We had to put one of the family dogs down last week so it was a tough week. I felt a lot of sadness that I initially tried to resist. After doing some thought work, I decided I did want to feel sad about the circumstance so I welcomed the emotion. It ebed and flowed, I took breaks when I needed to and cried when I needed to. Letting the sadness be there felt much better than avoiding it and I feel like I’m on a healing journey as I process the grief.

However, as I was welcoming and feeling the sadness, I was also feeling frustration, overwhelm and anxiety about work situations. Because I was all in on feeling sad, I didn’t feel like I had any more space to embrace these other negative emotions. It felt like if I let them all in I would barely be able to function and move about my day. I buffered and resisted. I am realizing now as I write this that I ultimately had a pretty tough week overall, completely unrelated to the sadness, that I’m sure is attributed to not processing these other negative emotions.

Do you have any tips for how I can let in and process multiple negative emotions at once without totally feeling bogged down and overwhelmed?