Assigning Meanings To Things

[Ozzy]

I'll quickly describe how I do it and I'd like to ask you for an opinion on whether it's a good way to live.

Whatever happens to me, I assign some positive meaning to it. Stressed? It's great, I can practice mindfulness. Bad training session? Great, I'm putting the work in and next time it will be better. Somebody pisses me off? I quickly notice it and ask: do I want to feel bad? I answer no, smile and move on. Essentialy what I decided to do is to be the master of my emotions.

I could go on and on but what I want to ask you is do you think it's a good long term strategy? Will it lead to delusions? Isn't it healthy to feel mad sometimes?

[Saarah]

@Ozzy maybe first notice the natural feeling that arises, be mindful of it and conduct it enough without allowing yourself to enter a negative spiral or any spiral even of thought, and slowly start letting go and start thinking positive again

that way you're not denying the feeling or being inauthentic to your feelings, at the same time you're allowing yourself to create a more positive reality for yourself  

[Leo Gura]

Mindfulness isn't practiced to REMOVE emotions! That's to misappropriate mindfulness for ego purposes.

The proper use of mindfulness is to be AWARE of emotions.

So the next time you're pissed off, don't try to get rid of it, enjoy it mindfully.

All meanings are ultimately false. You want to get to the point where you are aware of that and don't need any positive meaning at all. That will take practice.

[Corte]

This is exactly what most people do wrong. You are lying to yourself into believing you are the master of your emotions when you will never be through this way. This blocks you from feeling the emotions and letting them flow. This is the ego's way of "mastering your emotions" and yes it will lead you straight into delusion. It's great to find the good in everything, but living this way is against reality.

Mindfulness is about NOT NEEDING to be in control, NOT NEEDING to be a master of your mind. Through this, which is the paradox, you actually feel you are a master and are in the driver seat. You need to accept "bad" feelings and events exactly as they are, REMOVE MEANINGS from them, allow yourself to feel the pain you need to, and then move on. It is logically the exact opposite of what you would think, which is why people get so lost in it. The goal is to not attach yourself to your thoughts/emotions and not see them as YOU. But to experience them in full and let them pass. This will give you the life that you are really after

[99th_monkey]

suppressing a negative emotion is like ignoring an infant thats crying. your assuming way too much and doing more harm then good. Use it as a trigger for a deeper issue with yourself, not the "thing" triggering it, sure, ignore what caused the negative emotion to arise, but dont ignore what arised.