Welcome to this meditation on a negative emotion with Peter Radcliffe.
In this meditation,
Unlike most meditations,
We're actually going to be looking at a negative emotion.
And the reason for this is to try to understand where our negative emotions come from better.
So to start this meditation,
We're going to need to remember a time when we had an argument,
Or we felt frustrated,
Or we felt anxious or depressed.
So think of a time in the past,
Perhaps the last few weeks,
Where you felt a negative emotion.
Nothing too strong,
Just something which presses your buttons a little bit,
And that you can clearly remember.
Once you have a memory of this negative emotion,
I'd like you to put that aside for a moment,
And get in touch with that part of you that we call the watcher,
Or the observer,
Or simply our awareness,
Because it's going to be very important for us to connect with this unemotional,
Objective part of our mind that can watch that negative emotion as it plays through our system.
And make a promise that you will be strong enough not to get too involved in the emotion,
And that you will be able to step out,
Disassociate,
And step into that part of the mind we call the watcher.
Once you've made this commitment,
We're ready to begin.
So,
If it helps to close your eyes during this meditation,
Please do so,
And just remember that time which really pressed your buttons,
That time where you felt totally exposed to that negative emotion.
See the people in the memory,
And see the things as if you're reliving that experience once again.
Hear the people you heard,
And feel the feelings of being right inside that moment,
When those people were really making you angry,
Or frustrated,
Or depressed,
Or whatever it was,
So that you can recall that negative emotion.
Now,
At some point you'll start to really feel those buttons being pressed,
And feel that negative emotion start to manifest itself in your system.
At this point,
I would like you to switch focus from being inside the moment,
To observing your system.
I'd like you to step into that part of the mind we call the watcher,
And look at the thoughts that you're having,
Look at the feelings and the emotional response that you're having,
And probably most important of all,
Watch your body's reaction to that memory and those emotions.
Notice where the feelings are.
Are they in your stomach,
Or your head,
Or your legs,
Or all over?
Notice the vibration,
The movement,
The warmth.
Try and see what it is that you feel physically in your body in response to this negative emotion.
Spend some time just watching your mind and your body,
As it experiences this memory of the event that caused this negative emotion.
Now,
As you know,
The reaction you're having is due to a projection of your mind.
You are safe,
Sitting,
Listening to this meditation,
And yet your memory is projecting the event and making you react in a similar way to when you actually went through the event.
Now,
What I'd like to ask you is,
Knowing that this is definitely 100% projection of your mind,
How much projection were you doing in the event?
Were you projecting your own judgments,
Feelings,
Or were you dragging up negative emotions from the past?
You can see this clearly when sometimes you react way out of proportion to the event.
Perhaps someone makes some innocent comment and you overreact because you're dragging up past emotional hurts,
Or it just makes you snap.
Try to be observant of when we overreact due to negative emotions.
As you watch the body's reaction,
You may feel that the emotional charge starts to reduce.
This is what happens when we disassociate from the event and start looking mindfully at ourselves.
In this case,
I'd like you to travel back further in time,
Perhaps weeks or months,
To another event which caused the same negative emotion.
When you remember another time where you felt this negative emotion,
Go into that event and see the things that you saw,
Hear the things that you heard,
And feel the feelings of that negative emotion being right inside that event.
Really get into that event and re-lever again,
Again deliberately trying to cause that negative emotion to come up in your system.
And,
Like before,
When you feel your buttons being pressed and you feel that negative emotion,
Just swap into the observer mode and look at how this memory plays through in your mind and body.
Be mindful of the beginning,
The middle,
And the dissipation of the negative emotion.
You might ask yourself,
Are there any connections between the previous event and the more recent event?
You see the mind drags up emotional history every time an emotion is triggered.
And so there are sometimes connections between the negative feeling we're feeling in a moment and all the past times we felt that negative emotion.
In psychology,
This connection is called a gestalt,
And there's a whole therapy just based on this idea.
Now,
Just imagine a time in the future and visualise to see whether you can react proportionally to whatever happens and not drag up that old emotion.
Because by looking objectively at these events which caused this emotion,
We can sometimes gather learnings which will allow us to just dissolve that negative emotion in our mind's eye.
If you can do this,
Do this right now so that next time you're in a difficult situation,
Your emotions and your reactions are proportionate to that situation.
And you don't overreact due to this habit of digging up those negative emotions.
But keep those understandings until next time a similar trigger occurs.
