Lauren Rubenstein

The first lines of Visiting Feelings “visited” Dr. Rubenstein while she was in savasana at the end of a yoga class. She was inspired by Rumi’s “Guest House” poem, which suggests that being human is like a guest house; feelings come and go, and we should treat each one like a guest, inviting it in. She was also inspired by having studied iRest / yoga nidra with Richard Miller, PhD. This beautiful guided meditation practice takes Rumi one step further, asking us to experience feelings with all of our senses, using the non-judgmental observation skills that are at the heart of mindfulness. So we invite a feeling in for a “play date,” in children’s terms. As a culture, we tend to label the positive emotions as Good and the negative emotions as Bad. We can be almost phobic about “bad” or negative feelings – “I’m angry, that’s Bad” – although anger is no more or less a set of passing thoughts and sensations than joy. Some children (and adults) are more comfortable feeling angry, but have great difficulty acknowledging sadness. For some, sadness feels more acceptable than anger. In truth, they are all passing feelings, and they are all part of the human experience. Just like the old story about going on a bear hunt, we can’t go over them, can’t go under them – we have to go through our emotions. Learning how to process feelings is a skill every child deserves. Many adults are still working on the ability to experience a feeling, engage with it, explore where it lives in the body – all while knowing it is there for a visit but will not take up permanent residence. Dr. Rubenstein hopes children learn to appreciate that strong feelings can occur and they are just part of their experience, not their whole experience. Just like when we tell our kids their behavior might have been “bad” but they are not bad, we can feel sadness but not be consumed by it. This can help us meet any situation or set of feelings with greater equanimity. Dr. Rubenstein is donating book proceeds to the Go Give Yoga Foundation's work in Haiti, in the hopes that yoga and mindfulness will offer a respite from the chronic stress of extreme poverty. Her work teaching yoga in Haiti was featured in the Huffington Post at www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-schware/yoga-how-we-serve-haitian_b_1930905.html Learn more about Go Give Yoga at: www.gogiveyoga.org and Like GGY on Facebook. Please consider donating.