About fifteen years ago, when I was active in co-counseling, I read some advice for what to do when experiencing unpleasant emotions. I'm probably mis-remembering this horribly, but I recall that the advice was to remember that "it is just a feeling". I found this to be profoundly useless advice. To me, the way I felt was my whole experience of life. The value of living, the reason to live, was to experience pleasant feelings. If life were filled with unpleasant feelings, it was just not worth living. And the goal of my life was to fill it with pleasant feelings as much as possible, and to reduce the amount of time I experienced unpleasant feelings.
My point of view has changed. I can't characterize what my new point of view is, but I see that I am less driven to seek the pleasant and avoid the unpleasant. And often I make use of the advice, "remember, it is just a feeling". I remember that unpleasant feelings will pass. I also have skills for letting go of tension and grasping that cause unpleasant feelings to arise and/or persist.
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