In this session we practice working with difficult emotions and mind states when they arise in meditation.
We work with difficult bodily sensations by bringing awareness to the experience itself and opening to it,
Seeing how sensations come,
Stay for a while and then pass.
We work in the same way with difficult emotions and mind states that can come up in meditation by welcoming the guests,
Allowing ourselves to experience the different elements that make up that emotion or mind state.
Let's say you're sitting in meditation and a memory comes up of say a recent conflict with a friend or partner or colleague at work.
You feel anger come up as you remember the situation,
Thoughts about how unfair it was,
What the other person said and what you said or might have said.
Very easily you can be pulled into a whole story of what you're going to say or do.
You might be filled with anger,
Righteousness,
Judgment and you can be taken far away from the present moment awareness of what's happening in your body,
Your heart and your mind.
So how do we work with difficult emotions like anger,
Sadness,
Grief and mind states like restlessness,
Boredom or frustration?
We simply open as fully as we can to the direct experience and let go of the story or narrative that easily develops in the mind.
We feel the bodily sensations and open to them,
Let them come and go.
Perhaps there's tightness,
Heat or waves of energy.
We let the sensations come and go.
We experience the emotion as it manifests in the body and the mind,
Maybe sadness or anger,
Loneliness or hurt.
Let that experience come and go.
We notice the thoughts that are linked to this emotion.
Perhaps there's a story or a belief about yourself or about someone else or about the situation or about life.
We let the thoughts come and pass without identifying with them.
We let each element be known and experienced in its own right,
Sensations as sensations,
Emotions as emotions,
Thoughts and beliefs as thoughts and beliefs.
This practice can help us break the cycle of stress and suffering that is closely tied to how we're interpreting a situation,
What we're believing about it.
So sit in a comfortable and relaxed way.
Let yourself arrive and settle.
Let your eyes close.
See if you can relax any area of tightness or tension in the body,
Relaxing the muscles of the face.
Just breathing in an easy,
Relaxed way,
Relaxing the jaw,
The tongue.
If there's any tightness or tension in the chest or belly,
You might just breathe into that area,
Just a relaxed,
Full breath.
And open to what's present right now for you in your body,
Your heart and your mind.
Open with kindness and friendliness to your experience as it is right now.
And at any time in meditation,
And particularly if you're dealing with difficulties,
Pain,
Discomfort or difficult emotions,
You can put your hand on your chest or on your stomach.
Just connect with the life that's here.
Bring an attitude of kindness to yourself and to your own experience.
Let your awareness come to your breath,
The in-breath,
The out-breath.
Breathing in.
Just know you're here,
Know you're breathing in.
Breathing out.
Know you're breathing out.
When you notice that the mind has moved into thought,
Plans,
Memories,
Daydreams,
Just gently let your attention come to the breath.
Coming back to the breath.
In-breath,
Out-breath.
If your attention is drawn to a difficult emotion or mind state,
See if you can open as fully as you can to it.
If you're feeling restless,
Bring your awareness to how restlessness feels in the body.
Stay with the experience.
Notice any narrative that may come up in the mind.
I really can't sit still or how long till this is done.
And observe the thought and let it come and go.
If a difficult emotion like anger comes up,
Say from a memory of something that happened,
Allow yourself to experience it fully without judgment or resistance.
You can bring your awareness into your body.
What am I feeling?
You might feel tightness,
Tension in the belly or the chest or throat.
Maybe there's shortness of breath.
Perhaps there's heat in the face or tightening of the muscles in your belly.
Allow yourself to experience these sensations.
Notice if they change.
If they move.
Do they get stronger or weaker?
Be interested,
Be curious about this emotion as it manifests in your body.
And it may be that just by bringing awareness to the anger,
Something shifts and you're not so caught up in it or pulled along by it.
How does the anger feel as an emotion?
The bodily sensations and the thoughts that come up in the mind.
If you really open to this emotion,
Does anything else come up?
Perhaps under the anger might be sadness or hurt.
If you can open to whatever is present,
Just welcoming the guests.
And notice what comes up in your mind.
Very likely there'll be a story or a narrative,
Perhaps about you being right and someone else being wrong.
Or about what you're going to do to give the other person a piece of your mind.
Or maybe how you yourself have done something bad or wrong.
When these thoughts arise,
Just note them,
Thinking,
Without following them or letting one build into another.
You might notice how the thoughts can trigger strong emotions and difficult bodily sensations and how these in turn can trigger more negative thoughts.
What meditation can help us do is to break the cycle where thoughts trigger difficult sensations and painful emotions and these in turn trigger more negative thinking.
A lot of stress and suffering is caught up in this cycle.
So opening as fully as you can to your experience just as it is.
Not the story about it or the story about what happened or what might happen.
Just the direct experience.
How does this emotion feel?
How does this mind state feel?
And if you experience an emotion that is too hard to stay with,
That feels overwhelming or too much,
You might see if you can find somewhere in your body that feels relaxed.
Perhaps awareness of your seat or your feet.
Or some pleasant memory that can help you come back into balance.
Not as a way of escaping or avoiding the difficult emotion or mind state,
But as a temporary refuge so that you can find some balance and ease.
And then when you're ready,
Gently go back to the difficult emotion or mind state.
So we work with these difficult emotions and mind states by welcoming them,
By recognizing what's present and allowing them to be as they are,
To come,
To stay for a while and to pass.
