Get to Know Your Monsters: A Playful Mindfulness Practice to Work With Difficult Emotions

Playfulness isn’t only for children. Incorporating some lightness in our mindfulness practice can help us address difficulty. Wendy O’Leary shows us how with this visualization exercise that inspired her new children’s book.

I can see it clearly, a big gray blob cartoon monster pulling a chain with a heavy block of cement attached at the end. This is my self-doubt monster. The cement block is made of stories about why I am not good enough, should not even try to do something, or maybe should just hide under the covers completely. These days, the monster is much smaller than in days gone by and not pulling along quite so much weight. Still, it is there, thudding around and making a trip across my mind like a parade every now and again.

Yes, I wrote a children’s book, The Monster Parade, using this analogy. In fact, I often use it myself, which is where the idea came from in the first place. Seeing my emotions as monster-like creatures that are passing by in a parade has been a powerful and incredibly helpful practice.

First, this practice supports us in seeing that our emotions are not personal. I am not my emotions, and you are not yours. Emotions arise based on a wide range of situations and conditions in our lives. Yet we often act as if our total existence is that emotion. Our lives contract around our emotions and we give them the power to pull us along. As we practice visualizing emotions in a parade, the reminder is that they are also not permanent. Emotions not only come, they also go. They are not permanent or solid or stable. They are just passing by. Yet, if we try to ignore them, they clamor for our attention in a variety of ways. After all, it is a parade, and they want to be seen! If we get pulled into the parade with them, we no longer have the full view and can get swept up and away. 

By using this analogy, I can also keep my relationship with my emotions as one of interest and even a little light and playful. When anger passes by, just a quick glimpse of my monster can disarm its intensity and sometimes even bring a smile to my face. We can use this idea to get up close to our feelings and be interested in what they have to say and how they feel. When they are intense, we can back away a bit and take a seat further up in the grandstand. Sometimes emotions stay a while, putting on a show in front of the audience. They just want to be sure we are paying attention and may even have some things to show us. In paying kind attention to our monsters, we begin to cultivate acceptance and a deeper understanding of our inner world. 

Intellectually I have understood these ideas for quite some time, and perhaps you do as well. However, working with my emotions in this way has helped me to see, feel, and experience these understandings more directly. Try it out for yourself:

Get to Know Your Monster

Let this entire practice be playful and light and stay interested and receptive as you get to know your monsters. I wish you well with your parade, from my monsters to yours.