Coaching practices for How to Sit with Feelings

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Sit with Feelings, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’m stuck at one of two extremes with hard feelings
• The instant something painful surfaces
• The second a hard feeling shows up I clamp down on it and shove it away, but it just keeps coming back louder
• The moment a hard feeling rises I clamp down against it and brace, trying to push it away
• The moment a hard feeling rises in me, I instinctively clench away from it or bolt for a distraction

Practices that may help

1. Mindful awareness of suffering
   Hold painful feelings in balanced awareness — neither suppressing them nor being swept away by them.
   Self-Compassion, Made Practical
2. Receive what comes with friendliness
   Welcome whatever emerges from the felt sense without judgment or urgency to fix it.
   Focusing and the Felt Sense, Made Practical
3. RAIN — Allow the experience to be here
   Let the feeling exist as it is for a moment, without pushing it away or feeding it.
   Radical Acceptance, Made Practical
4. Expand into difficult feelings rather than contracting away
   When discomfort arrives, consciously make room for it rather than tightening against it.
   Psychological Flexibility, Made Practical
5. Meeting emotion in open presence
   When a difficult emotion arises during open monitoring, stay in the witnessing position rather than contracting or escaping.
   Open Monitoring Meditation, Made Practical
6. Mindfulness of the current emotion
   Observe the emotion as a wave passing through — without judging it, feeding it, or running from it.
   DBT Emotion Regulation Skills, Made Practical
7. I — Investigate with gentle, curious attention
   Bring kind curiosity to the emotion: Where is it in the body? What does it most need?
   RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice
8. Give yourself permission to feel
   Drop the judgment about whether you should or shouldn’t feel a certain way — the emotion is already there.
   Radical Honesty About Emotions, Made Practical
9. Non-grasping awareness: letting arise and pass
   Watch thoughts, sensations, and emotions arise and dissolve without grabbing or pushing.
   Shikantaza: Just Sitting
10. Validate the emotion as legitimate
    Acknowledge that what they feel makes sense — without needing to agree with their conclusions.
    Holding Space

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