Most of us have developed sophisticated or not so sophisticated ways to avoid pain and discomfort, be they physical or emotional. We may think that we “just can’t bear” to feel what is actually going on with us, so we engage in other activities, ranging from benign (spend a little more time on Facebook) to medium (eat a few extra cookies) to harmful (act out an addiction), to avoid it. In so doing, we miss out on finding out what in us really needs attention, and getting to and potentially healing the root of the surface discomfort. The Working with Challenging Sensations and Emotions Meditation I’ve just uploaded employs some of the approach used in Somatic Experiencing, a modality developed to work with resolving trauma. You do not need to have experienced trauma to benefit from this modality, however. It essentially provides a gradual way of entering discomfort, using positive sensations you feel elsewhere in your body as a place to continue to return to reestablish mindfulness if at any time feeling the difficult sensations or emotions is too intense and causes you to start to lose your thread of mindfulness. I would love to hear how this works for you.