So let's begin.
Settle in a comfortable position.
You can go to a quiet space.
I will take a pause so that we all have time to get settled.
As you are sitting in this comfortable position,
Make sure that your spine is erect.
Finding the stillness within you.
Now,
Close your eyes.
If you feel uncomfortable in closing your eyes,
Then you can just lower your gaze and see 2 or 3 feet in front of you.
So,
Take your time to close your eyes or lower your gaze.
Now,
Turn your attention and notice how are you feeling right now.
There might be multiple emotions that you are feeling.
So,
Choose the one that is the most prominent right now.
What is the most dominant emotion that you are feeling right now?
So,
You can close your eyes or you can keep them open and just check in with yourself as to what you are feeling right now.
What is that emotion?
Take your time.
And once you are able to name the emotion,
It's nice to like note down so that after the practices we can see whether there was some change or not.
So,
Now we know that what is the emotion we are feeling,
Right?
Where we are at right now.
So,
Let's see what is the intensity of that emotion.
I invite you to rate on a scale of 0 to 100.
Okay?
100% means that you are feeling that emotion with the extreme intensity.
For example,
Elena is feeling frustration then 100% would be like the most frustrated she has ever been.
Okay?
And 0 would be like it doesn't affect her at all.
So,
On a scale of 0 to 100,
What is the intensity of the emotion that you are feeling currently?
Take your time.
Just sense within yourself what is that intensity.
So,
Now let's begin the practice.
Breathe in.
1,
2,
3,
4.
Breathe out.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8.
Breathe in.
1,
2,
3,
4.
Breathe out.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8.
Breathe in.
1,
2,
3,
4.
Breathe out.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8.
Breathe in.
1,
2,
3,
4.
Breathe out.
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8.
Now continue to breathe in this manner on your own.
You can count till 4 and till 8 in your own mind.
If you get distracted by any external noise,
Then again bring your focus to the breath and continue to breathe with the counting.
Okay.
Wonderful.
You did amazing.
So now I invite you to check in again with yourself.
What is the emotion that you are feeling right now?
Just notice how are you feeling right now?
Notice if there is any other new emotion that has arosen within you.
And if the emotion is the same then notice has there been any change in the intensity of the emotion?
So you can read again on the scale of 0 to 100 if you are still feeling that same emotion that you were feeling at the start.
Okay.
So now let's come back.
Notice the surface beneath you.
Feel your weight on that surface.
Now notice the sounds in your surrounding.
Now whenever you feel ready you can gently open your eyes.
Very good.
We just practiced 1 is to 2 breathing.
Now I would love to hear what was the emotion that you were feeling?
Like was it the same emotion?
What was the intensity before?
And what is the intensity now?
And if there was any kind of new emotion then I would love to hear like what are you feeling currently?
Okay.
Wonderful.
Let's continue.
Let me give you the basic of any breathing technique.
Okay.
So when we inhale what happens is we are activating that system of ours that is the stress response system,
Flight or fight system.
Okay.
And it is not like bad system.
It helps us to survive when we are in danger.
It helps us to feel more energetic.
Okay.
So when we are inhaling then we activate that system.
When we are exhaling we activate the parasympathetic system which is known as rest and digest.
So it helps us feel calm.
It helps us feel grounded safe and all those feelings.
Okay.
So both are important.
So in this practice what we did was we breathed in for 4.
Right.
And we exhaled for double the time.
So it activated that calm response within us.
Because that is what happens when we exhale for long.
Secondly,
So when we know that this is what is happening inside of us.
Then this breathing ground us enough to give us a choice whether I want to react impulsively out of these emotions or whether I feel like you know experiencing or feeling those emotions which we didn't cover today.
But that is one such aspect.
Okay.
So if the emotions are overwhelming for you then we don't go for feeling our feelings directly because it feels like intolerable.
Like we cannot tolerate that intensity of emotions.
So at those times we practice these kind of strategies.
So this one was based on the breath.
Okay.
And there can be n number of strategies grounding practices.
So we can use any strategy to lower the intensity to certain level so that it is manageable enough so that we can now get in touch with our feelings.
Because our usual default mode is suppress the feeling.
Any unpleasantness arise,
Suppress it and you know distract ourselves with something else.
Or we either get like too indulged in it.
So we are drowning in that emotion.
So these are kind of our default modes.
But if the emotion is overwhelming,
If the intensity is above 50% which we got to know about after becoming mindful of our breath.
Right.
So if the intensity is above 50% practice those strategies and then feel the feelings.
Okay.
And even during feeling the feelings if the intensity rises or if you start feel overwhelmed then again practice those strategies.
When you feel a bit settled again come to feeling your feelings.
Okay.
And if the intensity is below 50% then you can like go directly to feeling your feelings.
Okay.
Since I mentioned feeling your feelings multiple times now and some of you might be like what is that?
How do I feel my feelings without drowning in them?
So I have like two courses.
Reflective prompts for mindfulness.
So I have made a guided meditation in the last lesson of that course.
Okay.
And in my other course,
A therapist guide to acceptance in that there is second last lesson.
So these both lessons guides you through the process of how to sit with your emotions,
How to feel your feelings,
How to process your emotions.
Yeah.
So that's where like you can go if you want to learn how to feel your feelings.
Because most of the time what happens is that we use these kind of coping strategies to avoid our feelings.
What we do is if we are feeling anxious we practice breathing to relax.
But that's not our motive.
We want to just bring the intensity of anxiety down to such a level that we can be with the anxiety.
Anxiety is not your enemy actually.
Yes,
It feels very unpleasant and yes,
I don't usually refer to emotions as negative.
Because they are not negative.
They have a positive intention.
They have information for us.
Okay.
It is trying to convey something to us.
And when we feel our feelings,
When we sit with them,
When we get to know our emotions,
Then we get to have that message.
Okay.
For example,
Anger.
You know,
Anger is an unpleasant emotion.
It is not a negative emotion.
It is telling you that some injustice has happened to you.
Something unjust has happened to you right now.
Your boundaries have been violated.
Something has happened that is not fair.
And that is what that emotion is trying to convey to us.
And we need to take action not by shouting but actually seeing the scenario and then responding mindfully.
Okay.
That's it for today's session.
I hope that you found it helpful in some manner.
And thank you for joining me and being with me here.
Bye-bye.
Namaste.
