In our culture, we tend to spend a lot of time and psychic energy trying to avoid discomfort and pain. This in turn gives our negative emotions much more power than they deserve. To reduce the uncomfortable feelings, we do everything we possibly can to avoid them. This avoidance manifests in many ways, one of the most common being anxiety.

However, once we remove qualifiers from emotions, no longer viewing them as “good” or “bad,” we open ourselves up to acceptance and tolerance. The fear is no longer attached to the emotions, and we can learn to accept our feelings and realize that we can work with them, so they can exist without taking over our lives. In doing so, we learn to better accept ourselves for who we are.