Working With Difficult Emotions - 5 Min Daily Insight

Hello,

And welcome to the Daily Insight.

My name is Kevin Griffin.

In today's meditation,

I want to help you in working with difficult emotions.

We do this by bringing more mindfulness into the body and watching the interaction of thoughts and feelings.

Begin your meditation by establishing a stable and comfortable posture.

You can be sitting on a chair or lying down.

You just want to be able to stay alert and relaxed.

Now take some time to move your attention through the body.

You can start by relaxing the muscles in the face,

The forehead,

The eyes,

The jaw.

Moving the attention down to the shoulders,

Relaxing the shoulders and arms.

Opening the chest,

Softening the belly.

Just letting the body settle,

Releasing any tension.

Noticing now your mood,

Your present state of mind,

And asking yourself how you know that's your mood.

How do you identify that?

Now starting to connect with the breath,

Particularly in the chest and belly,

The movement,

And feeling the breath there in the body,

Feeling the mood in the body.

We start to connect.

Connect the opening of the chest and belly to an opening to the mood,

Allowing the mood or emotion to be present.

Breathing with mindfulness.

You might feel the breath at the nostrils as well.

Noticing the energetic quality of emotion.

We talk about butterflies in the stomach.

Mood shows up in the heart center.

Sometimes we feel a weight in the chest.

All of these have a physical component that goes with the emotion.

This physical component gives us an entryway with mindfulness into being with and accepting these feelings.

Breathe and feel.

Notice the thoughts that appear as you start to feel your emotions and your mood.

Thoughts of control or judgment or analysis.

Now we start to see the interaction of mind and body and emotions that create these states.

This is the beginning of the practice of using mindfulness to work with difficult emotions.

I hope you found this a helpful practice.