There is no such thing

as a negative emotion. Emotions are currents of energy that arise through contact with sensory experience. Emotions, like all appearances, are part of life's great river of change. They come in every size, shape, and color. Some are intense, others subtle. Some enduring, others fleeting. Emotions can be heavy, light, hot, cold, explosive, stifling, ecstatic. There might be as many shades of emotion as there are people who feel them.

Emotions themselves know of no hierarchy, no segregation. They don't need to be corrected, reformed or exorcised.

Emotions need to be felt. They need our genuine attention and presence.

All of them.

When emotions are felt, they are completed. Once completed, they self-resolve. Yet, when emotions get labeled as "negative," they get suppressed and trapped in the body. A heaviness ensues; the back-log of unresolved life experience carried in the flesh.

It is our collective habit of dualistic fixation that artificially imposes the labels of "positive" and "negative" onto our emotional experience. All too often, we carve life up into little pieces, set the parts against each other, and invent conflict where none exists. All of this is an act of rejection of life, ourselves, and each other.

And it causes us great suffering.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Each emotion is equally valid and self-liberating. Like clouds in the sky, emotions arise and dissolve of their own accord. We can simply drop the compulsive habit of labeling emotions, and take up the practice of befriending and feeling them. When we do this, something radical happens. We return to our humanity. There is more space inside. We are infused with the energy of emotions without being overcome by them. It's as if a rushing current is moving through us.

Nothing gets stuck.

Each new moment is fresh and rich.