Mindfulness is about paying attention to what is happening in the present. Even if an emotion belongs to a situation from the past or the future, its energy is always felt in the present. For example, the emotion may be a sense of fear about the future or a sense of anger at someone who has harmed us in the past. The emotional energy is however, always being felt in the here and now. The fear or anger is part of our experience right now. Often we deal with this emotion by getting into the narrative or the story of the situation. That is rarely helpful. The narrative often only worsens the emotion or maybe shuts it down briefly due to rationalization, however the emotional energy is not dealt with. Mindfulness practices train a person to bring wise and compassionate attention to the emotional energy that is present right now and to learn to stay with it. It also helps a person to deal with the body sensations that are associated with the emotion and therefore helps to deeply process the emotion instead of simply rationalizing it away.