Negative emotions are extremely difficult for me. I’m a very glass-half-full type of girl, and whenever I come across anger, shame or deep sadness (my own or someone else’s), I can feel my body tighten and my mind race into panic mode. Being in pain, or seeing other people in pain, is one of the hardest things for me to witness, even with years of meditation and self-soothing practices.

While I may be more sensitive than a lot of people (thanks to PsychCentral’s ample literature on Emotionally Sensitive individuals, I’m quite certain that’s exactly who I am), no one with a working heart likes to see or feel the raw, aching sensation of shame or the rough, cutting sting of grief. Get this outta my face! We think, our first reaction to push it as far away as possible from our consciousness. But actually, pushing negative emotions away is one of the worst things we can do for our healing process.

Our most popular blogs from the last few days take a long, hard look at the less-than-exquisite emotional weather we all must face at some point in our lives, and offer coping strategies to sail through them to calmer waters.

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