconds – they arrive in waves and are transient.

‘One second we could also be experiencing one thing painful and the following second, we could also be laughing and experiencing a way of pleasure.

‘How we are able to recognise pleasure is by permitting these emotions to return and go.’

So learn how to you permit them to try this?

She solutions: ‘Giving ourselves full permission to really feel how it's we’re feeling within the second, with out attaching a narrative or figuring out with what we’re feeling.

‘What makes feelings final lengthy is rumination, our fixation and overthinking spent on what we’re experiencing within the second.’

woman meditating
Begin a meditation follow to permit feelings to go (Image: Getty Photos/Westend61)

Creating area for constructive and unfavourable emotions

The thoughts has a pure bias in the direction of unfavourable feelings, so we’re capable of spot and determine states of ache, anger or grief a lot simpler than we are able to pleasure and happiness.

‘That is the place mindfulness will be highly effective by shining a lightweight on how we’re feeling and serving to us to recognise pleasure amidst the anger,’ Dora provides.

Slightly than view a unfavourable emotion as ‘unhealthy’, mindfulness teaches us to permit the emotion in and observe or really feel it with out judgement.

After we assign labels comparable to ‘good’ or ‘unhealthy’, we are able to change into caught.

It’s a lot simpler to embrace moments of gratitude – whereas additionally feeling sad about a facet of our lives – after we can step into acceptance, based on Dora.

‘After we permit ourselves one thing, we’re giving ourselves permission and we’re opening ourselves as much as chance,’ she says.

‘In the case of permitting ourselves to expertise happiness whereas in a state of upset, we’re giving ourselves the permission to really feel what we’re feeling and honouring what we’re feeling as properly.

‘After we restrict our emotional expression, this could create extra resistance and stress within the thoughts and physique, which might really lengthen that state of upset.

‘Whatever the feelings, it’s vital that we permit ourselves to really feel and course of our feelings.’

We'd really feel anxious a few state of affairs, for instance, but in addition discover pleasure in points of it.

The pleasure doesn’t discredit the adversity you’re experiencing, however the nervousness doesn’t imply you aren’t allowed to really feel moments of pleasure.

Dora says: ‘It’s okay to let in these emotions which will really feel contradictory, however may also help us transfer by way of heavier and denser feelings.

As human beings experiencing many blended feelings directly is sort of regular.’


Ideas for permitting conflicting feelings to co-exist:

  • Set up a routine of and switching off out of your cellphone. Decide the identical time or similar place if you meditate. You possibly can even e-book time in your calendar so that folks can’t schedule something over this devoted interval. Begin with two to 3 instances per week, for 5 minutes every time and you may all the time construct on this.
  • Mindfully round your home, backyard, or your native space can stop the thoughts from being distracted from nerve-racking ideas by permitting you to give attention to the rhythm of the gait, similar to a sitting meditation can allow you to give attention to the breath. 

  • may permit us to really feel happiness whereas additionally feeling disappointment. Reminding ourselves that we're worthy and deserving of feeling pleasure even whereas upset.
  • If you end up experiencing moments of pleasure whereas additionally , attempt holding each experiences as an alternative of selecting one or the opposite. You possibly can validate what you’re experiencing by putting a hand in your coronary heart, taking just a few deep breaths and reminding your self that it’s okay to really feel what you’re feeling.

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