• Close your eyes for a moment and take a few slow, deep, gentle breaths down into your belly. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Feel your belly rise on the inhale and fall on the exhale. Now conjure up an image or a feeling or an aspect of your self that you find particularly difficult, something you find troubling. Sit with this feeling for just a moment. Take your time as you let it come into focus.

• Breathe into it and let your breath wander through it. Again, breathe into it with a slow, gentle, deep breath. Make room for this idea.

• Now use the breath again, inhaling down into your belly and slowly exhaling. Notice your experience. You may feel a calmer relationship to the feeling. That would be great and would indicate a step toward integrating the difficult emotion or memory. But whatever you feel, you have just explored sitting with an emotion.

• If you practice this exercise over and over you will come to find that you are more at peace with yourself and are more able to make the important choices that add to a satisfying life.   — Carole Palmer

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