Welcome,
And thank you for joining me.
My name is Mayana Gethers,
And I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and creator of Original Guided Meditations.
I am grateful to share space with you as we explore through meditation the process of sitting with difficult emotions.
Our relationship with our emotions can be a tenuous one,
As feelings can sometimes be experienced as overwhelming.
Our natural desire to avoid feelings that are painful is a behavior that many of us will participate in.
However,
Our emotions are meant to inform us.
The process of learning to hold space for these emotions is a valuable exercise that we can integrate into our daily practice.
I invite you to take a deep breath in and out as you allow your body to settle.
As your breath moves at a slowed,
Relaxed pace,
Close your eyes if you desire.
Take a moment to rotate your neck,
Relax your face,
Release your shoulders,
And unclench your hands.
Open your body for any other areas of tension.
Move your breath into these areas,
Allowing the oxygen to move in and out of the tension,
Supporting release.
Now we will deepen our breath.
Bring your breath in through your nose,
Hold,
And release.
Again,
We will bring the breath in through the nose,
Hold,
And release.
And once again,
In through the nose,
Hold,
And release.
Allow your breath to move at a pace that supports your comfort as we contemplate sitting with difficult emotions.
In this life,
There will be conflict.
There will be misunderstandings.
Sometimes things will not go your way.
In other words,
You will experience negative feelings such as anger,
Frustration,
Sadness,
Or disappointment.
We may find ourselves spending time trying to ignore the bad feelings that creep in.
And while we may call them negative feelings,
I would actually call them necessary feelings.
It is these feelings that inform us how to move forward and how to care for ourselves.
They are a touchpoint to let us know that something is not working for us.
They are the reasonable responses to our experiences.
What does it mean to truly acknowledge and validate all of our feelings?
Ultimately,
This is an opportunity for us to call on our most empowered self.
Our most empowered self is the state of being in which we feel connected to ourselves.
We know who we are,
What we like,
What is important to us,
Our values,
Our needs,
And our pleasures.
It is an acceptance of our personalities.
It is also the belief that we are allowed to feel our feelings and meet our needs.
It is not the absence of difficult feelings such as loneliness,
Fear,
Or rage.
It is acceptance of these feelings and the conscious action of tending to them.
It is the recognition that if you were triggered that day and are having anxiety,
You are deserving of empathy,
Love,
And care for those feelings in a constructive way.
Accessing your most empowered self includes this mantra,
I am worthy of taking care of myself.
What we find is that when we address these feelings,
When we allow them to have space,
We are able to move through them,
Which ultimately leads to their release.
When we tell ourselves that our feelings are ridiculous,
Such as,
It's stupid to be mad,
Then we have convinced ourselves that we should not have these feelings.
In doing this,
We lead ourselves on a path of not addressing them.
Instead,
We push those feelings down,
We stuff them.
How can we care for our feelings if we do not admit that they exist?
Our negative self-messages,
The messages we have internalized from our experiences,
Other people,
And traumas,
Reinforce this idea that we are not worthy of our authentic feelings.
This often leads to the avoidance of our more difficult feelings.
When you find yourself in this place,
Wanting to avoid these feelings,
Or wanting to distract yourself from what you are experiencing,
I encourage you to engage in these steps.
First,
Identify the feeling,
Such as,
I am feeling anxious.
Then reflect on the feeling.
Why am I feeling anxious right now?
Thus allowing yourself to deepen your understanding of what brought the feeling on.
Now validate the feeling.
I have the right to have this feeling.
I was reminded of something challenging and this is my authentic response.
Then ask yourself,
What do I need right now?
Answer that question,
And then move to engage with your determined need,
Such as,
I need to take a walk and get some air.
Through this process,
There has been an identification of the feeling,
Insight into why the feeling exists,
Validation that it is okay to have the feeling,
And then action intending to the feeling through meeting your need.
When we take these steps,
We move away from avoidance and directly into addressing our necessary feelings.
One of the most important steps in this process is the validation of the feeling.
When we do not validate the feeling,
We cannot accurately identify what we need.
If we have convinced ourselves that even though we may feel anxious at this moment,
We actually shouldn't,
Then our action step will most likely be to ignore the feeling.
The challenge then becomes that ignoring our feelings will mean we continue to have the feeling.
We won't be able to move past the anxiety of that moment.
When we validate our true,
Authentic feeling,
Our ability to meet the needs skyrockets,
And this is one step closer to operating from our most empowered self.
Let us shift our perception of the role of difficult feelings in our life.
We are worthy of the spectrum of our authentic emotions.
They serve an important role,
And yes,
They are sometimes uncomfortable or painful.
However,
Avoiding them does not decrease their painfulness,
But rather has us spending extra energy on keeping them tucked away.
The more that we push down and avoid,
The more likely that those feelings will find a way out,
Oozing out of the cracks,
Showing up in unexpected ways,
Compromising our health,
Or creating outbursts that feel destructive.
Sometimes we give ourselves the message that we do not have time for these feelings,
And that we are doing ourselves a favor by not feeling them.
Yet,
The amount of work it takes to not feel is tremendous.
The amount of space that this takes in our minds and bodies is enormous.
We often feel such a huge sense of relief when we take the steps to sit with our most difficult feelings.
The practice of sitting with these feelings is part of our healing process.
The path of healing is not linear.
We often ping back and forth,
Up and down,
And circle back around.
At times,
This can be a frustrating undertaking,
Having to remind yourself that a bad day does not mean that all of your hard work has been for nothing,
But rather a part of the healing process.
Reminder,
There is no going backwards.
We cannot unlearn what we have worked hard at learning.
Yet,
We are consistently met with obstacles in our environment and in ourselves that may feel familiar to past feelings.
When we can reflect that these feelings are similar,
Then we can acknowledge that we have built awareness around them and reflect on our needs.
In sitting with our necessary feelings,
Affirmations can be supportive of this process,
Reminding ourselves that my feelings are valid.
I can do hard things.
I am worthy of feeling the spectrum of emotions.
Difficult feelings are necessary feelings that I am worthy of expressing.
We access empowerment through the expression of our feelings.
Thank you for sharing space with me today as we explore this important topic.
I wish you well.
