In the session today,
We're going to explore what it's like to meet our emotions with steadiness and kindness,
So that you can fully feel them without being overwhelmed or acting out impulsively.
And over time,
The nervous system learns that it's really safe to feel emotions.
Because we live in a world where we are constantly met with arising feelings and emotions,
In reaction to the world around us,
Both far and close.
And we all know how challenging it can be to live with strong emotions or a stressful time.
But emotions themselves aren't actually the problem.
It's our perspective of them and our reactivity to them.
And reactivity comes from resistance.
So as father of psychotherapy,
Carl Jung,
Said,
What you resist persists,
Which you might have heard of before.
Meaning that suppressing,
Ignoring or fighting uncomfortable thoughts or emotions causes them to intensify.
And they can actually get kind of stuck in our system.
So non-judgmental acceptance and allowing lets them move through.
And through allowing grows a sense of steadiness.
It's so easy to become identified with emotions.
But you are not your emotions.
You are the space that holds them.
So emotions are waves and you are the ocean.
The more that we can allow ourselves to feel our feelings without resistance and hold them with compassion,
The more it allows them to just move through.
And very importantly,
We're not bypassing them.
But we also don't need to get pulled in reactivity so quickly or they don't need to impact us in such a drastic way.
So compassionate holding really starts to regulate your nervous system and being able to constantly come back to your calm center.
Sometimes all we need is a small pause,
A small space between trigger and response.
A single breath can interrupt a lifetime of patterns of reaction.
So let's do a guided meditation together to give us that space to really embody this or practice it.
As we move into the meditation,
Take your time to get comfortable.
It's best done sitting up,
But do what is supportive and comfortable for you.
Allow your body to be relaxed and natural.
Taking a nice deep breath in through the nose and letting out a deep satisfying sigh.
Letting your shoulders drop down,
Gradually arriving here into the meditation together.
Let's begin the session with a few deep,
Slow breaths.
Taking a relaxed but full breath in through the nose and letting a long,
Slow breath come out through the mouth.
Kind of like you're breathing out through a fine straw.
So it really slows the breath down.
Keep doing that in your own time for a little bit.
Taking a relaxed full breath in through the nose and letting a long,
Slow breath come out through the mouth.
Each time you breathe out,
Noticing how the body releases and relaxes naturally and allow yourself to enjoy that and follow that natural rhythm.
Each time you breathe out,
Allowing the whole body to deeply relax.
After your next long exhale,
Just breathing naturally,
Allowing the breath to flow in and out,
Letting it be calm,
Soft,
Relaxed.
As you breathe,
Becoming aware of how the breath feels in your body,
Noticing the sensations and feelings of your belly,
Lungs and ribs rising and falling as you breathe in and out.
Don't worry about trying to hold your awareness on those sensations.
But rather just letting yourself be curious and inquisitive of the sensations and feelings in your body as you breathe.
Still each time you breathe out,
Allowing your body to release and relax a little deeper.
Letting any tension you feel in your body melt away.
Letting your jaw be soft and relaxed.
Your shoulders dropping down away from your ears.
Your neck soft and relaxed.
Any time during the meditation you notice that you've drifted off or you become distracted by something,
There's no need to judge yourself,
There's no need to change how it is.
As you notice you've drifted,
Remember to be kind to yourself.
Just let it be as it is and very gently bring your awareness back to your breath again.
Noticing the sensations and feelings of your breath in the body.
Taking your awareness down now slowly to your sense of ground.
Noticing the ground supporting your body,
Which might be a bed or a chair.
And begin to notice all the places that your body comes into contact with that ground and the sensations of where they meet.
The pressure of that sense of ground pushing up from below you.
Noticing as well how supportive and steady that ground is.
And no matter what you do,
No matter how much you relax into it,
It's always holding you.
So as you breathe,
Each time you breathe out,
Seeing if you can really allow yourself to trust that sense of ground and allow your whole body to fully relax and let go into it.
From that sense of ground slowly bring your awareness up into the body.
Gently scanning through the body slowly to notice what you sense and feel.
Taking your time to notice your feet,
Your legs,
Your belly,
The feeling of your spine,
Your chest as you breathe,
The feeling in your heart area,
Your shoulders,
Both arms and hands and fingers.
Feeling into your neck and your head and your face.
Allowing yourself to feel the entirety of your body.
Noticing any sensations,
Feelings or energy in the body.
Even if you don't notice anything at this point,
That's fine.
Just notice what you're not noticing and let it all just be as it is.
Nothing to change,
Nothing to create.
And as you rest there,
Relaxing into your ground,
Breathing,
Begin to notice any current emotional tone in the body.
There might be an emotion there that's really obvious and playing up at the moment in your life.
Or you might begin to notice a more subtle emotional tone.
Maybe that you weren't even aware was there.
Just look and feel.
You don't need to try and find.
You could name it gently if you need,
Maybe sadness,
Tension,
Irritation,
Whatever it might be.
And then let that label go and simply feel it in the body.
So with a sense of bare awareness.
Allowing that feeling or emotion to be there.
Giving it space to be there.
Kind of softening around it.
Allowing yourself to rest and relax with it.
So breathing with it,
Not against it.
If there isn't an emotion that's there right now,
You could imagine a mildly stressful situation in your life.
Allowing yourself to feel the emotions connected to it.
And in the same way,
Allowing those emotions to be there.
Giving them space.
Remember you are not your emotions.
You are the space that holds them.
We don't need to get caught in the normal habitual pattern of resisting them.
Kind of contracting around them.
It is safe to feel them.
And the more we allow them to be there in the body,
Holding their experience with compassion and kindness,
The more it allows them to just be what they are.
Energy moving through.
If you have a really strong emotion coming up and it feels too much,
Take a full breath in and breathe a long,
Slow breath out.
Relaxing the body again.
And you could place a hand on your heart or in the area that feels pain and breathe into that area.
Allow yourself to breathe in space to that area and breathe out relaxation.
So just breathing,
Relaxing,
Resting.
Allowing whatever feeling or emotion is there to be there.
Allowing yourself to feel it and just being with it.
In a really compassionate and kind way.
And when you do that,
Begin to notice how it feels to hold it compassionately and notice any kind of shift in relationship with that emotion present.
And now as we begin to come to the end of the meditation,
Breathe out deeply,
Allowing your whole body,
All your muscles and ligaments and bones to deeply relax.
Letting all tension in the body melt away into the ground.
Allowing yourself to just be as you are for a few moments.
I hope you enjoy this practice of allowing and making space for your feelings and emotions.
Holding them with compassion and kindness.
Remember the more that we resist emotions,
The more they persist actually.
So by simply allowing,
Breathing with them and being with their emotions,
They actually begin to lose their power over us.
It's almost like it allows us to digest and process the feeling.
And we begin to notice that space,
That pause,
Even if it's a little one,
Where we can respond instead of react.
This talk in meditation is a lesson that's drawn from my course,
Finding Calm Within.
So if you'd like to explore more or a little deeper,
Giving time for safety and steadiness and compassion,
You're welcome to have a look at the course.
Thank you.
