Hello,
My name is Evan and today I'm going to be leading you in emotional focus meditation.
This is a meditation I sort of stumbled upon in a Buddhism book I was reading and I wanted to teach you all how to do it.
So the goal of emotional focus meditation is to bring up emotions that we might be scared of in our daily lives,
Such as anger,
Such as lust,
Such as fear.
And we're going to bring up these emotions by thinking about a person or a situation that makes us feel this way.
And then we're going to focus on how it feels to feel that emotion.
So we're going to conjure up these thoughts that make us feel angry,
For example.
And then we're going to let those thoughts go and just focus on the feeling of anger.
So the goal of this meditation is just to be comfortable feeling negative emotions and to practice accepting negative emotions and to practice being with negative emotions without fueling them through thought.
Fueling them through thought.
That's something we do very,
Very often.
So we like to perpetuate our feelings of anger and lust and fear through thought.
So first,
Let's start off by just taking a few deep breaths,
Breathing through your nose if possible.
Just take a few deep breaths,
Breathing in as much as you can into your lungs,
Into your stomach,
Breathing in as much as you can and then breathing out as much as you can,
Pushing out that last little bit of air.
So just take some time now to take a few deep breaths.
Now let's bring up a thought about a person or about a situation or about something that makes us angry.
Let's picture that person in our mind or that situation in our mind and just allow it to make you feel angry.
Allow yourself to feel angry by focusing on this thought.
Notice how your body begins to feel.
Does your breath speed up?
Does your body become hot or cold?
Does the tension in your body increase?
If your attention wanders,
Bring it back to this thought that makes you angry and back to the feeling of anger in your body.
Pay attention to any other emotions you might feel combined with the anger.
Is there disgust?
Is there sadness?
Is there fear?
Just focusing on how our body feels as we feel angry.
Now I want you to let the thought go.
Whatever thought you've been thinking about,
About a person or a situation that makes you angry,
Let it go.
Just let it go and focus on the feeling of anger in your body.
Just focus on the feeling.
And ask yourself,
Who am I without these thoughts?
Without the thoughts to cause or perpetuate anger,
What does the anger feel like?
How does it feel to be angry?
Let's just sit with our anger for a moment now.
If our attention wanders,
Bringing it back to the feeling of anger.
And now I want you to let that feeling go.
As you exhale,
Relaxing your body.
Let it go.
Just take a few seconds to breathe.
Now I want you to think about something,
A person or a situation that makes you feel lustful.
Sexual desire.
A person or a situation or a thought.
Picture it in our mind.
Let's allow it to bring up this feeling of lust in our body.
Lust is a feeling that is not very socially acceptable.
So we tend to repress it and hide it.
Let's focus on this thought now and focus on the feeling of lust in our body.
How does it feel?
Is there tension?
Do we feel lighter?
Do you feel hot?
Does your heart start to race?
Does your breathing increase?
Whatever it may be,
Just be aware.
No judgment.
Just aware.
Just focusing on this thought that makes us lustful.
And focusing on the feeling of lust in our body.
If your attention starts to wander,
Bringing it back to the feeling of lust into whatever thought makes you feel lustful.
And now let's let go of the thought that we were focusing on.
Just focus on the feeling of lust in our body.
Being yourself,
Who am I without these thoughts?
How does it feel to be lustful?
If we find ourselves thinking,
Just bringing our attention back to the feeling in our body.
And now let's let go of the thought that we were focusing on.
And now letting this feeling go.
Breathing out,
Relaxing our body.
Just letting the feeling of lust go.
Just taking a few minutes,
A few seconds to breathe.
Now let's think of something,
A person or a situation that makes us feel afraid.
Let's think of something that makes us feel afraid.
And as we think of this thing,
Letting the emotion of fear well up inside us.
Cultivating the emotion of fear.
Noticing how our body starts to feel.
Does your breath increase?
Does your body feel cold or hot?
Is there tension in your body?
Just noticing how your body starts to feel as you think of this situation or this person that makes you afraid.
Are there any other emotions that come up?
Maybe anger?
Just aware.
If your attention wanders,
Bringing it back to this thought that makes you feel afraid.
Back to the feeling of fear in your body.
Now let the thought go.
Let whatever thought you're thinking about that makes you afraid go.
Focus on the feeling of fear in your body.
Asking yourself,
Who am I without these thoughts?
If your mind begins to wander,
Bringing your focus back to the emotion of fear.
Back to how your body feels.
And now just let it go.
Just let the emotion go.
Breathing out,
Relaxing your body.
Just take a few seconds to breathe.
So as you go about your day today,
Or as you crawl into your bed tonight,
Just remain aware of how your body feels.
We may not think so,
But there's always some emotion that we're feeling.
It may be subtle,
It may be strong.
Let's continue this practice of emotional focus throughout our day.
Just aware of how we're feeling.
And whenever thoughts threaten to make you feel worse,
To perpetuate that feeling,
Just bring your attention away from your thoughts and into your body.
Thank you for meditating with me.
