A.C.O.R.N Meditation For Processing Difficult Emotions

Welcome to the acorn meditation for dealing with difficult emotions.

We're often not taught how to deal with our emotions,

Or if we've suffered from trauma,

Emotional abuse or neglect,

Narcissistic abuse,

Or a traumatic event,

We can't just will our emotions away.

For example,

The Bible says,

Fear not.

But how do we choose not to fear if we have fear and terror from trauma stuck in our bodies?

The nature of trauma is that emotions get stuck in the body and no amount of willpower gets rid of them.

We may pray,

And it may help,

But sometimes we pray and the emotion is still there.

We're often told what the fruits of the spirit are,

And to cultivate them.

But we're not taught how to cultivate these experiences,

And we're not taught how to let go of anger,

Fear,

Depression,

Sadness,

Shame,

And guilt with trauma.

And that's why there's so much work coming out around trauma,

And what is trauma?

There's a physiological response,

But a lot of it is emotions stuck in the body,

And it's stuff in the mind.

You can't separate it.

It's all in the body.

If trauma is stuck in the body,

How can we manifest the fruits of the spirit?

We can't be at peace while we're paralyzed in fear.

We can't be rooted in patience if we're seething in anger.

Many of us feel guilt,

Sadness,

Shame,

And anger when we feel difficult emotions,

Because we feel as Christians we can't feel these things.

Because we are not being like Christ,

Or we're not being the person we want to be.

But here's the thing.

If we react to these emotions with another difficult emotion,

We're layering them,

And it's twice as difficult to heal or overcome the emotions.

Emotions are natural.

We all have them.

There are many examples of righteous people experiencing anger,

Fear,

Shame,

Sadness.

Even Jesus felt all these things.

There's nothing wrong with difficult emotions.

God gave them to us as indicators so we would know there is something that needs our attention.

That's it.

A lot of us have probably heard Christian teachings not to listen to,

Not to feel,

Not to trust your emotions.

In my humble opinion,

I think that's untrue and unwise advice.

I think better advice is to listen to and feel your emotions and listen to what they're trying to tell you.

But also,

Don't let them possess you.

Don't let them control you.

Ask them questions.

What do you want?

Why are you in my body?

And do it with compassion.

Because the emotion itself isn't necessarily a sin,

But what we do with it is what matters.

It's okay to feel angry.

It's okay to feel sad.

It's okay to feel fear.

These are natural human emotions.

The ultimate goal is to be as close to manifesting the fruits of the Spirit as we can be.

It's a spectrum.

So layering takes us one step further away from the fruits of the Spirit.

How do we love others if we don't know how to love?

Fear is often said to be the opposite of love because perfect love casts out fear.

But so many of us don't know how to love because no one modeled it for us here on earth.

We may have only known God's love or one or two examples in our life that aren't present all the time in our lives.

Maybe those people have gone on to be with God and sometimes it feels so intangible,

The love.

The truth is we can't love others purely and without motive until we understand and experience love inside of ourselves.

The ultimate commandment is to love.

So knowing how to find love inside of ourselves is pretty huge.

So what do we do when a difficult emotion comes up?

We're taught what emotions are best.

But how do we do this?

We target the emotions right where they are,

In the body,

At their source.

Being able to process the emotions by reversing whatever put them there in the first place and from where they're at,

And being able to allow the emotions to filter and shift back up through the stages of our neural network,

We are able to let those emotions shift back up through the neural network and out of our bodies.

I got tired of being told fear not,

But not knowing how to let go of fear.

I got tired of hearing surrender your emotions to Christ,

But not knowing how to do that.

I got tired of being told that I didn't have enough faith when I was trying my best to have faith.

So I went searching for why this was happening and what could be the cause.

Through my whole process of understanding what was happening to me,

Not how I am.

Trauma is not who you are.

Who you are in Christ,

Who you are period,

Is who you are.

That's the self.

The trauma that happened to you is trauma that happened to you.

In other words,

It is not you.

When I went through this journey of understanding the abuse I experienced and began to understand that how I was,

Was not my fault,

And that wasn't truly me,

I began to separate,

As Joyce Meyer calls it,

My who from my do and myself from what happened to me.

I began to see that healing was possible and what happened to me was not my fault,

And that there had to be a way to overcome this,

Even though I hadn't found a significant way before.

And indeed,

There are so many somatic type processes that we can use to heal trauma from our bodies.

And one that I've come up with is to deal with difficult emotions.

Notice I don't say negative because fear has a purpose.

Sometimes sadness is grief,

Which is just love turned inside out.

And sometimes anger is justified if someone has been violated or someone has violated our sacred inner selves,

Our truth and our worthiness.

So having fear,

Having anger,

And having sadness is not necessarily a sin.

And even when it is,

Layering it with more of those emotions is just going to double up on that sin.

So we need to find a way to deal with those emotions where they're at and where they come from at their root.

And I believe is a gift from God,

The gift of healing our emotions.

And shame,

That's a difficult one.

That's so difficult.

Most shame was never ours to bear.

Shame is usually the product of something that happened to us.

On occasion,

Shame comes from our own sin and our own poor choices.

But quite often,

It sends other people committed against us,

Often when we were children.

And we take on that shame as if we did something ourselves,

Even when we didn't.

And often we may even feel like because we deal with a lot of anger,

A lot of anxiety,

A lot of fear,

And a lot of depression,

That somehow there's something wrong with us.

Somehow it's our fault and come to find out it wasn't anything wrong with us.

We were not,

Quote,

Born that way.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

And there are people with propensities towards and dispositions towards mental health issues and mental illnesses.

But we do not end up with trauma because we're born that way.

If we have trauma in our bodies,

It's because it was put in us,

Even if not on purpose,

By some experience of or by someone else at some point in our lives.

So when a difficult emotion such as fear,

Anger or shame come up,

In the following process on them,

God at the helm of the process,

Say,

Jesus,

Take the helm.

And do the process through prayer,

Talk,

Meditation,

EFT,

Journaling,

Or some combination of them or some other similar form.

This meditation here that takes you through the whole process is called ACORN.

I created ACORN in response to all of those problems I just described.

ACORN is an acronym of the steps we take to process our emotions on a visceral level at their root through our neural network,

Using time tested and scientifically proven strategies.

This meditation takes you through ACORN in real time so you can process difficult emotions and release them permanently from your body.

Learning to experience love inside of ourselves,

From God,

For ourselves,

And for others is another goal of the ACORN meditation.

The ACORN meditation is A.

Acceptance,

C.

Compassion,

O.

Objective Curiosity,

R.

Refocus,

Reframe,

N.

No Layering.

So those steps are what we will go through in our meditation,

And we slow down,

And we take our time,

And we don't rush.

Because it took a long time for that stuff to get worked into your body to make you believe if this is the case that somehow you were messed up intrinsically.

If it's so deep in your psyche and in your body that you feel messed up intrinsically,

It will take some time to work that stuff out.

So easy does it.

Easy does it.

Steady as she goes.

Be patient.

Patient with yourself.

Patience is one of the fruits of the Spirit,

Right?

So when meditating,

It's good to have an anchor.

For some,

It's the breath.

For some,

It's the sounds in the room.

And for others,

Soft music.

We will use God as our ultimate anchor,

With our breath and the music in the background helping us stay grounded during this time and staying rooted in God's truth.

I've used a lot of meditations over the years,

Including some that include processes similar to these,

And many are just too fast.

So we will take our time on the steps of this meditation.

Letting emotions filter through your nervous system takes time,

Patience,

And love.

So always allow what is happening.

Accept your emotions and love yourself and feel the emotions and feel God's love through the whole process.

It's okay.

You're safe.

It's okay.

No matter what's going on,

You're always safe.

If it ever gets to be too much,

You can walk away.

But just remember,

You have God's protection.

You have God's prayer of Psalm 91 over your spirit and life.

God is speaking those words over you.

You are protected and you are safe.

You are safe.

It's okay.

Say it.

Take a deep breath.

Take a deep breath.

Let it out.

In through the nose,

Out through the mouth.

Take another deep breath.

Let it out.

Say,

I am safe.

I am safe.

I am safe.

Breathe.

Is that better?

You are always safe.

Now,

With the steps of the ACORN process,

We're going to start A.

Acceptance.

That's A,

Acceptance.

And we're going to take a few minutes to go through each step as it is,

As it's meant to be.

Now,

First,

Identify an emotion that's going on in your body.

It might be one that's overpowering.

You may immediately know what's causing the emotion and you may not have any idea and it's just coming out of nowhere.

You may feel extremely irritated and you don't even know why.

You may be angry,

But you may be so used to feeling that way that you don't even think about why.

That's okay.

You're safe.

You may feel sadness because what's going on in the world right now,

There's so much going on.

And because you maybe you didn't get the job you thought you were going to get or you wanted to buy a house and market conditions are just not right.

Or because you just can't get past some trauma in your life you've been trying to get past for a long time.

It's okay.

So the first step is not to push the emotion away.

The first step is acceptance,

Also known as surrender.

Recognize your emotion.

What is the emotion that most wants your attention the most now?

Recognize it.

Identify what the emotion is.

Give it a name.

Naming it makes it lose its power.

I'll say it again.

Naming it makes it lose its power.

Accept how you feel without judgment.

Acknowledge and own the emotion.

Own as in I have this,

Not I am this.

I have this emotion.

I am not this emotion.

Now take a few moments and recognize this emotion.

Identify it and give it a name and just let it be there.

Just feel it.

It's safe.

It's okay.

Just feel it without judgment.

Take about two minutes or so to do that now.

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Okay,

Coming back.

The second step in the process is compassion.

That's C.

Compassion.

As Christians,

We're often taught to offer compassion to other people,

But sometimes we forget to give compassion to ourselves,

Too.

We're to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And one thing that I thought about is that if the whole world is commanded to love their neighbors,

Then that's like seven or eight million people commanded to love you,

Just like you're commanded to love them.

So it goes both ways.

We're all worthy of love.

But loving our neighbors as ourselves is assuming we love ourselves.

So if we don't,

If there's no love inside of us,

How can we offer it to other people?

So learning self-compassion is an important part of the process.

It might not be as important as God's love,

But it is very important.

Offer yourself with this emotion in mind and understanding what emotion it is without judgment,

Accepting it.

Offer yourself open compassion and allow yourself to feel surrounded by God's visceral,

Tangible love and grace while you feel the emotion at the same time.

If it helps,

Think about someone that loved you unconditionally and made you feel safe.

Think about what that feeling was like.

It might have been your dog or your cat.

It might have been a grandmother.

It might have been God himself.

But think about that,

And that will help you to bring up that feeling of embodied love.

Rest in this love.

Picture the emotion with the backdrop of an open sky.

Picture a crisp autumn blue sky that is God's pure and infinite love.

Feel the emotion and love with this picture in your mind for a few minutes until the emotion begins to lose its power.

So take a few minutes.

Picture yourself surrounded by a physical,

Visceral love and grace,

Which is a greater backdrop.

Picture an open sky and God's grace.

Is this open space?

It's open,

Infinite,

Unending,

Abundant space,

Love and grace.

God's love is open sky.

Picture that emotion that you have with the background of unconditional,

Perfect,

Flawless grace and love.

God is love.

So picture that emotion and yourself with that emotion being surrounded by that and just feel it and see it.

Take a few minutes and just picture that in your mind,

However it comes to you,

And feel that greater open space of love and awareness to surround your emotion.

Breathe while you do it.

Keep your breath open and natural.

Do that for about two minutes now.

Breathe while you do it.

Breathe while you do it.

Breathe while you do it.

Okay.

O.

The third step in the ACORN acronym is O.

That is Objective Curiosity.

But Objective Curiosity asks you to explore your emotion with Objective Curiosity,

Full awareness,

And mindfulness.

What does the emotion feel like?

For example,

If you feel anger,

Is it seething,

Burning,

Feeling in the pit of your stomach?

Is it a tightness in your chest?

If you feel sad,

Does it feel like something is weighing down on your throat,

Like there's a lump in your throat?

Do you feel coldness in your arms?

If you feel anxiety,

Is it tingling in your arms and legs?

Is it a falling feeling in your stomach?

Whatever it might be,

What is the sensation that you feel?

What is the sensation like in your body?

Where is it located in your body?

What are the qualities of the feeling?

Is it heavy,

Tingly,

Cold,

Warm?

Does it feel like you're falling?

Do you feel dizzy?

Does it feel dense,

Light?

What does it feel like?

So get the sensations in your body,

Don't stick with the words,

Stick with the feelings and the emotions themselves in your body.

Go to that place in your body with those feelings and just be there.

Just feel it.

Don't try to change it or make it anything it's not.

Just be there and feel it.

Do that for about two minutes now and then we'll do the second half of O.

So so so so so Okay,

Coming back to O,

Objective curiosity.

Once you've done that,

The second step of objective curiosity is to talk to your emotion.

There's a therapy called IFS or Internal Family Systems where we have a self and that self is part of who we are separate from trauma and all of these emotions.

It's the observer of the emotions,

The witness of our experiences.

That's the self.

But these different parts are there to try to protect us and it's not like we have multiple personalities.

It's almost like they have different personas but part of this therapy work is to ask questions to these different parts and to help communicate what's going on inside of us.

So asking these emotions,

What about this emotion in my body needs attention now?

You could ask it,

What about you most needs attention now?

Do it with compassion.

Do it with care.

Do it with objectivity,

Willing to hear whatever it says to you.

What are you trying to tell me?

What do you need me to know?

Why?

So ask yourself,

Where is this coming from?

What is most urgent now?

What needs attention the most now?

What are you trying to tell me?

What is this about?

Why?

Ask yourself those questions and see what comes up without judgment,

Without fear,

And without forcing it.

Just give yourself some space to ask yourself,

What about these emotions needs attention now and where is it coming from?

See what comes up with objective curiosity and mindful attention.

Whatever comes up,

It's okay.

Whatever comes up,

You're safe.

God is your anchor.

He's here with you.

Picture him here with you.

He's got you.

He's got your back.

He is your protector.

You're safe.

Remember Psalm 91.

See what comes up with objective curiosity and mindful attention.

Now,

Not right now,

But just make a little mental note.

If you feel like it will help you after this meditation,

You might go back and write down what happened in this meditation,

Including the answer to these questions.

Take a couple of minutes to explore this and don't judge what you see and feel starting now.

So so so so Okay,

Coming back into your body,

Coming back into your mind.

R.

Try R now.

The next step in the ACORN acronym is refocus,

Reframe.

Now we've gone through the process of accepting our emotions and identifying them,

Showing ourself open compassion and then exploring the emotion with objective curiosity.

Now refocus and reframe.

Once you understand where the emotion came from,

It is to refocus and reframe the situation around it.

Flip the script and change the narrative around the situation.

This is something you would keep working on after the meditation,

But start here in this process.

Every single emotion we have,

Whether conscious or unconscious,

There's a narrative or a script,

A feedback loop or a film that plays in our minds over and over and over.

And if it's something that's unhealthy,

We often call this ruminating or overthinking.

But the thought feeds the emotion,

The emotion feeds the thought,

The thought feeds the emotion,

The emotion feeds the thought,

And so on.

Chicken or the egg?

Doesn't matter where it started,

But what matters is cutting it off,

Turning it off.

So flip the script and change the narrative around the situation.

Don't try to change the emotion or force it away.

Instead,

Consider applying the serenity prayer to your situation to gradually change your perception of it.

So at this moment,

Ask yourself these questions.

What can I change about the situation?

What can I not change?

Do I know the difference?

Write the answers down later and take action to follow through on these questions.

But right now,

I just want you to reflect on them.

Think about your emotions.

Think about your emotions.

Think about where they came from and what most needs attention now.

Now within this situation,

Is there something you can do something about?

If there is,

Then I want you to take note of that now.

Think about that now.

I'm not asking you to be unrealistic about the emotion.

I'm not asking you to deny the emotion.

I'm not asking you to cover it up with fake positivity.

But having a positive attitude,

Even about a difficult situation,

Can be very,

Very helpful.

What I'm asking you to do is to think about healthy ways to solve problems around this emotion and to think about what this emotion is trying to tell you in terms of moving forward and healing.

So think about this for a couple of minutes.

However it works in your situation.

I'll ask the questions one more time.

What can I change about the situation?

What can I not change?

Do I know the difference?

Take about two minutes to reflect on this now.

So you so so coming back into the present moment.

Okay,

The final step in the ACORN acronym is NO LAIRING.

That's in.

NO LAIRING.

And that's the last step.

It comes automatically and it's a byproduct of the rest of the steps.

By allowing your emotions to be there,

You are not layering the emotion.

It's okay to feel.

Feelings don't kill you.

Feelings are just indicators that something in our lives needs attention.

Not layering means don't be disgusted that you're angry.

Don't be frustrated that you're depressed and so on.

It just means observe the emotion without judgment.

Let it pass like a cloud in the sky.

It may even mean not reacting to a reaction to an emotion and it's hard at first because that fight or flight reaction in our body,

We're so used to getting worked up.

There's a place between an emotion coming up in the reaction and that's where our power of choice lies.

Just like the space between the words that I'm speaking now,

That's where the power lies.

Our flesh is going to want to give into that because it's so powerful.

It's like an addiction but when we stop and when we pause and when we think,

What is something I can do not to react?

To choose to respond instead of to react and it doesn't matter what it is.

If you have to hold on to your ears and start singing,

If you turn music up loud,

If you go lay on the floor and do sit-ups,

If it stops you from having the reaction,

That's okay.

But do something to stop it and as you get more and more experienced at not layering,

You'll learn not to bite the hook.

Start where you are.

It may mean like I said,

Not reacting to a reaction to an emotion.

If you've already reacted to an emotion,

Then don't react to the reaction.

This could go on forever but do you see how it starts with a spark and there's a chain reaction and it can just escalate?

If we at any point in the process can interrupt that,

That is where the power to change our lives is.

That is where the power to bear the fruits of the spirit lie.

That is how we let go of a trauma.

That is where healing happens in the body along with allowing these emotions to be there.

That sounds contradictory.

It sounds paradoxical but it's both at the same time.

It's about letting go and feeling in the body but it's also about not letting those emotions control us and a better way to put it is not letting them have us or possess us.

Do you understand how you can embody and hold an emotion and feel it without judgment and without letting it completely possess you?

That's where the key lies.

That's where it lies.

So start where you are.

It means when a difficult emotion comes up,

You don't bite the hook and react to it.

Stand back and choose how you're going to respond while you let it be there.

I know,

Easier said than done,

But the more you do it,

The more you will build neural connections in your brain that allow you to do this more and more and you might get into a habit and then out of the habit and then in the habit and out but that's all still part of the process.

That's totally normal and if anybody told you that it wasn't,

They're wrong.

I respectfully say they're wrong.

That is part of the process.

You get down,

You get back up,

You get down,

You get back up,

You get down,

You get back up,

You fall away,

You come back,

You fall away,

You come back.

And that's the process.

That's the acorn process.

If you do this again and again and again on your difficult emotions,

You will see progress.

You will see healing.

There will be times when you feel like you're not processing and progressing and healing,

But you are.

Don't let that stop you.

Keep going.

Don't give up.

So acorn is a process to help you heal emotions,

To help you deal with difficult emotions,

And to help you get them through your neural network out of your body,

Out of your mind,

Out of your spirit,

And out of your brain so you can begin to learn to process them in a way where you can manifest the fruits of the spirit,

Where you can live in peace,

Joy,

Love,

Harmony,

And kindness,

And you can actually manifest experiences of love in your own life and be able to love other people more naturally because you love yourself and because you can open those channels that have been blocked and allow God's love and that love comes through into those places where trauma was before and it cleanses all of that stuff and pushes it further out.

So I hope this process has been helpful for you.

Do it as much and as often as you need.

Do it once a day,

Several times a week,

A couple of times a week,

Whatever you need.

Keep coming back to it.

If you go away,

Come back.

If you fall away,

Come back.

God knows our processes as imperfect humans.

He takes us just as we are.

So don't walk away in shame just because you fall away for a little while.

Come back just as you are and God accepts you and takes you just as you are and you'll start to see progress in your life.

Thank you so much for listening.

God bless you.

God bless you.

So so so so so