Get soft and steady,
Slow and secure,
Heavy,
Even light,
Slowing down,
Taking stock with a generous awareness of your body,
Your mind,
Your spirit,
Your conscience.
How are you?
What's there as you come into the meditation?
What's your agenda,
Consciously or unconsciously?
Breathing in,
Letting your thoughts become less structured or rigid and begin to unspool,
Become diffuse,
A little bit scattered.
Like a pleasant daydream state or just before falling asleep,
Let your mind wander into those unusual spaces.
Letting go,
Setting aside whatever was before this meditation and putting aside anything that will come next,
Just being here to meditate.
Take a moment perhaps to thank yourself for giving yourself time to meditate and maybe let that come to the surface in a gentle smile with gratitude for this time that you are giving.
Thinking into your feet or your chair or couch or bed,
Floor,
Wherever you are doing this meditation,
Just fall into that container,
That holding space.
Do less work,
Make less effort.
Feel the whoosh and the polyphony of sounds around you,
Mechanical sounds,
Human sounds,
Other animal sounds,
Planes,
Cars,
Whatever they might be.
Let all the sounds flow through you and when you get distracted they could be a touchstone to return to this moment.
When you get distracted you can follow my voice or redirect your thoughts to breathing or the sensations of your body inside your skin,
The volume of it and its mass.
Whatever helps you return from distraction as will happen regularly.
Maybe you start breathing in deeper,
Out slower and using the breath to open up spaces that are tight,
Whether it's a spine,
Shoulder,
Joints,
Your face,
Whatever is clenched.
You could direct your inhale to release that,
Not forcing,
Just inviting.
This meditation will address some difficult feelings and experiences.
You can go as deeply or as shallowly as you'd like,
Going into an actual experience or an actual feeling or just a sensation,
Or you can just listen and process it at another time.
We're going to go under the skin of anger,
To what's really going on bit by bit,
Like peeling a fruit or an onion.
If it gets challenging,
Just take deep breaths and come back when you feel safe and comfortable or stop at any time.
And if you stick around,
I think this could lead somewhere good,
A small releasing and letting go.
Breathing,
Sinking in,
Slowing down.
When you hear the word anger,
What do you associate it with?
An experience,
A sensation,
Thoughts,
Words,
Your pulse,
A rhythm.
What comes up for you when you think about anger in its most general way?
Start by acknowledging the sensations,
The thoughts,
The feelings that come up.
Give them your generous awareness and attention.
Look at them from the side or maybe outside.
Maybe you find a little compassion or sympathy for your own anger.
Breathe into it all,
Everything that's coming up,
Just let it get softer.
Be okay with it,
It's normal,
Healthy,
And sometimes useful to be angry.
If you start to clench up or get tense or anxious thinking about anger,
Extract yourself,
Abstract it,
Look at it from the outside as if it was in a book,
Just words.
Come back to my voice and your breathing and your body,
You're safe.
Let's go a little deeper,
A little inward below the anger,
Underneath it.
Might there be a resentment?
Something you want or wanted that another person can't provide?
Something you thought was going to happen,
But hasn't happened yet,
May never happen?
A forgiveness you're waiting for,
An apology,
A resolution?
Do you notice a resentment below the anger?
How do you feel when you think about resentment generally or specifically?
Thoughts,
Sensations,
What comes up,
What do you notice?
Let your mind drift around the experience as if you could be a neutral observer with impartial attention.
Resentment,
What's that all about?
Breathe.
You'll get distracted,
You'll get tense,
Just breathe.
Feel heavy.
You're still here,
You're still safe.
Let's go a little deeper again,
Under the anger,
Under the resentment.
Perhaps there was something like expectation.
You wanted something to happen.
You thought something could happen.
You believed a thing that may not be,
Expected something from someone that they cannot do,
Or even something from yourself that you don't have,
Not yet.
Breathe into that expectation,
That sense of longing and yearning.
You wanted it so badly.
It's okay.
It's very natural to want things to yearn,
Part of the human condition.
It's often a good thing,
But it can't always be fulfilled.
Breathing.
Allowing yourself to have anger and resentment and expectation,
That those are parts of life that you wouldn't really want to avoid if you could.
Something to learn from.
Letting it be.
Settling,
Falling into quiet and stillness,
And maybe in spite of the odds,
Smiling a little.
Below the anger,
Underneath the resentment,
Under the expectation,
Is there fear?
Fear of how it might all turn out.
Fear that there won't be enough,
Or you won't be enough.
Fear that you might not have the answers.
You might not get the answers.
Check in with yourself.
Do you feel that anywhere?
A fear that you can't solve the problem,
Or that the problem is not solvable at all,
But just is?
Relative to anger,
Resentment,
And expectation,
Where do you hold fear?
Deeper?
Lower?
More interiorly?
At your extremities?
What do you notice?
Fear keeps humans alive.
Respect it.
Honor it.
You don't have to live there.
You can be aware of it.
Show yourself grace.
You are alive because you have learned fear.
It is necessary,
Not always useful.
Breathe.
Think deep.
Let it all in,
And then maybe start to let it release a little at a time.
The anger,
The resentment,
The expectation,
The fear.
When you let those sensations drift off,
Maybe at the root of it all,
There's a sadness.
A grief that things aren't as you believed them to be.
Life isn't what you imagined it would be.
The world is not created to answer your needs.
That is a sadness.
Behind all the longing and all the rage,
Let it be there.
Natural and beloved.
Making you a more expansive,
Compassionate person.
Use the remaining moments to let go.
Separate the anger,
The resentment,
The expectation,
Fear,
Sadness.
Those are real feelings.
Those are important feelings.
You don't need to hold on to them.
You can just let them exist.
And not live inside them,
But live with them.
Breathing into that.
And come back when you're ready.
