Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about, about listening to your emotions, and I'm going to give you a really simple way to do that. Now it's often the case that, especially with difficult emotions, we tend to avoid them, ignore them or struggle with them, but this actually tends to prolong the emotion and make them bigger and harder to be with. So we also, in that avoidance pattern, miss out on valuable feedback from our body and mind about what we're actually needing or what's working for us or not working for us in our lives. So valuable information held in those emotions.

But what, instead, if we honored our feelings and really listened to them? If we do that, then we can grow in self-awareness and we can find out what our emotions may have to teach or show us. For instance, I had a really bad habit in the past of ignoring or pushing through feelings of frustration when I was working at my desk. So in the afternoons, I would suddenly just become really irritable if somebody emailed me some more work or if the phone would ring. I used to just keep ignoring this feeling of frustration and just pushing it away or pushing through it. But when I actually stopped and learned to listen to this emotion, I realized that my body was tired in the afternoons and I needed a break.

In time, I listened to that feeling of frustration, and I learned that I actually needed less work in my life in general. My body was actually not coping with the long hours. So I changed things to suit what was more nourishing for my body and mind. And I became much happier overall in my life. Now, similarly emotions like sadness, anger, loneliness, remorse, they all hold really valuable information for us.

Information that can help us move further away from what's not serving us and further towards wellbeing and happiness. Loneliness, for instance, a simple example can be a call for more connection in your life, and you can go and seek that. Here's my invitation. The next time you're feeling a difficult emotion, try tuning into it and asking yourself one question. If this emotion had a voice, what would it say? And then see if you can just take a moment to really listen to what's coming up for you.

What might this emotion say about what you need, about what matters to you? About, what's not working for you or what is working for you? What does it want you to see or know? This is one of those simple practices that can put us back in touch with ourselves and we've become disconnected. It puts us back in touch with the intelligence and the wisdom of the pulse of life inside us. By honoring our emotions, we become more, self-aware, more able to live our lives with purpose and clarity. So I really encourage you to try this out for yourself today and ongoing. Just remembering to ask yourself if this emotion had a voice, what would it say? Thank you for your practice and for being a person who is trying to live with more awareness and kindness.

It truly is a gift to us all. And inviting you now to settle in for today's meditation.