Meditation strengthen our steadfastness to be with ourselves. Whatever arises – pain, boredom, sleepiness, wild thoughts or emotions – we learn to stay with it. We come to see that meditation isn’t about attaining some ideal state. It’s about being able to stay with ourselves, no matter what. Even longterm practitioners sometime find themselves trying to use meditation as a way of escaping difficult emotions. But transformation only comes when we remember to move towards, rather than away from, our emotional distress. …In meditation we learn to stay with the non-conceptual energy of the emotion, experience it fully, then leave it as it is, without adding fuel to the fire.

Pema Chodron, Preface to Commit to Sit