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Today I speak with Tara Brock.

Tara is an author, clinical psychologist, and the founder and senior teacher of the Insight

Meditation Community of Washington.

She's the author of the Sounds True Audio Learning Program, Radical Acceptance, a Buddhist

guide to freeing yourself from shame, as well as meditations for emotional healing.

Today I talk with Tara about radical acceptance in the face of difficult emotions.

Hi Tara, welcome.

Hi.

Sounds True publishes lots of different programs on working with emotions.

And one of the things I've noticed is that sometimes some of the authors talk about something that they call negative emotions.

And, you know, I'm always like, well, negative emotions, you know, anger, fear, even sometimes,

you know, sorrow, being lost in sorrow or depression, these can be, quote, unquote,

negative. So I'm curious if you have a view, do you think any of the emotions are, quote,

unquote, negative?

I don't use the word negative.

And the reason is every emotion feels like it has intelligence and that our nervous systems were designed to have them for a reason.

And that when they cause suffering rather than being negative, it's just when our whole sense of

being has gotten identified with them. So it's not that it's bad. Like it's not something bad

happening as much as we've lost sight of who we are and our sense of self is now identified

with, I have to have that or that I hate, you know, and there's

a kind of contracting and a losing sight of something. So in that way, they can cause harm,

...