Working With Strong Emotions

There are a number of different ways we can work with strong emotions, rather than expressing them in ways that we wish we hadn't. We start this meditation by finding our foundation in our bodies and connecting with the earth, and then we explore some practices to work skillfully with strong emotions, learning to be with them, allow them to move through the body, and then release naturally.

Transcript

There are a number of different ways that we can work with strong emotion in order to allow it and not express it in ways that we wish we hadn't.

So we'll practice some of those skills today and then we'll come back to kind of a quiet space at the end.

And one of the really so important resources for being with emotion is what we practice every day,

Which is connecting to the earth.

Letting your breath bring you into your body and find your sense of having a foundation.

Connecting to the earth.

You might put down roots into the earth if that's a useful way of feeling the connection for you.

Feel the earth rising up to support you.

Whatever manner of feeling the steadiness of connecting to the earth,

Whatever way is available to you,

That you can practice frequently and go there in a difficult moment.

You know,

Something that you call on so often during the day that even in a difficult time you can find it is a wonderful resource to cultivate.

When we're connected to the earth we can exhale and release into the earth anything that needs to be released.

And that's not to push away something,

But sometimes we pick up other people's emotions or sometimes it's just too much passing through and we just need to release some of it.

We can exhale down into the earth.

And so you might just do that right now,

Just on your exhale,

Long slow exhale,

Releasing into the earth anything that wants to be released.

And that's not a mental process.

You don't have to pick which thing you're releasing.

It's just a felt sense.

There's this flow through the body down toward the earth.

And coming into your bones,

The bones of the feet and the legs and the pelvis,

Feel the steadiness that's right here inside of you.

The bones resonating with the earth.

You might notice just now that the lower portion of the body actually feels heavier or more dense than the upper part.

As you really focus your attention in the bones.

And now breathing up from your foundation,

Breathe up through your center,

Up to the heart space.

And from the heart space,

Breathe out into the arms,

Down the arms and through the fingers.

And in the upper body,

We're finding space,

Opening space.

Breathe from the heart up to the crown of the head.

Feel the space behind you.

Let your back open into the space behind you.

And feel the space all around you.

If you'd like to bring to mind a relationship or a situation with a person that has brought up some difficult feelings,

Then let yourself remember that right now.

And let those feelings arise in your body.

And just really track carefully what happens inside.

Is there contraction?

Is there something that becomes more solid in you?

A barrier or wall that goes up?

And whatever it is,

Allow it to be as it is.

Just tracking it.

This is how your system has learned to cope with strong emotion.

Either trying to protect yourself from it or hold it down or tighten up around it.

There's nothing wrong about this.

Often we learn these methods in childhood just as a way of surviving.

And so meeting it with compassion all the times in your life that you've suffered in this particular way.

This is the pattern that's evolved as a way of coping with it.

Holding yourself in compassion for all those times that this feeling has been present in you.

And just notice if you're able to do that,

If you're able to bring compassionate presence to this feeling.

Can you track the effect that that has?

Does anything shift inside?

And just letting yourself feel what this feels like in your body.

You can let go of any story or content at this point and just be present with it in your body.

Being willing to be intimate with this feeling,

To honor it by being present with it.

You might even notice that you're recognizing that it has roots in earlier experience.

If that kind of memory or image arises,

Just recognize it.

Allow that to be here.

Keep coming back to the sensation in the body.

We're so conditioned to flee,

To run away from difficult emotional sensations.

But if we really stay,

We can notice that we actually do have some capacity to be with strong emotion.

If an emotion feels too strong,

It feels like,

No I can't do this.

There are a number of ways that help us to stay without just shutting it down.

So one is to shift your attention to a part of your body that isn't feeling this sensation.

For instance,

Your feet or your bones and your legs.

Really shift your attention to a place where you can find some stability and some relief from this sensation.

And just stay there a minute.

It's just like taking a little break.

Let yourself feel the steadiness.

And then when you're ready,

Come back to the emotion again.

Come back to allow the sensation of the emotion.

It's waiting for you.

And just to comment that you can go back and forth between the emotion and the neutral place again and again,

As a way of staying with strong emotion.

A different skill is to allow the emotion as much space as it needs,

Instead of holding it tightly in one place in your body.

Sense that it has fluidity and it can spread out.

It can spread out even into the space around you.

We are permeable.

Our body is permeable for the energy of emotion.

It's not a solid thing inside of us.

It's energy moving through.

And again,

We're not pushing it out.

We're just giving it the space and honoring it by letting it stay.

Sense the space behind your back.

And if you've stayed for quite some time and you really feel like,

Okay,

I'm really ready to move on from this right now.

You don't have to do all the work at one time.

It will be back,

Right?

So you can do the long,

Slow exhale,

Breathing into the earth with more of an intention to release.

When an emotion arises within us,

There's a physiological response in the body.

The whole central nervous system is involved.

And you can picture a curve in your mind that goes like up the mountain to the peak and then it starts to come the other side of the mountain.

And what we want to do is stay,

Stay,

Stay until that we're all the way down that mountain.

Until there's a sense of it's completely moved through.

So often in life what happens is when we're going up the mountain,

We say,

No,

No,

I don't want to go there.

And we kind of just push it down.

You can just have this image that from the part way up the side of the mountain,

You just dig a hole and bury it right there.

And then that gets held in your body.

But when we let that sensation,

That wave of emotion go all the way up and over the mountain and come to completion,

Then there's nothing that gets buried away.

So just checking in with yourself right now.

Where is that wave?

Does it feel like it's coming down the side of the mountain?

Does it feel like it's come to completion?

When you get to the point of it feels complete now.

Just continuing to breathe through the body.

I'd have a feeling of gratitude that this amazing intricate body,

Heart,

Mind,

Energy system has this capacity to metabolize all of our experience.

I just want to name a couple of other resources when emotion is really strong,

When things are really difficult.

Sometimes it is too much to do it alone.

There's a very powerful and important part of our system which is wired into our face.

And when we look at another person's face who's looking at us kindly,

It has a extraordinary impact on how we are organized within ourselves.

Just now if you picture the face of someone who loves you and you trust to be kind to you,

You just picture their face in your mind.

You might even be able to track that that has an imprint in your body.

We're social creatures and our social system does much to heal us.

In the same way calling on the spiritual connection,

Experiencing that in whatever way you do as a felt-sense presence or as an image through words.

And so for these last few minutes,

If there's anything that you're processing,

Just can just really turning toward resource at this point.

Whatever resource is supportive to you.

Holding yourself with compassion.

Breathing through the whole body.

Feeling the space around you.

Feeling the earth beneath you.

With gratitude for the capacity of this body,

Heart,

Mind.

And this capacity allows us to experience this life in all its richness.

Not to flee from experience but to be willing to let everything happen to us.

Let everything flow through,

To be touched,

To be opened up.

Keep your eye on the wounded place.

That is where the light gets in.

Thank you for your practice today.

I wish you a day in presence.