TF: How do you know when you’re indulging or wallowing in feelings?
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JW: That question always comes up. Wallowing in feelings is being stuck in
fixation fed by going over and over stories in your mind. Unconditional
presence, on the other hand, is about opening nakedly to a feeling instead of
becoming caught up in stories about the feeling .
TF: Not creating a story around a feeling.
JW: For example, if the feeling is sadness, wallowing might involve fixating on a
story like “poor me,” rather than directly relating to the actual sadness itself,
which may allow it to loosen up.
So delving into feelings might sound like indulgence, but I would say that the
willingness to meet your experience nakedly is a form of fearlessness. Trungpa
Rinpoche taught that fearlessness is the willingness to meet and feel your fear.
We could expand that to say fearlessness is the willingness to meet, face, include,
make room for, welcome, allow, open to, surrender to whatever we’re
experiencing. It’s actually quite brave to acknowledge, feel, and open to your
need for healthy attachment and connectedness, for example, especially if you’re
relationally wounded. Indulgence, on the other hand, means fixating on the need
and being run by it.