Feelings of anger, anxiety, sadness or fear while meditating

It sometimes happens during the first sessions of meditation that you find yourself facing intense emotions, which are sometimes surprising because you didn't know they were there, buried inside you.

What verb should we use to give you advice? 

• Stop meditating? No, quite the opposite!
• Accept these feelings? No, because that would mean agreeing or being at peace with them.
• Recognise them? Yes, if you like you can, without censure, recognise the feelings that you experience during a meditation session.
• Resist and struggle against them? No, as that's likely to lead to more suffering.
• Observe the feelings without resistance? Yes, probably. We advise you first to recognise the manifestations of such emotions in your body and mind, then to allow these waves of emotion to go where they wish. They will gradually reduce as you accompany them like this.
• Release the flood of your emotions? No, you should instead rather let them be. This involves a learning process, to recognise these emotions and give them the space they require.
• Learning? Indeed, as you meditate and become the spectator of your own mental machinery, you learn to see where and how such emotions arise in your body and mind. This is an extremely useful learning process, because later on it may help you recognise instants at which such emotions arise in everyday life. You will then be able to welcome them and also to understand that what appears will ultimately disappear.