Master Your Emotions To Heal & Live An Awakened Life

In this first class, participants are introduced to the idea that emotion is information - how each core emotion carries information and has its own 'action tendency'. The impact of our early life experiences, family influence, and social and cultural conditioning on how we relate to our own emotions is discussed. Participants are invited to reflect on their relationship to their emotions, while I list examples of myths and beliefs about emotion (e.g. belief that tears are weakness: "If I tell other people how I really feel, they will think I’m weak or ‘too sensitive’"). All reactions are normalized as beliefs, and experiences are noticed with curiosity and care. Students are invited to journal about their experiences, and as 'homework', to pay attention to reflect on any memories around emotional expression in their family, what direct or indirect messages they received, and to notice how they relate to their feelings over the next few days before next class - without any judgment, just notice like an experimenter observing a subject without any investment in the outcome. Finally, students are invited to also write their intention for their self - what do they envision for themselves - or said another way - their intention.

Mindfulness is defined and presented as a skillful approach to relating to our emotions. A short teaching on how mindfulness of our emotions allows us to expand our "window of tolerance" is presented, along with illustrating how mindfully being with our emotions can help us build a confidence and trust in ourselves that when we can learn to be with the unpleasant emotions, as well as the more pleasant ones, we realize we can be with all that life brings us. A brief guided mindfulness of breath meditation is included to invite students to practice for themselves how the breath can serve as a useful anchor, building the foundational skills for when stronger emotions arise.

In this class you'll learn how to recognize your emotions and how to cultivate a relaxed attention to your experience of emotions. Discussion includes acknowledging that being with our emotions is not always easy, as past experiences being dismissed or judged can leave us to suppress or avoid our emotions entirely. It is natural to resist and try to avoid what feels unpleasant. However, this leaves us susceptible to suffering and reactivity. Our emotions don't disappear and when not felt fully but suppressed, they can leak out in reactive and less helpful ways - leading us to confusion and feeling less aware of ourselves and less connected authentically with others. This class includes an exercise to help identify what a relaxed attention is, as well as a brief focusing practice to begin to sit with and investigate your emotions with curiosity, acceptance, and skill.

In this class you will be introduced to the different types of emotions: core emotion (healthy and unhealthy), secondary emotion, and instrumental emotion. The benefits of being able to identify which type of emotion you're experiencing helps you decide what emotion to listen to (i.e. the core emotion carries messages about what you need and what action you might take), and which ones to distill through (i.e. secondary emotions cover over core emotion and instrumental emotion is a way of manipulating the expression of emotion in order to get one's needs met). Questions for self-reflection are provided to help you begin to identify for yourself which type of emotion you might be feeling.

In this fifth class, you'll learn that humans have three basic needs: to feel safe and protected, loved and connected, and acknowledged (seen, valued, and a sense of agency). Our emotions are connected to our needs. If our needs are met we feel a sense of calm, connection, and peace. If they're not met, we can experience emotions that may be unpleasant or even painful. The first step in recognizing and acknowledging our own needs is discussed in this session, along with a brief reflection and guided meditation practice to begin the healing work of bridging our needs with our emotions.

In this sixth class we follow up from our fifth class when we learned how our needs are connected to our emotions by recognizing that the first place to start is to ensure we believe we are worthy of our needs being met. We practice affirmations to help create this healthy belief, in case it's needed. We then move on to acknowledge the pain of unmet needs and strong emotions that can feel like they knock us over or take over us completely. Five helpful strategies to help work with and respond to our intense emotions are presented, such as recognizing we are not our emotions, practicing mindfulness and grounding in presence using our senses, titrating when our nervous system is overwhelmed, taking refuge in something greater, and inviting our inner protector to allow us to feel our feelings at a steady and tolerable pace which, over time, helps build our window of tolerance and trust in our self to be with all that life brings our way.

In this class we explore a part of life that touches us all: grief and loss. Dr. Close points to some of the common challenges in people's struggles with coping with grief and loss, including historical cultural norms that associate stoicism and avoiding vulnerable emotions as being "strong", leaving a strained and sometimes shame-inducing relationship with feelings like sadness, grief, and sorrow and the tears that come with them as "weak". She shares the story of a past client she worked with who suffered for years because of common well-intentioned comments she received at 12 years old when her mother passed away. Dr. Close suggests that these common cultural beliefs translate to a general lack of skill in how we hold our own hearts and others' when they suffer loss. Dr. Close proposes a new and healthier way to hold one's pain from grief and loss. The power of acknowledgment of our emotions is the gateway to healing and releasing our grief, so that we can carry on. She invites students to cultivate presence and self-compassion with their experiences of recent or old griefs in a short guided meditation. Recognizing that "all grief is valid" is offered as a new compass to guide you through the storms of the heart as you learn to carry your grief with grace and compassion.

In this eighth class, we explore what forgiveness is, what it isn't, and how to begin to practice it. Examining the challenges of experiencing true forgiveness, we acknowledge that in order to truly forgive and let go, you must go through the pain and heartbreak. Despite pressure or desire to "let go" and to "forgive and forget", forgiveness requires touching into the injury of what one is asking to forgive: anger, hurt, grief, sadness, and helplessness. Our capacity to forgive others is correlated with our ability and willingness to have compassion and forgiveness for ourselves. Forgiveness is a gift to ourselves, to our healing, and to our spiritual awakening. We end this class with a short guided meditation that invites an opportunity to ask another for forgiveness, to forgive ourselves, and offer forgiveness to another. Participants are permitted to work where they are at and experiment with words that fit for them, knowing that forgiveness is an intention and a practice, not an obligation.

In this class we explore the core emotion of joy, and the bridge to get us there when it's difficult: gratitude. We explore how joy is naturally felt and expressed in childhood, but life experiences and reactions by others can lead us to cut off and shift into self-protection mode, which can include blocking our connection to feeling joy. We practice a short reflection and guided meditation to begin to open our hearts to cultivate access to joy. We then explore how gratitude can be a bridge to accessing joy. Dispelling misunderstandings around gratitude and how, for many people, gratitude is used as a method of coping or denying and invalidating one's emotion, we explore how to practice true gratitude and that doing so can open the heart and connect us with joy and happiness as we perceive the abundance of love and flow more easily with the rythms of life.

In this final class, after summarizing the learnings from the course, we dive into exploring how bringing the knowledge about emotions and a mindful and compassionate attention to others' reactions in our interactions in relationships can awaken a deeper connection for intimacy and connection. Through the illustration of an example from a couple Dr. Close has worked with, we see how getting beyond the frontline secondary emotions and their expression to our underlying core emotions and needs can pave the way to transform a dialogue in a relationship while deepening understanding and cultivating (re)connection. The class ends with specific steps and a guided meditation to practice bringing mindfulness and compassion to common challenges in relationship and help transform the dance of disconnection and awaken the self-protective parts within that maintain separation.