Hi Jesse,

I used to feel a lot of similar emotions, specifically anger, fear, regret and guilt. I would get caught up in my emotions where they would drive me to tears or lash out in a rage, and I end up hurting people especially those closest to me. I felt imprisoned and trapped.

What I’ve learned over the years is that my ego reacts to events based on how I perceive them (usually cause of past conditioning). I judge the event as either negative or positive, and based on my judgement my reaction follows. In other words, when something comes up in my life, my ego creates stories that I believe to be true and react accordingly (e.g. anger, fear, etc.).

For example, I’ll use a really simple scenario:

It’s raining outside – my ego will say something like “the weather sucks, now I can’t go for a walk in the park…there goes my day. Why can’t anything go right for me??” The section in quotes is the story; it’s our judgement of the event. When we believe the story, then we react with anger or whatever. But if we drop the story, then it’s just raining outside. We just accept what is.

Through practicing awareness I was able to witness the thoughts (stories) instead of getting caught up in it.

Hope that helps

Marina