Being with all of your experiences

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AboutKidsHealth - The Hospital for Sick Children

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This video explains why pushing away unwanted thoughts, feelings and sensations can often make a situation worse. Use it when you are finding it hard to focus on the people and things that are important to you, or if you are spending too much energy avoiding your unwanted thoughts or feelings. After the video, take a moment to let all of your thoughts, feelings and sensations be with you, without pushing any of them away.
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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
A full and meaningful life comes with a range of emotions and physical sensations: happiness, excitement, strength, but also fear, disappointment and pain. Like most people, you might prefer to avoid unwanted thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, especially if they are intense or overwhelming. Imagine your unwanted feelings as a beach ball that doesn’t go away. You might try different things to pretend the ball doesn’t exist.
But when you throw it away, it bounces back. And when you move away from it, it follows you. Maybe you try to get rid of this beach ball by pushing it under water. You manage to keep it out of sight, but if you let go, the beach ball shoots right back up to the surface. So, you decide to keep holding the beach ball underwater. It’s a lot of hard work. Think about how much energy it takes to keep the ball down, and what you might be missing without realizing it. What would happen if you let the beach ball just be there? Or maybe even tried sitting with the beach ball for a while? Instead of actively ignoring the ball, or pushing it underwater, what if you chose to direct your energy instead towards activities and people that are important to you, whether the ball is there or not? Allowing unwanted thoughts, feelings or physical sensations to be there doesn’t mean you have to like them. It means that you are choosing to devote your energy towards the people and things that are important to you. Say your friends want to play a game, but you're feeling anxious or have pain in your stomach. Maybe you can’t play the full game with your friends, but you can still keep score or cheer them on! Sometimes it’s fun to just be around your friends, even if you can’t participate.
Some unwanted thoughts, feelings and physical sensations may never fully go away. But you don’t have to devote your energy to suppressing or avoiding them. You can still be involved in activities, even if you need to pace yourself or take breaks now and then. Unwanted experiences are part of life for all of us, no matter who we are. It might take some effort and creativity, but even the smallest steps towards allowing your unwanted emotions and physical sensations to just be there can help you do the things that matter to you and let you live a fuller and more meaningful life.