Dear Rosa:

Welcome! It’s great to have you here. Your interests in mindfulness, meditation, and self-growth are truly meaningful, and I’m sure you’ll find engaging conversations and connections.

I look forward to chatting and sharing insights—whether right here on this thread or on one you’d like to start. If you’d like to create your own topic, just head to FORUMS, scroll down to ALL FORUMS, choose a category (like Spirituality), and then click “Create New Topic in ‘Spirituality'” to begin.

Wishing you a warm and positive experience here! 💛

anita

Hi Rosa

Lovely to hear from you! I look forward to reading more from you. If something seems interesting, feel free to jump right in. ❤️

Dear Peter:

Since our last exchange, I’ve been deeply immersed in Shadow Work, learning to integrate emotions I repressed for much of my life. It has been an eye-opening process—moving beyond merely understanding my emotions intellectually to fully experiencing them in a way I hadn’t allowed myself before. This shift in awareness has changed how I engage with emotions and healing, and reading your post, I see echoes of my own journey in yours.

While you describe struggling with overanalyzing emotions, your real difficulty may lie in allowing yourself to fully experience and integrate them. Your intellectual approach—examining thoughts, quoting philosophers, dissecting self-improvement—suggests you have spent a great deal of time trying to understand emotions rather than feel them.

Your reflections on fear, resistance, and identity hint at unconscious suppression—as though your mind has kept emotions at arm’s length, turning them into concepts rather than allowing yourself to truly sit with them. Your analogy about holding your breath metaphorically speaks to this tendency: you take in experiences, but struggle with the release—the return—the full cycle of emotional processing.

Your reluctance to own your emotional realizations suggests that accepting your emotions might feel more threatening than analyzing them. If your identity has been linked to being “broken,” as you question, then embracing healing and emotional fluidity might feel like stepping into unfamiliar territory—something your intellectual mind resists.

It seems that your challenge isn’t a lack of emotional awareness, but rather a deep-seated fear of fully embodying and trusting your emotions. And I understand that struggle intimately.

Just this morning, I integrated an emotion I repressed long ago—one I had hints of, an emotion I analyzed, but never truly allowed myself to feel until now. It was my longing—still lingering—to reach my mother, to make her understand that I never meant to hurt her, that I truly had the best intentions for her. For so many years, I intellectually grasped this emotion, but today, I felt it in a way I haven’t for decades. The depth of that feeling, unburied and fully embodied, reminded me of how much energy I’ve spent holding it back rather than allowing it to exist and move through me.

I wonder if something similar might be happening for you—that your emotions are ready to be felt, not just understood. That you’ve done the work, and now, perhaps, the real work is trusting yourself enough to let go of control and fully step into them.

I appreciate the depth of your reflections and the honesty in your words, and I hope my own journey can offer something meaningful in return.

With respect, anita

Hi Everyone

Lovely to see you around again Peter! ❤️

Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking about motivation recently too. I haven’t finished working on it yet. I’m still thinking. I don’t have much time to sit and think about things, so it might take me a while.

What even is a good relationship with emotions? 😂

I really like that quote from W H Auden. The Alan Watts quote had me thinking too.

Quite often when I’m afraid it is not because of the present, but the past. I prefer the present, but shadows of the past keep popping up. It is engraved in me deeply. I would prefer to be free of the past as opposed to the present. Although, I suppose what I have difficulty is when the two converge.

I’m largely motivated by necessity. Most of the decisions in my life have been circumstantial. It makes me wonder what my nature actually is.

Ooh now you’ve got me thinking. Little bit of chicken or the egg going on there with the mind being created by experiences. But I understand what is meant. It is a good point that the mind often creates it’s own problems. Sometimes we just need to get out of our own way.

Sometimes the same words can mean different things to different people.

Not fixing, I would think of as self-acceptance. Quite possibly the pinnacle of self-compassion?

It is interesting that people are similar and yet different.

Dear Tommy:

I, for one, appreciate your reflections on the nature of this forum. While it may not strictly follow Buddhist teachings, I think you captured its essence well—it’s a space where people seek understanding, connection, and emotional support.

I agree that wisdom, as the Buddha would define it, is about guiding people toward growth rather than simply offering sympathy. At the same time, compassion itself has its own power—sometimes, just knowing someone is listening can be enough to help people take their next steps.

It’s always meaningful when discussions encourage reflection and understanding, and I value the perspectives shared here. 💛

Anita

Talking about Budhhism, I want to summarize what I read in Budding Buddhist. com/ Anger in Buddhism:

Buddhism teaches that anger arises from ignorance—our inability to see the true nature of reality. It is considered a cause of suffering, fueling hatred, conflict, and destruction. The Buddha warned that unchecked anger leads to negative karma, manifesting in harmful actions like deceit, aggression, and harsh speech.

How can anger be overcome? The Buddha advised conquering anger with non-anger. Instead of fighting fire with fire, one must counter it with metta (loving-kindness)—a conscious effort to cultivate patience, compassion, and understanding. Over time, practicing mindfulness and redirecting anger toward kindness makes it easier to manage emotions.

Instead of expecting external circumstances to change, Buddhism emphasizes inner transformation—learning to control reactions rather than seeking control over the outside world. When anger escalates between individuals, a vicious cycle of harm is created. The way to break this cycle is through awareness and intentional kindness—replacing anger with compassion and creating space for peace rather than conflict.

My thoughts: the above does not imply that anger is inherently bad or that it should be eliminated—instead, it reflects the Buddhist perspective that anger is a powerful energy that can lead to suffering if left unchecked. Buddhism does not advocate for suppressing or erasing anger but rather for transforming it into something constructive, like patience, wisdom, or compassion.

The focus is on how anger is managed, rather than labeling it as purely negative. The idea of “conquering anger with non-anger” suggests redirecting anger in a way that prevents harm, not denying or rejecting it altogether.

About redirecting anger through thought reframing, examples: (1) Instead of thinking “This person is disrespecting me!”, try “They might be struggling with something I don’t see.” (2) Anger narrows focus, making us react impulsively. Asking “What else could be true here?”—helps replace hostility with curiosity, (3) Anger creates tension in the body. Slowing down, breathing deeply, and observing the emotion without acting on it helps regain control.

Anita