Hello my friends,
And welcome to today's meditation,
Where we will be exploring your emotional edges.
Let's start by finding a comfortable position.
You can sit or lie down,
Whatever feels right for your body right now.
Let your hands rest somewhere easy.
And if you're comfortable closing your eyes,
Go ahead and do that.
Take a deep breath in,
And let it go.
Take another one,
Deeper this time.
And let your body get a little heavier.
You don't have to do anything right now.
You don't have to figure anything out.
You just get to be here.
If you're here,
You're probably someone who feels things.
Maybe deeply.
Maybe more than you've always known what to do with.
And maybe at some point,
That became something you learned to manage.
To monitor.
To keep at a careful distance so it didn't spill over.
So you didn't become too much.
This meditation is an invitation to put that down for a little while.
Not to fix anything.
Not to process or resolve.
Just to get a little closer to what's actually there.
Bring your attention to your body,
Starting with your feet.
Just notice them,
The weight of them,
Whether they're warm or cool.
Let your awareness travel slowly up your legs,
Your calves,
Your knees,
Your thighs.
Not looking for anything in particular.
Just checking in.
Follow that awareness up through your hips,
Your lower belly.
Just notice.
Let your awareness move into your lower back,
And up into your chest,
Into your heart space,
And moving up to your shoulders,
Your throat,
The hinge of your jaw.
Let it soften if it wants to.
Now I want you to think about an emotion that has felt big lately.
It doesn't have to be dramatic.
It might be something quiet that keeps showing up.
A low hum of sadness.
A tightness in your chest when a specific thought comes through.
Or maybe it's a sudden wave of something you couldn't quite name.
You don't have to identify it perfectly.
You don't have to label it.
Just let it come to mind.
And now,
Instead of thinking about it,
I want you to try and find it in your body.
Where do you actually feel it?
Is it your chest?
Your stomach?
Your throat?
Get a little closer to it.
Not to analyze it,
Just to feel where it lives.
Here is something worth noting about emotions.
They are not as dangerous as we were taught they were.
The feeling itself,
The raw sensation in your body,
Usually lasts about 90 seconds.
What keeps emotions alive and overwhelming is the story we tell ourselves about them.
The worry that if we feel it,
We won't be able to stop.
That if we let it through,
It'll be too much.
That we will be too much.
But that story is not the emotion.
That story is the thing we learned to put on top of it.
So right now,
I want to invite you to just stay with the sensation.
Not the story,
Just the physical feeling in your body.
You're not trying to change or adapt this.
You're just trying to get to know it.
Like you would a person you've been maybe a little afraid to talk to.
Now,
I want you to imagine something.
Imagine yourself as a kid.
Whatever age feels right.
Maybe you're 5,
Maybe 7,
Maybe you're 10.
Whatever feels true.
Think about that kid that felt things.
Without the filter.
Without the managing.
Before all of the editing started.
Can you remember a specific moment when you felt something fully and it was okay?
When your excitement was just excitement?
When your sadness was just sadness and there was nobody there to shrink it?
And it moved through you?
That child version of you knew how to do this.
They hadn't learned yet that feelings were a problem.
Come back now to the feeling you found earlier.
It's still there.
Or some version of it is.
And this time,
Instead of staying at the edge of it,
I want you to take one small step closer.
Notice what happens.
Does the feeling get bigger?
Does it shift?
Does it stay the same?
Whatever is here,
It's allowed to be here.
You're not going to drown in it.
You're just visiting.
Take a deep breath into wherever the feeling lives.
Let the breath make a little space around it.
Not to push it away,
Just to give it room.
And on the exhale,
You don't have to let it go.
You can just breathe and let it be.
Feelings are information.
They are not character flaws.
The size of what you feel is not evidence that something is wrong with you.
It's evidence that you are paying attention,
That you are alive in your own life.
The goal was never to feel less.
The goal is to feel without being afraid of what it means.
And that takes practice.
It takes coming back again and again to the body,
To the sensation before the story,
To the 90 seconds of something real.
And you're practicing that right now.
Let's bring your awareness back to the room,
Back to the weight of your body,
Wherever you're resting.
Wiggle your fingers and your toes.
Let a little movement back into your body.
And take one more full breath in.
And let it go slowly.
When you're ready,
Gently open your eyes.
Whatever came up for you in there,
You don't have to do anything with it.
You don't have to fix it or understand it or share it with anyone.
You just sat with yourself for a few minutes and let something be there without running from it.
That's enough.
That's actually a lot.
Thank you,
Friends,
For being here.
I wish you all calm and comfort in your day.
