Okay so this mindfulness practice is about exploring emotions.
Not to manufacture emotions,
Just a practice that you can use when an emotion is present,
Is prominent for you or has perhaps been prominent in your life recently and you'd like to use memory or whatever to bring it back into your experience.
But exploring emotions can be positive or negative.
In a mindfulness sense an emotion is neither positive or negative,
It's just information.
You might want to take a moment to decide where you'd like to go,
If particularly if distress arises,
If you find exploring an emotion is distressing in any way.
What's your anchor,
What's your place to come back to,
Where do you turn your attention so that you can maintain that sense of inner harmony.
You might want to identify a particular emotion to work with or you can just simply see what arises and just know that there may be nothing at all and that too is your perfect experience.
Trusting your experience as it is.
Okay we'll get started so take a moment perhaps just taking a few fully conscious breaths,
Long slow deep breaths.
Just feeling the rise and fall of your body with your breath.
Knowing that the breath can be something to bring you directly back to the present moment.
If that works for you,
Otherwise staying with what you know does work for you.
Just wanting to bring your system into a sense of calm.
Run through the senses,
Just keep them wide open so that you're receiving information.
Just being receptive and open.
Touching,
Tasting,
Smelling,
Hearing,
Seeing,
Even if your eyes are closed and they can be opened or closed.
Just keep taking yourself to what gives you a sense of comfort and ease.
Tone the nervous system a little bit just by scanning around the body.
If that feels okay for you,
Notice the sensation in your mouth,
The jaw,
The ears,
The eyes,
The nose,
The whole face,
The scalp,
Top of the head,
Inside the head,
Your whole head.
A sensation,
Neck,
Throat,
Shoulder blades,
Tops of the shoulders,
Left arm,
Right arm,
Left hand,
Right hand,
Both hands at the same time,
Both arms at the same time,
The left side of your torso,
The right side of your torso,
The front,
The back,
The floor of your torso,
Both hips,
Upper legs,
Backs of the knees,
Shins and calves,
Ankles,
Tops of the feet,
Ten toes and the soles of your feet,
Left leg,
Right leg,
All together,
Legs and torso,
Arms,
Neck and head,
The whole body as sensation.
Just scanning your experience,
Noticing what's present.
This field of sensation,
Just allowing whatever is coming and going within your field of consciousness,
Setting it free to be here,
Knowing that you have an anchor to return to at any time,
Internally or using an external object.
If you brought with you to the practice a particular emotion that you'd like to work with,
Just bring it to mind now,
Perhaps a memory of a situation when you've experienced it,
Or perhaps just feeling it as it arises in this moment,
Already present.
It can be so-called positive or negative and if there is nothing for you,
Just stay with your present experience,
Just noticing what is most calling your attention.
But if there is an emotion there,
Notice how it resides in the body.
Where does it live?
Is there a particular place in the body where this emotion resides?
And what characteristics does it have?
Does it have a color,
A shape?
Is it spiky or contracted,
Tight,
Smooth,
Rough,
Soft,
Light?
Just explore for yourself your own experience of this emotion and how it lives in your body.
You may like to imagine what it would look like if it walked into a room.
What form would it take?
And now if it feels okay for you,
Just see that emotion as if it were out in front of you.
Know yourself as the observer of the emotion.
Does it have anything that it would like to say to you?
Does it need or does it want?
How would you respond?
And if you'd like to,
Feel yourself once again as the emotion,
Fused with that emotion,
The sensation of that emotion in your body.
And then if it feels helpful,
Step back as if you were observing the emotion.
And wander back and forth in your own time,
In your own pace.
Stepping into the emotion,
Being fused with it.
And then stepping away,
Disidentified,
Observing the emotion.
Just exploring your relationship with this emotion.
Back and forth.
And then like you are opening the aperture on a camera,
Just allowing both.
Both the sensation of this emotion and where it lives in the body and the feeling of being the observer of this emotion.
That's two things at the same time.
Awareness broad enough to allow them both.
And then some space around them.
Notice how this impacts your body and mind.
Just allowing yourself to reintegrate in whatever way feels harmonious and helpful for you.
Just checking in to see whether there is an intention towards this emotion that you'd like to take with you from the practice.
See what arises from that natural intelligence within you.
Just listening deeply.
And then welcoming your experience just as it is in this moment.
Nothing to fix or change.
Nothing to do.
Nowhere to be.
Just this openness,
This welcoming.
And start to welcome back information from the senses.
Feeling the supports beneath you.
Hearing the sounds far away and closer to you.
Just experiencing your sense of taste.
Noticing whether there's anything that you're tasting in your mouth.
And anything that you might be detecting as a scent in the air.
Just welcoming everything just as it is.
And when you're ready,
If your eyes aren't already open,
Just blinking them opened and closed a couple of times.
As you reintegrate your internal world with your external world.
Just finding your way back into the rest of your day.
Gratitude that you've taken the time to listen in.
To this emotion that's a part of your experience.
Thank you for practicing.
