Overwhelming emotions

Although you can’t necessarily identify your story, you may be painfully aware of how powerful emotions like anger, fear, longing, grief, jealousy, and desire cloud your mind, torment your heart, and cause you to act in ways you later regret. Initially, meditation won’t get rid of these emotions, but it will teach you how to focus and calm your mind and prevent them from distracting you. If you want, you can then use meditation to help you observe these emotions as they arise without avoiding or suppressing them. Over time, you can develop penetrating insight into the nature of these emotions and their connection to the underlying stories that keep generating them —and ultimately you can investigate these stories and even dismantle them entirely.