Mindfulness For Working With Difficult Emotions In The Body

Hello and welcome back to another guided meditation practice.

My name is Olivia Roberson and this is mindfulness for working with difficult emotions.

So to prepare for this practice,

I encourage you to set up your space super well.

And be beautiful to light a candle,

Grab your favorite crystal,

Maybe you light some incense.

Take a moment now to turn your notifications off if you have your phone out or your computer.

Shut your door and make sure that you are going to have the next few minutes totally undisturbed so that you can get the absolute most out of this practice.

You need a second to pause this video and come back to it when you're ready to begin.

Alright,

So you've set your space up,

Let's go ahead and take a beautiful supported seat or as always you can do this meditation lying down.

So first opportunity to check in with your body.

What do you need today?

Do you need to lie down or would it feel better to be seated with a tall spine?

Taking whatever posture is most supportive for you today,

Go ahead and let your eyes close or let them simply soften if you prefer to keep them open.

Start to feel the areas of your body that are connected to the earth.

If you're sitting,

Notice your sitting bones,

Imagine them rooting down,

Down,

Down into the earth.

The roots of a tree.

If you're lying down,

Perhaps you feel your back,

Back of your head,

Back of your legs,

Your heels,

All touching the earth being fully supported and held,

Held by gravity,

Supported.

Now just allow yourself to take a few nice deep breaths.

Breathing in,

Exhale,

Side out through the mouth.

Breathing in deeply.

Exhale side out.

Deep breath in.

Exhale side out.

Beautiful.

Bring your awareness now to your physical body.

Your eyes closed or your gaze super soft.

Start to bring your awareness inside and see what's there.

This is a practice designed for working with difficult emotions.

So perhaps there's a certain emotion that's present for you today.

Can you recognize what's here?

Whether it's anger,

Sadness,

Grief,

Despair,

Longing,

Or whatever emotion is here today,

It's difficult.

Simply take a moment and recognize that it's here.

Being human,

It's normal to have these difficult emotions every day,

All the time.

They're coming in and out of our awareness,

But it's very normal to deal with these difficult emotions and having the difficult emotions makes you human and you're not alone in feeling this way.

Just taking the next few breaths to again recognize what does it feel like in your body?

Where is this feeling?

Is it a tightness in the throat?

Is it a heaviness in your heart?

Does it have a color?

Maybe it has a texture,

A shape.

Does it feel knotted or does it feel sticky?

I'm just noticing,

Recognizing the emotion that's present.

Now we want to simply allow,

Allow what's here to be here.

So much of our suffering comes from shoulding ourselves or labeling an experience as wrong.

I shouldn't feel this way.

Instead,

I want you to practice allowing,

Welcome,

Welcome it even,

Imagining that you're inviting this difficult emotion to have tea with you,

Just sitting together.

It is welcome here.

Noticing as you're allowing this emotion to be welcome,

Allowing it to be here.

Noticing if there's any shift in your energy or in the emotion itself.

How does it respond to being allowed to having permission to exist,

To having some attention?

Wanting to breathe and to allow your awareness to be within your body.

We're working with emotions within our bodies here.

The next step is going to be to investigate with kindness and with curiosity.

So imagining as if you were a scientist and you're just curious,

What is this,

What is this emotion doing here?

You know,

What does it need?

And again,

That curiosity,

What color is it?

Has it moved or shifted?

Sometimes in my awareness,

As I bring my attention to sensations within my body,

I notice them shifting in real time.

A heaviness in my heart might start to slowly,

Slowly lift.

Maybe it moves to a dripping sensation down my throat or some sensation in my head and my palms.

So with curiosity,

Investigate what's happening in your body now.

Breathing deeply.

How is it responding to your breath?

You can imagine as you're breathing in each of your cells just slightly expanding,

Filling with breath.

Imagining that you're just taking up a bit more space as you breathe in.

As you breathe out,

Allowing the belly muscles to contract as you expel the air from the body.

And again,

Breathing in through the nose,

Feeling that expansion of the body and noticing how the emotions and the sensations within the body are responding to this beautiful breath.

And knowing that as you are tending to this difficult emotion and as you're allowing it to move and shape shift,

It's so normal for you to have a emotional release.

Might have some tears start flowing and just know that whatever's bubbling to the surface,

All you need to do is allow it to come out and through.

It is welcome here.

And we don't want to ever suppress these emotional urges that we have.

So we push them down.

It's kind of like a cork down to the bottom and then pops back up to the top again.

So it's a beautiful thing to just allow what's coming up to come up out and through.

So having investigated and been curious like a scientist about these emotions that are present,

Maybe even noticing that we've transitioned from one feeling to another,

I'm going to move into the last step,

Which is to nurture ourselves and nurture this beautiful emotion.

Being aware of these more difficult emotions and feeling into them allows us to more deeply be with the positive emotions as well.

It's allowing us to have a sense of contrast in life.

And it's a beautiful thing to feel things so deeply.

So with so much compassion for yourself for being human and for having these difficult emotions,

I invite you to place your hands on your body.

Maybe you're placing a hand on the heart.

Maybe you like to place another hand on your belly or on your room space.

And you can even invite in a gentle caress with your touch.

Nurturing yourself,

Giving yourself some love.

Giving yourself some compassion for having this human experience of dealing with these difficult emotions.

What would feel so good right now to receive?

Use it a little gentle caress on your chest.

Maybe it's the back of the neck or your hands through your hair.

Placing your hands anywhere on the body that feels so good and nurturing.

Knowing that our own touch is always available to us.

You don't have to wait to receive it from someone outside.

We can nurture ourselves as well.

In addition to that beautiful companionship that we also have in relationship,

We can also nurture ourselves with our own touch and our own gentle embrace.

Placing one hand over your shoulder and the opposite hand over the other shoulder,

I invite you to wrap yourself up with your own arms like a big bear hug.

Maybe even see how tight feels good.

Maybe you want to be wrapped up tight or maybe looser feels better for you.

Just melting into this embrace,

To this touch.

Just allowing yourself to have whatever experience you're having,

Inviting a sense of nurturing,

Of mothering energy.

Taking those beautiful,

Nice deep breaths,

Drop back into your body.

If you've traveled away into your mind or into your to-do list,

Invite you back into your body.

Feel what's here.

Breathing super deeply,

Let the hands go now.

Drop them down by the sides.

Or if it felt super good,

You can totally keep them there.

That's your choice.

Let's take three nice deep breaths together in through the nose.

Exhale side out.

Breathing in through the nose.

Exhale side.

Breathing in.

And exhale side out.

Good.

To close the practice,

I'm going to bring our singing bowl here,

So don't be alarmed by the sound.

And go ahead and just let your eyes remain closed,

Receiving this closing sound,

Noticing how your body feels,

How your mind feels.

Maybe if there's any differences from when you started this practice to the very end.

Bringing your hands to your heart,

The light in me sees and honors the light in each and every one of you.

Thank you so much for sharing your practice with me.

Namaste.

Wishing you a beautiful rest of your day or night.

I'll see you next time.