Happy Friday!
And welcome to today’s edition of “Conscious Living with Purnima”. Today, I have a special guest on this edition, Dr Gargi Sandilya, PhD in Psychology, Life Coach, Heal your Life workshop leader, Dance Movement therapy facilitator & a Yoga teacher. She will be sharing 3 things that we can do to deal with the difficult emotions arising during midlife. Although she speaks specifically to women, I think the tips apply for all genders.
I will also share with you some of my own personal practices that I am consciously leaning into in this phase of life.
I will be happy if you reacted to this post with a like or left a comment if you found the content useful.
Midlife can be a time when we look back at our life and start to see some of the mistakes that we made. We might ask ourselves, what were we thinking? or why we didn’t do something differently. And if we don’t have someone to open up to about our really personal journeys or are not ready to see a therapist, then we may end up dealing with a lot of inner emotional turmoil.
To answer this very important question of dealing with our difficult emotions on our own, I reached out to Dr Gargi. Here is her expert opinion on the subject:
If you have been following my newsletter, then you know that I talk about these practices of self-compassion & mindfulness a lot in my posts.
In addition to what Dr. Gargi has highlighted, here are some additional practices that I have been personally leaning into:
A. Allowing myself to make mistakes:
Since freedom is a very important value for me, I have realized that giving myself the permission to go wrong (albeit not intentionally) is necessary. I am learning to stop the overthinking & allow myself to be, moment by moment, just as I am.
B. Honoring every part of me:
I am learning to honor every aspect of me: the part that seeks validation, the part that feels insecure, the part that wants to be valued, the part that is overly conscientious etc. All of these aspects make me “Me”.
I am challenging the belief that these parts (not so flashy looking on the surface) need to be hidden & kept under covers. It’s perfectly normal, in fact it is human, to feel a great variety of emotions & personality attributes, that are constantly evolving & shaping us every moment of every day.
C. Coming home to myself:
In a world that’s getting increasingly noisy, I find creating a safe haven within me to return to extremely useful. Anytime I am feeling triggered by outside circumstances (situations or people), I ask myself what’s most important to me. The answer to that question enables me to let go of what doesn’t serve & is taking too much of my mental energy.
And finally,
D. Trusting myself & my life:
I am learning to trust myself & my life. Trust that my life is shaping the way it is meant to. I am learning to bit by bit relinquish control, if I may use that phrase. I would be lying if I said this is easy. It’s not. There is a lot of suffering inherent in letting go of control, but I know in my heart that there is freedom on the other side of suffering. And to evolve and truly experience inner growth this suffering needs to be embraced.
Do you have a personal practice that helps you deal with difficult emotions? Do you struggle putting into practice the most obvious of things when a strong emotion takes over you? If you feel brave then do share your experiences in the comments so those reading it can learn something from your journey.