Hello and welcome to today's meditation on accepting and feeling your emotions.
Feeling your emotions is important in concepts like the mind-body TMS and chronic pain.
Being able to feel and accept your emotions as they are is key to letting go of resistance and accepting how things are with grace and ease,
Which in turn leads to releasing tension,
Pain and sensations in the body.
Go ahead and take a comfortable seat of your choice.
Feel your sit bones connected to your chair or mat.
Begin to notice your breath.
Notice without changing,
Is it fast and shallow or deep and slow?
Maybe in this moment we are feeling overwhelmed or stressed and that is reflected in our breath.
So just notice without judgment or without trying to change anything how your breath feels.
Notice where in your body your breath moves to.
Do you feel it through your nose and throat,
Into the chest,
Abdomen or belly?
Do you notice if you've been breathing through your nose or your mouth or exhaling through your nose or mouth?
Again,
Without judgment,
Just noticing.
Now we'll turn our attention to the sounds in our environment.
Notice without judgment any sounds that are coming up.
They may be pleasant,
Enjoyable sounds like nature around you,
Birds or maybe your brain labeling them as unpleasant like sounds of your family,
Your spouse or partner,
Sounds from machines.
And rather than judging these as positive or negative,
Just let them be sounds.
Let go of the labels of good and bad and just be with the sound,
Letting it come and go.
Knowing that these sounds are normal,
They're safe to you and they're not there to hurt you.
Bring your awareness back to your breath.
Now we'll begin to breathe with more intention as we begin to slow down the breath and deepen it.
Breathe in deep into the belly,
Through the nose and exhale slowly through the nose if that's available for you.
Let's take four deep and slow breaths together,
Breathing in and out.
In and out.
In and out.
Letting go of any patterns of breathing now,
Just come to a natural calming breath that's pleasant for you and if at any point during this meditation things become challenging or tough,
Simply come back to your breath if your breath is a comfortable sensation for you.
For others,
A calming sensation might be the sound,
The smell in the air or visualizing something pleasant or briefly opening your eyes,
Having a soft gaze.
Good.
Now we'll begin to focus on the mind.
Notice your mental state before coming to this meditation.
Are you feeling overwhelmed?
Stressed?
Calm?
Relaxed?
Without judgment just notice how you're feeling before coming to this meditation.
In accepting and feeling our emotions,
We're not looking to judge and label as good or bad simply to say,
I was feeling angry and that's perfectly normal because I am human or I was feeling really upset and that too is okay.
It's normal,
I'm a human being and I am not broken.
Take a few breaths.
Exhale release and let go tension in the body.
Get in touch with how you're feeling right now.
Right in this moment it might help to bring a hand to your chest center at the heart.
See if anything's coming up for you.
And again when you do feel something,
The steps are to note it and say to yourself,
I am feeling and that's okay.
I am normal,
I'm a human being,
I'm not broken or flawed.
Give yourself a nice hug with your breath,
Deep inhale,
Slow exhale because it's okay to feel however you're feeling.
We don't have to hide those emotions or get rid of them simply by noticing what you're feeling and reminding yourself that those emotions are what it is to be human.
You are not flawed for feeling how you feel.
Whether it's happiness,
Sadness,
Anger,
Agitation,
Notice and say to yourself,
I am feeling and that's okay.
I am normal,
I'm a human being and I am not broken or flawed in any way.
And then give yourself loving kindness with a gentle inhale and exhale.
Now we'll end the practice by focusing back on our breath with the mantra of loving kindness.
Breathing in,
Loving,
Exhale say to yourself kindness,
Loving,
Kindness or just bring your hands to your heart center again and breathe in love and exhale love.
Love for yourself,
For the emotions you experience because they're what makes you yourself and beautiful in your own way.
And at any point after this meditation when you're feeling any agitations,
Any emotions you can always tell yourself how you're feeling and that that's perfectly fine.
It's okay.
You're human and you're not broken in any way for feeling the way that you feel.
You're not alone in this.
Take one more breath in together deep into the belly.
Exhale and thank you for joining me in this meditation on feeling and accepting those emotions you're feeling.
