Stop having the inconvenient emotion.
You’re angry?
Calm down.
You’re anxious?
Take a breath.
You’re overwhelmed?
Ground yourself.
You’re crying?
Regulate.
And those suggestions aren’t necessarily bad.
Breathing can help.
Grounding can help.
Movement can help.
Rest can help.
But there’s an important question hiding underneath all of this:
What are we trying to accomplish?
Are we helping ourselves move through an experience?
Or are we trying to make the experience disappear because we’ve decided we’re not supposed to be having it?
Those are not the same thing.
This month, we’ve been exploring Prāṇāyāma, the fourth limb of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs of Yoga.
And this week especially, I’ve been thinking about the relationship between breath, regulation, and presence.
The breath gives us information.
It changes as our experience changes.
Stress may affect it.
Pain may affect it.
Excitement may affect it.
Fear may affect it.
Anger may affect it.
And sometimes consciously interacting with our breathing can change how we experience a moment.
That’s valuable.
But the goal cannot always be:
Return to calm as quickly as possible.
Because calm isn’t the only acceptable human state.
Sometimes Anger Is Information
Let’s say you’re angry.
Maybe somebody crossed a boundary.
Maybe you witnessed something unjust.
Maybe someone treated you poorly.
Maybe you have asked seventeen fucking times for something to stop happening and it is, inexplicably, still happening.
Your anger may be telling you something.
If your only goal is to make the anger disappear, you may miss the information it carries.
What happened?
What matters to you here?
Was a boundary crossed?
Is something unsafe?
Does something need to change?
Do you need to speak?
Leave?
Ask for help?
Sometimes regulation gives us enough space to decide what to do with anger.
Suppression simply demands that we stop being angry.
There’s a difference.
The Same Is True of Other Emotions
Fear can contain information.
So can grief.
Frustration.
Overwhelm.
Even excitement.
Our emotions aren’t infallible messengers delivering objective truth.
Feeling frightened doesn’t automatically mean we’re unsafe.
Feeling angry doesn’t automatically mean someone else is wrong.
Feeling anxious doesn’t automatically mean catastrophe is coming.
But our feelings are still part of our experience.
They deserve attention.
Presence lets us say:
Something is happening.
Then curiosity lets us ask:
What is this telling me?
And discernment helps us decide:
What do I want to do with that information?
That’s a much richer process than:
Emotion detected. Initiate calming sequence.
We’re humans.
Not fucking smoke alarms.
Regulation Can Create Choice
This is where I think regulation becomes genuinely useful.
Not as a way of becoming unaffected.
As a way of creating more choice inside the experience.
Maybe I’m furious.
If I’m so activated that I can’t decide what I want to do next, perhaps I need something that helps me create a little more room.
Maybe that’s breath.
Maybe movement.
Maybe stepping outside.
Maybe sensory grounding.
Maybe talking to someone.
Maybe being alone.
Maybe waiting before sending the email I’ve just written entirely in capital letters.
Regulation doesn’t necessarily mean:
Now I am calm.
Maybe I’m still angry.
But perhaps now I can choose whether I want to speak.
Perhaps I can decide what boundary I actually need.
Perhaps I can distinguish what happened from what I assumed happened.
Perhaps I can decide that yes, actually, I’m still fucking angry—and I have good reason to be.
The emotion didn’t fail to disappear.
Disappearing wasn’t necessarily the goal.
Presence Isn’t Always Comfortable
This is one reason I push back against the idea that mindfulness is synonymous with peacefulness.
Sometimes being present feels wonderful.
Sometimes presence means noticing sunshine through the window, the weight of a sleeping animal against your leg, or how good the first sip of coffee tastes.
And sometimes presence means:
Oh. I am absolutely at capacity.
That’s still awareness.
Maybe especially important awareness.
Because if I can recognize that I’m at capacity, I have information I didn’t have when I was simply pushing through.
I might not be able to change everything.
But perhaps I can change one thing.
Cancel something.
Ask for help.
Eat.
Rest.
Set a boundary.
Stop adding tasks.
Lower an expectation.
Or acknowledge:
Today is harder than I expected it to be.
None of that requires me to become calm first.
Your Feelings Don’t Need to Become Convenient
I think this distinction matters outside our individual practice, too.
Because sometimes people praise “regulation” when what they actually want is compliance.
They don’t want us regulated.
They want us quiet.
They want the anger expressed more politely.
The grief contained.
The frustration softened.
The boundary delivered gently enough that nobody else has to feel uncomfortable.
And yoga should not become another tool for teaching us how to make our reactions more convenient for everyone around us.
The practice can give us tools for awareness.
It can help us notice what happens inside our bodies.
It can offer practices that sometimes create more room between stimulus and response.
But what we do with that room still belongs to us.
Sometimes we breathe and decide to let something go.
Sometimes we breathe and decide to speak.
Sometimes we breathe and decide:
No. This actually isn’t okay.
All three can come from presence.
So here’s the question I want to leave with you this week:
When you reach for a regulation tool, ask:
What am I asking this tool to do?
Am I creating enough space to hear myself?
Or am I trying to stop feeling something because I’ve decided that feeling is unacceptable?
Maybe the answer changes from day to day.
That’s okay.
This isn’t another thing to get right.
It’s another thing to notice.
Because regulation doesn’t have to mean becoming calm enough to tolerate everything.
Sometimes regulation gives us enough room to recognize what we’re not willing to tolerate anymore.
And that, too, can be part of tending the HeartFire.
Namaste, Witchlings. 🌙