I'll give you a moment to find yourself a comfortable seat.
And once the eyes are closed,
To just take a moment to become conscious of sounds in your environment.
Both sounds further away and sounds closer by.
And then I'll invite you to just take a moment to drop your awareness into your physical body by noticing simply the areas of the body that are in contact with the ground or whatever it is you're sitting on.
Feel that sense of pressure,
That sense of gravity pulling you down towards the earth,
The contact with the earth with your seat.
And then in a moment,
I will invite you to think of a situation or an experience in your life at the moment that brings about an intense emotion.
It might be something that makes you feel intensely anxious or angry,
Something that makes you feel maybe fearful.
Whatever it is,
Something which in the moment when you're in the grip of the strong feeling,
Makes you feel out of control of your reactions.
And it might be something that is resolved but that you have dealt with recently.
And we're going to go through some steps that you can use when an emotion comes up that is intense and that makes you feel out of control.
So as the first step,
Applying radical acceptance.
See if you can notice any storylines around this should not be or this is not fair.
There is some kind of injustice.
Realize any of these thoughts and take a moment maybe to remind yourself that denial and blame only keep us held in the grip of the intense emotion,
In the grip of the situation.
And then you might find a phrase to help you to accept the situation without criticism.
So you might repeat to yourself,
I cannot change what has already happened.
Or fighting the past only blinds me to my present.
Or maybe the present is the only moment I have control over.
Using one of these or another phrase to yourself and moving towards full acceptance of the situation including accepting your own responsibility in the situation with compassion.
Taking a few moments for that.
As you rest in the details of the situation,
Of this experience,
In a little more radical acceptance we'll move on to step two now of learning to respond to intense emotions.
By moving through the body in a way that helps us to notice where we are tightening up as well as helping us to find a little softening.
Starting with the feet,
Take a moment to scrunch up your toes and find a bit of tension in the feet,
Hold and then quickly let go.
In the calves now,
Engaging your calves,
Tightening as much as you can and then quickly letting go.
Moving up towards the thighs and the buttocks,
Squeezing and clenching,
Hold for a moment and let go.
Next moving to the stomach,
Squeezing your stomach in,
Holding,
Squeeze tighter and let go.
Moving towards the chest,
The shoulders,
Squeezing your shoulders up towards your ears,
Hold for a moment,
Clench and then quickly soften and let go.
Through the arms and all the way towards the hands now,
You might even draw your fists up towards your shoulders as you squeeze the arms,
Squeeze the biceps,
Clench the fists,
Squeeze and let go.
And finally,
The muscles of the neck and the face,
Squeezing all your face,
You've just had something incredibly sour,
Pinching everything together,
Squeeze and then quickly let go.
Feel your whole body now.
Take a moment to notice any areas that are still tight.
Now you might find after having practiced these first two steps that the presence that you've created and the acceptance that you've created have already helped to diffuse this intense emotion without suppressing it.
However,
If you find that the intense emotion still has you in its grip and you're still feeling reactive,
You might move on to step three.
In step three,
We take an acronym,
REST.
Relax,
Evaluate,
Set an intention and take action.
So as you imagine yourself in this situation,
Take a moment and visualize yourself and as you do so,
Take a few deep breaths,
By which I mean inhale slowly to your lower belly and exhale out even slower all the air out.
Two more times.
Inhaling slowly down towards the lower belly,
In towards the area of the kidneys and exhaling out all the way to the very end.
One more time.
Inhale towards the area of the kidneys,
Take a moment,
Receive that breath in a soft belly and then exhale very slowly.
As we move on to the E of evaluate,
Take a moment to acknowledge the facts of the situation that is causing intense emotions.
What is occurring?
Is anyone in real danger?
Is the situation deeply unsafe or do you feel mostly emotionally unsafe?
No need to analyze,
Just recognize the facts of the situation.
The third step,
The S of setting an intention.
Now that you know the facts of what is going on,
Ask yourself,
What do I need right now?
It might be that you need a few more moments to just focus on your breath,
To go for a walk.
There might be a phrase that helps you or something that you need to hear from someone.
You don't have to solve the problem,
You only need a healthy way to cope in the moment with the intense emotion.
Take a moment to drop that question in with yourself,
What do I need right now?
And finally you take that action,
The T of rest.
You've just decided what you need,
So now you calmly,
As calmly as you can,
Take that action.
If you're in this situation right now,
You might choose to take this action,
Otherwise you might visualize yourself for now taking the action so that the neural pathway is already there,
Is already set up for the next time this happens.
With practice,
These steps can become like a habit,
Like a reflex,
Where we don't have to think them through,
But in the moment we know what to do so that we're not overcome by an intense emotion and run by it.
I'll invite you now to let go of any focus on the situation,
Let go of any focus on anything at all,
And just allow your awareness to settle once again on wherever your body is in contact with the ground.
To use that to start to bring you back to the environment that you're in.
You might also start to become a little more aware of sounds in your environment,
Both the sounds closer by as the sounds further away.
And then when you're ready,
If you would like to,
You might choose to gently open the eyes.
