"We may secretly believe that if we truly allow ourselves to experience our feelings and desires, our self-indulgence will run rampant, or our aggression and indolence with overwhelm us. In thinking this, we confuse our true nature with the feelings of a deficient and small sense of self. For while emotions are indeed powerful forces, it is not fear and repression that will release us from their grip - awareness is the answer.
We fear the destructive power of emotions when we haven't seen them for what they really are. We confuse allowing ourselves to be aware of them with the necessity to act them out. But to include our full selves in our journey we need to understand how we have been entangled by and identified with our emotions. We need to see the identity of 'the body of fear,' to see how the hurt and frustration of childhood, the forces of anger, greed, pride, sexual longing, and need have been conditioned in us. Experiencing the full range of these feelings as they come and go in our consciousness, we can begin to ask of each the questions, "Is this who I am?" If we can hold our feelings in a spacious and fearless heart, the lonely, broken, spiteful, confused feelings arise in a new way, transformed by our acceptance."