I recently had the pleasure of chatting with emotion and empathy expert, Karla McLaren, about her new book, The Language of Emotions. In it, she shares a powerful definition of emotion from sociologist Dr. Arlie Hochschild

“Emotion, I suggest, is a biologically given sense, and our most important one. Like other senses - hearing, touch, and smell - it is a means by which we know our relation to the world, and is therefore crucial to the survival of human beings in group life. Emotion is unique among the senses, however, because it is related not only to an orientation toward action, but also to an orientation toward cognition.”

What changes when you think of your emotions as a ‘sense’ rather than as a problem to be fixed? In the same way that we use our eyes, ears and fingers to take in information, we use our emotions to do the same. 

In order to fully access this sense, this tool of cognition, we must learn to soften in the presence of big emotion. For most of us, our innate response is to contract; to pull away from any emotion that feels too big, too loud, painful, messy or ugly - but the wisdom lies in softening. 

In this episode of The Mindful Minute, we talk about 

• Big emotions and the feeling of trying to contain it rather than let it flow
• Emotions and the element of water
• Softening the edges of the body
• Otter dreams and walking through the gift shop with kids ;-) 

At the end, we practice softening the edges with a 20-minute guided meditation. Join me! 

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