Noting Your Emotions

This meditation helps develop the skill of mindful awareness of your thoughts and emotions. Rather than trying to fix, suppress, or judge your experience, noting helps you observe it with compassionate attention. Over time, this strengthens your ability to stay grounded and kind — even when life feels messy or overwhelming.

Transcript

And this meditation will practice the skill of noting whatever is arising in our experience.

So it's a meditation that will take about 20 minutes to complete.

So first get into a comfortable position sitting either on a chair,

On a cushion,

Or if you're very alert you may try lying down in corpse pose with your back straight and your arms at your side.

But if you're sleepy that's probably not such a good idea.

So again get into a position where you can be relaxed yet alert.

And when I ring the bell the meditation will begin.

So make sure your eyes are gently closed and to begin just get in touch with your body as it is right now.

The feeling of your seat,

Your feet,

Your shoulders.

What does your body feel like right now?

Inhabit your body fully.

And then take three deep breaths to release as much tension as you can.

So three deep breaths in and out.

And then let your breathing return to normal.

Just to center us a little bit let's first put our awareness or pay attention to our breath.

So noticing where you feel the breath most strongly,

The nostrils,

The lungs,

The abdomen.

Just track the sensation of breathing in and breathing out.

Very simple.

Noticing breathing in.

Noticing breathing out.

No need to breathe a particular way.

Your body knows how to breathe itself.

Just noticing the sensation of breathing.

As your mind starts to wander,

Which it will,

Just bring your focus of attention back to the sensation of the breath as it comes in and goes out.

And now let your attention settle on any sounds that you hear.

Just noticing are there some creaks or maybe birds tweeting,

A wind blowing.

What sounds do you hear?

Again,

Try not to think too much about the source of the sound,

But you might just make a little simple note.

Wind blowing.

Bird tweeting.

Or creaking.

Just note the sound and let your awareness be free and open until the next sound comes to your attention.

And if there are moments of silence,

Note that too.

Try not to strain to hear any sounds.

Just let the sounds come to you naturally.

Floating in a pool of sound.

And now see if you can notice any physical sensations.

Might be an itch,

Tingling,

Tightness.

Some part of your body may feel relaxed.

And again,

Use the same technique,

Just gently noting whatever it is you feel physically.

Not telling yourself an elaborate story about it,

But making a soft mental note and then letting go of the sensation and seeing what sensation draws you next.

Tightness.

Itching.

Heat.

And so on.

And if your attention is drawn to the physical sensation of your breath,

Just note that in a moment,

Hold a breath and notice this.

And if your mind starts to wander,

Which it will,

Just come back to noticing any physical sensations.

And now try to notice any thoughts or feelings you have.

Again,

Not getting lost in a story line,

But you might notice peace,

Boredom,

Frustration,

Or it might be a thought.

Thought about yesterday,

Thought of my mother,

Whatever comes up.

Again,

Keep the note very,

Very short so it identifies what it is,

But that you don't get stuck in it.

Just noticing,

I'm having that thought,

I'm having that emotion,

And then letting it go,

And letting your awareness be drawn to the next thought or emotion that pops up into your awareness.

Remember,

We don't control what we think about,

We don't control how we feel,

But we can pay attention to it.

Try to be a curious scientist observing the contents of your mind,

But from an objective perspective.

What's going on for me right now?

And now don't focus on a particular type of arising in your awareness,

Just note whatever comes up,

Sound,

Physical sensation,

An emotion,

A thought,

A smell,

Whatever arises,

Just make a soft,

Gentle mental note,

And then let it go.

And let your awareness be drawn to whatever pops into your awareness next.

If you find you've gotten lost in thought,

That's a wonderful moment when you can notice lost in thought.

Just make that note,

Lost in thought,

And come back to noticing whatever arises.

If at any time you feel a bit overwhelmed or unstable in whatever's coming up,

Simply return your awareness back to your breath as a place of grounding,

Solidity.

Then if you feel comfortable,

Open your awareness out again,

And if it feels more comfortable,

Then just let your awareness rest in your breath.

All right guys.

Thank you.

Imagining yourself to be an open sky that anything can appear in.

A sound,

A thought,

A feeling.

Just notice.

A sound,

A thought,

A feeling.

A sound,

A thought,

A feeling.

A sound,

A thought,

A feeling.

Remembering that you don't really have to take any of this personally.

It's just phenomena arising and passing away.

Check in with your mood right now.

Are you interested?

Bored?

Spacey?

Whatever you're feeling right now,

Whatever your mood state is,

Just notice it.

Label it and let it go.

Like a detective on the trail of a clue paying very careful attention to what's arising in your field of awareness right now.

How it changes,

Shifts.

It's constantly different.

Getting a taste of the freedom of not latching on to anyone's thought or emotion or feeling.

Just letting it be there as it is.

Taking its hand and letting it pass away.

And then for the very end of this meditation,

Come back to your breathing,

The sensation of your breathing.

Just noticing the quality of the breath,

Is it silky and smooth?

Maybe it's rough,

Fast,

Slow,

Whatever it is,

Just rest your awareness fully in your breath as you breathe in and out.

Just let it be there.

Reviews

This is such a helpful meditation not only for guiding on note taking but for meditating in general. I enjoyed it so much and feel I can take these little notes (sounds, thoughts, feelings) into all my meditations. Thank you ✨

Beautiful. Most helpful. Labeling, noting —> brings me more easily to accepting. And the ease therein, the freedom you suggest. Kristin, Thank you.

Excellent, good voice and tone . As with all her guided meditations.

Very nice. I pretty much completely switched off which is rare

Transformative. Maybe another day I'll find this teaching aggravating, difficult, impossible--because I'm still focused on "doing" meditation right instead of being ready to sit with whatever emotions arise. This is a meditation I want to do daily.
Update: Yup, it's another day. I'm calmer than I was at the beginning, but I didn't have a name for the constellation of emotions I was experiencing. And how do I "let it go"?

Thank you for the open spaces and gentle encouragement

Very well lead awareness meditation. Adding this one to my favorites.

Perfect meditation, well guided. I feel calmer and relaxed.

I appriciate the amount of silence there was, giving me space to actually tune in to myself. I have done so many meditations here on insight timer but strangely, quite few give enough time for this. I also liked that there was no background sound.

I found this to be to the point and very focused. Thankyou 🙂

Kristen Neff somehow always so simply offers me my meditation space back to myself. Thank you 🙏🏾

Wonderful for me! Just what I needed right at this moment. I enjoy your meditations Kristen. Your words, your voice and how you say them are just awesome. Thank you 🙏 😊

Very helpful for calming me down. I like the gentle reminders to note thoughts and come back. This meditation actually has a lot if variety to help keep me actively grounded.

Lovely meditation; I feel very grounded now. Thank you Kirsten.

I love the MSC work of Kristin and Chris

a very liberating meditation, being able to see your emotions objectively, shake its hand and let it move on. thank you kristin!

so gentle and relaxing... I'm feeling better

Perfect. Thank you 🙏🏻

Awake and aware-thank you so much for this calming meditation!

A very gentle and simple meditation yet so calming and focussed. A great way to maintain a centred space.