Welcome to this practice of the doorway of imagination for difficult emotions.
Taking a little time to settle into a comfortable,
Supported position.
You might close your eyes or simply soften your gaze.
Letting yourself arrive here.
Even noticing a tendency to hold yourself up off the surface that you're on.
A couple of breaths really fully allowing yourself to sink into the support of the surface that you're on.
Knowing that there's nothing you need to achieve in this meditation.
Not even making yourself feel better.
Not even getting rid of anything difficult.
For this little time we're simply going to practice being gently present with whatever is here.
Because it is here.
Maybe just for the duration of the meditation.
You could try flipping your probable usual.
It shouldn't be like this.
To This is perfect.
This is exactly how it should be right now.
A big ask.
But are you up for this experiment?
Just for a little while.
Taking your attention into your body and again feeling the places where your body is supported.
Contact of your body with the surfaces underneath.
The sense of gravity.
Noticing your breathing.
No need to change it.
Sensing the movement of the breath perhaps in your nostrils or chest or belly.
Perhaps the gentle rhythm of the whole body moving a little with the breath.
Perhaps there's some warmth or coolness in the breath.
Movement,
Stillness.
Pressure or tightness.
All looseness.
Nothing to change.
Just allowing yourself to be familiar with a felt sense of being here breathing.
Now if there is a difficult emotion present for you today,
You might gently bring your attention towards it.
It doesn't have to be a big emotion.
In fact,
If you're new to this practice,
It's maybe best to choose something relatively manageable.
Perhaps some irritation,
Some sadness.
Worry.
Loneliness,
Disappointment,
Fear.
It's okay to be a vague,
Undefinable kind of feeling.
And it's okay if there isn't any difficult emotion.
You can stay with the body and breath and.
.
.
Let the words wash over you.
If there is an emotion.
Just for the duration of this meditation can let go of the story about it.
No need to think about why you're feeling this way.
No need to work out who or what caused it and sometimes this is useful but right now can you drop the story?
Instead can you become curious about the emotion as a physical experience in the body?
You might even scan your body for sensations.
Perhaps there's a tightness in the throat.
Heat in the face.
Heaviness in the chest or a sinking feeling in the belly.
Maybe there's a sense of pressure somewhere or trembling,
Fluttering.
Or nothing,
Emptiness,
Numbness.
Just noticing.
If there's a lot to notice you may go to the most intense area to make it a little bit more manageable to work with.
And rather than trying to push the feeling away,
Can you make a little space around it?
Whatever that means to you.
Can you imagine that you're holding this feeling very gently?
So you are holding something delicate in cupped hands.
Not gripping it Not trying to fix it.
Just holding it.
Can you know that you are not the emotion?
There is the emotion.
There's also the awareness that knows the emotion is here.
You bring a bit of extra awareness towards the emotion.
A little brightness.
A little aliveness.
A little steadiness.
So that the emotion doesn't have to fill the whole of your awareness.
There's the difficult feeling.
And there's also this larger space of awareness around it.
This metaphor might help some.
You might imagine that your awareness is like a spacious room.
Emotions that is something that has entered the room.
You don't have to throw it out.
But you don't have to let it take over the whole room either.
And now very gently.
You might become aware of whether any image comes to you.
Interestingly when we're feeling emotion this sometimes frees the mind to the door of the imagination.
You don't need to create one,
You don't need to strain to visualise.
Sometimes an image simply appears,
Constellates.
Maybe visual.
But it also could be something else,
Could be auditory or more of a felt sense image.
Maybe it's a person,
A being.
Could be something quite weird.
Could be something quite lovely.
Maybe an animal.
A landscape.
Sound.
Color.
A doorway.
Feeling of melting.
A light.
Or perhaps something quite unexpected and random.
And if nothing comes at all,
That's absolutely fine.
Just staying with a felt sense of the emotion in your body.
And I'll be quiet for a few moments,
Just.
To give you a chance to trust the intelligence of the psyche.
Giving it that invitation to allow an image to arise.
If an image does arise,
There's no need to ask what it means.
You don't have to interpret it.
You might just become curious about what happens in you when this image is here.
What happens in your body?
Something softens or opens.
Warms up.
Maybe there's a sense of tenderness.
Or contraction.
Maybe a sadness,
A fear,
A longing,
Or comfort.
Just noticing.
If there is an image you might gently allow it to be there and allow the emotion to be there.
And kind of notice the relationship between them.
Particularly noticing if the image brings a quality that feels supportive.
Maybe a kindness,
A strength,
A warmth,
A protection,
Companionship,
Spaciousness.
We're not manufacturing any of these qualities,
We're just noticing if there's one already present in the image.
And if there is some supportive quality maybe tenderness or kindness here Can you allow a little more of it to be here?
This next bit's really important,
This is not to get rid of the difficult emotion,
It doesn't have to disappear.
Instead if there is some kind of quality of perhaps tenderness we want to bring it into contact with the difficult emotion.
Maybe like a warm light falling around something that has been hurting.
You might even silently give a message to the emotion.
It's okay to be here.
Or perhaps.
.
.
I don't need to fix this right now.
No action required.
Or perhaps simply,
I'm here.
Course using your own words if they emerge.
Just noticing what happens,
Perhaps nothing that's fine.
Perhaps the emotion becomes stronger for a little while,
That's okay too.
Perhaps it softens or moves or spreads or becomes less defined or even transforms into something else.
Can you stay curious?
Can you let your system know you're not trying to make anything happen?
You might even practice this simple movement.
Feel.
Open.
Allow.
Feel.
Open And now.
.
.
At any point that these instructions are not appropriate,
You can just let them go.
Return to the breath or the feeling of contact of your body with whatever surface it's on.
But perhaps now you can notice that you can be intimately close to an emotion without being overwhelmed by it.
There can be sadness and awareness.
Fear and awareness.
Anger.
And awareness.
Pain and awareness.
The difficult emotion can be here.
And something spacious and steady can be here too.
For the last few moments letting go of the image if there's one perhaps thanking it,
Perhaps giving it permission to return sometime if that's helpful.
And letting go of the emotion as something that you're working with.
Coming back to the body.
Feeling the surface beneath you.
Your feet.
Your hands.
Your breath.
The space that you're in.
Perhaps there's a recognition that nothing needed to be solved.
Simply spend some time changing your relationship with a difficult experience.
Maybe you allowed yourself to be close to it.
Without pushing it away.
And without allowing it to take over you,
To become everything.
And if either of those things happened.
That's not a failure.
It's just information.
I might practice this again on something that's maybe a little lower level.
See what happens.
And now taking a slow,
Comfortable breath in and out.
And when you're ready,
You might gently bring in a little bit of light into the eyes.
Keeping a soft gaze as you take in the space around you.
Moving the body a little.
Perhaps even bringing a sense of spaciousness or kind awareness with you as you continue with your day.
Thank you.
