How Mindfulness Helps Me Difficult Emotions

(Disclaimer: I’m not a therapist, and this isn’t meant as professional advice. These are simply lessons I’ve learned from studying Buddhism and my own mindfulness practice. Think of this as more of a journal entry rather than an instruction manual.)

Some days, emotions feel like waves. Other days, they feel like storms.

I’ve spent a long time trying to figure out what to do with difficult emotions.

There were times when I tried to push them away, convincing myself that feeling them too deeply meant I was failing somehow.

And there were times when I let them take over, mistaking them for absolute truth, or feeling like that would never pass.

Neither way works.

But there’s a third option—one that I’ve come to understand through mindfulness: You don’t have to fight emotions, and you don’t have to drown in them. You can simply notice.

The Struggle with Difficult Emotions

It’s strange how emotions show up uninvited.

One moment, I’m fine. The next, anger tightens my chest or anxiety makes my thoughts race.

I used to believe I had two choices:

Suppress it. Tell myself to “get over it.” Push it down and act like it’s not there.

Let it consume me. Get caught up in the emotion’s story—why I feel this way, who’s to blame, what it all means.

But emotions don’t work like that. Suppressing them doesn’t make them disappear; it just buries them. And indulging them only keeps me stuck.

Mindfulness offers a middle way:

Observe emotions without getting lost in them.
Let them be without needing to fix or change them.
Create space between feeling and reaction.

Mindfulness in Action: Learning to Sit with Emotions

I remember a time when I felt deeply unsettled—like something was wrong, but I couldn’t name it. My instinct was to figure it out immediately—to dig into my thoughts, attach a meaning to it, and do something to fix it.

But instead, I did something different.

I paused.
I took one deep breath.

And I remembered a talk between Duncan Trussell and one of his Buddhist teachers where they suggested separating the narrative from the feeling:

“What happens if I separate the physical sensation from the story my mind is creating about it?”

That moment changed everything.

Instead of rushing to a conclusion, I simply noticed:

The tightness in my chest. The swirling of thoughts in my head.The urge to react, to label, to make sense of it.

But for once, I didn’t.
I just sat with it.
And after a while, the feeling shifted on its own.

“But What If My Emotions Are Overwhelming?”

I used to think that sitting with emotions would make them stronger.

That if I let myself feel sadness, it would swallow me whole. That if I allowed anger, it would control me.

But I’ve learned that emotions, left alone, rise, peak, and pass—just like waves.

Jack Kornfield puts it this way:

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“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own.”

Letting go isn’t about erasing emotions. It’s about giving them room to exist without letting them run the show.

A Small Practice for Difficult Moments

Next time you feel overwhelmed by an emotion, try this:

Pause. Take one breath.Name it. “This is anger.” “This is anxiety.”Notice where you feel it in your body. Is it in your chest? Your stomach? Your throat?Separate the sensation from the story. Ask: What happens if I let this feeling exist without attaching a meaning to it?

You might notice that the emotion shifts—that it’s not as solid as it first seemed.

Or maybe it stays, but without the same grip over you.

Either way, that’s mindfulness at work.