Cultivating Radical Acceptance Of Difficult Feelings

Today we'll be practicing a meditation on cultivating a sense of radical acceptance towards whatever is present in our internal or external landscape.

And we'll begin like we usually do just by finding a comfortable seat to practice this meditation in.

If you're sitting in a chair of some sort,

Allowing your feet to rest firmly on the ground beneath you.

You might like to take your shoes off if it's feasible just to connect more firmly with the ground,

With the earth below.

Or if you're sitting cross-legged or in a kneeling position,

Making sure your knees are making contact with the floor or elevating the body a bit so the knees can make contact with the floor.

In whatever position you find yourself in,

Again just feeling where your body is making contact with this sense of groundedness.

And feeling into the weight of where your body is being supported by whatever seat you find yourself in today.

Noticing how much effort we make day to day to keep our body upright and seeing if you can allow yourself to just feel held for the next few minutes by the seat.

Feeling gravity pulling you closer to the earth.

Knowing there's nowhere you have to go for the duration of this practice.

You might like to soften your gaze down to a few feet in front of you or you can close the eyes if that's more comfortable.

You might imagine that there is a invisible string that's coming out the top of your head.

It's gently pulling your spine,

Your neck,

Your head upright and towards the sky.

We're just elongating the spine to allow our body to be in this upright and dignified posture.

Noticing if there's any strain and just releasing that so there's a sense of ease,

A sense of natural dignity that's in the body.

You also might practice rolling your shoulders up towards your ears and back down the body.

Maybe doing that a couple of times and noticing if that creates a greater sense of openness in the heart area as you settle the shoulders back down.

Then we'll check in with the breath today but we'll explore feeling the sensation of the breath as if we're breathing through our heart space.

So we might imagine our attention or our awareness which we usually keep somewhere up behind our eyes.

It's almost as if we're looking out from this mini me in our head out towards the rest of the world.

So we'll practice unhooking that awareness from behind our eyes and see if we can place it just intuitively in the center of our heart space.

So we're feeling our heart space,

Our chest area from the inside rather than looking down at it from our eyes or thinking about the heart space.

Feeling this embodied presence as the chest rises and falls with each breath.

Feeling each breath without having to go back up to thought or looking down at it with your awareness or your attention.

Feeling the breath coming in and out of the heart space almost like the heart is breathing itself.

Noticing how there's no effort that you need to make to allow the breath to come in and out of the heart space.

Just becoming aware of the body breathing itself,

The heart breathing itself,

Resting your awareness in this space.

Now we've grounded the body a bit and settled our awareness for a few moments in the heart area.

Now we'll begin to just scan through the body with this gentle,

Curious,

Non-judgmental awareness and begin to look for where there might be tension,

There might be holding,

There might be some type of resistance to whatever is going on that might be challenging in your life right now.

It might be a physical pain,

A sensation of anxiety,

It might be an emotion such as sadness or anger that's somewhere lodged in the body.

And so scanning the body from the feet all the way up through the legs,

The stomach area,

The chest,

The neck,

The head,

The arms,

And wherever you find this sense of tension or whatever tension,

If there's multiple areas present,

Seeing which one calls you most intuitively or most clearly.

In moving your awareness from your heart space into this place of resistance,

Of this pushing away,

This tension of trying to resist whatever difficult emotion or feeling or thought might be present in the body.

And as you place your awareness in this tension,

Noticing what happens if you open towards it.

If you create a sense of radical acceptance towards whatever is happening in the body,

Knowing that it's impermanent,

That it won't last,

But in this moment this emotion is present and it's here living in the body in this moment.

You might like to even place your hand or both hands on whatever part of the body where you're feeling this holding,

This tension.

And you might like to imagine that as you place your hands or you place your loving awareness on this place of tension,

Imagining that you're doing it for a person who's feeling the same exact feeling but who you have a sense of unconditional love for.

So it might be a child,

A loved one,

A friend,

It could even be someone who's not a human,

It could be a pet or an animal that you find dear.

And imagine that they're holding the same type of pain,

The same type of tension that you are and offering your loving awareness,

Your presence to yourself in the way that you would to them.

So allowing your heart to soften around this tension that you're holding in the body,

This resistance to an emotion,

To a feeling and even holding this resistance gently knowing it's just part of our human experience,

Our human tendency to pull away from what is painful,

What is harmful,

What feels heavy.

There's no need to judge yourself for this tension,

For this resistance.

And you might just notice this tension or this place we're focusing on the body.

Noticing what happens if you silently just offer it a sense of welcome from the heart rather than going back up into thought.

You might say,

Darling I care about the suffering.

Darling I'm here for your suffering.

You might keep it short and just say this too is welcome.

This too is welcome.

And if it feels challenging to soften into this difficult feeling or emotion,

Knowing that too is normal.

And also becoming aware that whatever we resist persists,

As the saying goes.

And knowing by accepting what is present in this moment doesn't mean we're condoning whatever situation or behaviors might have created this feeling.

And we're not saying that we don't want to change,

We don't want to heal.

But knowing that this radical acceptance,

This stopping from running away,

This stopping from resisting,

Is the first step in beginning toward healing.

And noticing what happens if we open our heart space,

We begin to once again pay attention to the breath as it's coming in and out of the heart.

And as we create this sense of open-heartedness,

Seeing if we can hold,

We can allow this pain,

This tension,

This heaviness that might be in the body.

Seeing if we can hold it like we would a child.

Maybe placing again our hands on it if they've strayed.

And offering whatever words of welcome,

Of acceptance silently in your head that might feel as nourishing as it would be if you were holding a literal baby in your hands.

Darling,

I care about your suffering.

I will take good care of your suffering.

Maybe just this too is welcome.

This too is welcome.

Finding whatever words or touch or sensations or even just feelings inside the body that you want to offer,

You want to cradle this place of heaviness,

Of tension,

Just allowing yourself to hold it.

Resting in this stillness,

The spaciousness of radical acceptance.

Knowing in this moment we don't need to change anything,

To go anywhere.

We can find the capacity to hold it.

If only we soften,

We open,

We allow it to be present.

As we come to the close of our practice together,

You might just check in again with that place inside the body where you first noticed the tension and noticing how it feels compared to when we began our practice.

Noticing how the heart space feels as well.

Noticing there's just any changes in sensations or mood or the nature of your thoughts or feelings in the moment.

And as you come back into the space you're in,

You might blink open the eyes if they've been closed and noticing if there's any softening that you're noticing towards your surroundings.

Maybe towards other people that may be in the same building or other animals or plants that might be around you.

And see if you can bring this sense of openness and acceptance towards whatever situations,

Whatever people,

Whatever experiences arise in your life for the rest of the day.

See if you can bring this sense of spaciousness and acceptance into that moment as it arises.

And know you can always come back to these practices of holding this pain,

This tension of offering it gentle words.