Being with difficulty meditation.
In this meditation we're exploring how to bring a kind attention to any experience of difficulty in our immediate experience.
In using this meditation we're not looking to dig up difficult feelings.
We're not trying to dive into the depths of our despair.
What we are doing is learning to turn and be present with any difficulty which is in our experience right now.
Counteracting any tendency to use mindfulness practice to try and dissociate from our immediate experience.
To try and float above the painful feeling to pretend it's not there by simply focusing on the breath in a way that doesn't connect us into our body.
Using mindfulness practice to try and avoid difficulty will simply mean that that difficulty goes underground and will resurface elsewhere.
Remembering Jung's saying,
What we resist persists,
What we fight we get more of.
What we resist persists,
What we fight we get more of.
So in this meditation we're learning to turn towards any difficulty and to notice how it feels in this moment.
Very often the way difficulty presents is through rumination.
We'll be thinking and thinking and thinking about something hoping that somehow if we think about it enough we'll find the answer and having found the answer we'll no longer have to feel the pain,
The upset,
The sorry.
We'll have found a solution.
This is the doing mode,
The mind thinking that it can find a solution.
What we need to learn is to rest into the being mode,
The mode of compassion,
Of kindness.
The mode that rather than hearing of suffering says oh well at least and then tries to paint a silver lining to it or give an answer.
The being mode simply acknowledges yes I see that you're suffering and then holds that suffering with a patient kindness.
So this attitude of welcoming,
Turning towards,
Allowing is expressed so beautifully in a poem by Rumi.
A poem written about changing our attitude to the difficulties that may arise in our lives.
It's a poem which is very well known,
You may have heard this before,
But before we start the practice taking some time to listen to this and to reflect on the attitude that Rumi is inviting us to open to.
The Guest House This being human is a guest house,
Every morning a new arrival,
A joy,
A depression,
A meanness.
Some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all,
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture still,
Treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought,
The shame,
The malice,
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Starting with this attitude of turning towards what's here with a curious attention.
Jeff Foster once said when I attended a workshop he was leading,
That what we find so difficult is the struggle with our sense of ourselves as existing in time.
Thinking back over all the mistakes we've made,
Looking forward with anxiety about the future.
It can all feel too much.
How can I cope with this lifetime of struggle,
This huge vista of past and future struggle with this particular experience or memory or anxiety?
But if I come into this moment,
What is here in this moment?
What might be here in this moment if I tune into my body is a tightness in my stomach,
A pain in my chest,
The pressure in my head.
Some physical experience that isn't a thought.
The thinking is there,
But we're dropping down from being engaged with the thoughts into how it manifests right now in my body.
Even if that's a numbness,
Maybe my body feels empty,
Blank,
And then that's what I hold.
Or it feels stretched and pained and then that's what I hold.
And the thought this is all too much,
I can't cope.
When it's applied to a sensation in the moment,
A feeling of a pain in my belly,
Well that's not going to be too much for me,
It's a pain in my belly right now.
I can hold that.
And as you turn your attention to the physical sensation and spend some time gently holding that,
There's an invitation for that energy to shift,
To change.
Perhaps we need to feel the deeper sadness that's underneath our anxiety.
So it's not a case of fixing or solving what's there,
And it may be that for a while it even feels that it gets worse as we open to deeper emotions.
But reflecting that everything that has a beginning has an end.
Our tendency to be lost in this fog of overgeneralization,
That my life is rubbish,
I'm always going to be sad,
I'm never going to escape from this,
Is one autopilot.
But simply because our mind repeats these thoughts so often,
Like propaganda,
It doesn't mean that they're true,
Remembering that thoughts are not facts.
They're simply opinions in the mind.
And just like any propaganda,
If we start to simply observe and not automatically believe,
We may start to see the flaws in it.
The tendency to tell ourselves I'm a failure,
Everything goes wrong for me.
Well,
Perhaps as we settle into our experience,
We recognize,
Well,
Right now I'm feeling like a failure,
Right now it feels that things have gone wrong for me.
And maybe there is a pattern of that repeating and repeating,
But it doesn't mean I'm a failure.
It just means there are moments where things don't go as I wish them to go.
At other times,
Things do.
So remembering to reflect on that tendency of the mind to absolutize,
To make concrete what is actually something that is in flux,
And reflecting to yourself,
This too will change.
Everything that has a beginning has an end,
And this too will change.
And then rather than trying to force that change,
Or pull out that part of ourselves we feel is causing us pain,
Realizing that that energy is our energy,
And what it is asking for is to be held.
With kindness,
Rather than rejected.
It's one of the children in our energy family that has come knocking at the door asking if it may be let in,
If it too can be part of the family.
And perhaps at some time past we decided that this particular child wasn't welcome at the table,
And banished it down into the cellar.
And so every so often it comes knocking at the door,
And each time it comes it's a little more angry the more it's excluded,
Until it seems to be this monster that we couldn't possibly let in.
And when we let it in,
Finally,
Perhaps it does feel like a monster,
Full of rage and anger,
Wanting to destroy us,
The person that has denied it.
But underneath it's still the child simply wanting to be held.
And so we turn our attention to this energy,
Learning to bring a cure to it.
To how it feels in the body,
In this moment,
Breathing into that place,
Holding it with a breath,
Giving space for it.
And then seeing what happens,
Perhaps it gets larger,
Perhaps it needs a larger space to be held in.
Or it may seem like it's just a little bit more of a It's just a little bit more of a Or it may seem like it's just a little bit more of a or it may start to shift and change,
Or it may even dissolve away.
Way.
Using this practice in conjunction with the Barbara Boxhall self-compassion practice,
We may really start to change how we relate to ourselves and the things that we're struggling with.
Focusing difficulty meditation.
Settling into a comfortable posture,
Whether sitting on a chair,
A cushion,
Or if you wish,
Lying down.
Feeling the weight of your body resting on the chair or cushion.
The contact of your feet with the floor.
And becoming aware of the breath in your body.
Noticing the movement of the breath in the belly,
In the chest.
And starting the practice with a few minutes of gently focusing your attention on the anchor with a breath.
Starting to notice the quality of your thoughts,
How you're feeling.
As you are resting your attention on the breath flowing in and flowing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
And now noticing what the quality of your emotions are.
Seeing if there is a difficult emotion in your experience right now.
Something relating to your life,
Your experience.
If you find there really isn't anything,
Then you can use a painful sensation in your body and work in the same way with that.
Or considering what are my autopilots of negative thinking when I make a mistake,
How is it I tend to think about myself?
And engaging with that as the difficult experience.
So in the first stage,
Observing.
Becoming aware of the sensation in your body.
Noticing where the sensation is.
Rather than being trapped in the thoughts,
Seeing if you can find the roots of the thoughts in your body as a sensation.
Perhaps a tightness in your chest,
Discomfort in the belly,
Pain in the head.
And observing with curiosity,
Where does this sensation start and stop?
If I had to draw an outline around it,
What shape would it have?
Does it have a hard edge or is it soft,
Diffuse?
Is it on the surface or inside my body?
And where is it most intense?
How is it different in the centre or the edge?
And does it feel the same all the way through?
Does it feel light or heavy?
Is it moving or still?
Is it warm or cold?
Or is there a blank numbness to it?
Taking a few moments to really observe and become familiar with how this sensation feels right now in your body.
Letting this sensation bring you back into the moment,
Rather than being caught in thoughts of the past and the future.
Observing this sensation in your body.
And now,
Let's start imagining you could breathe into and around the sensation.
Taking a few deep,
Slow breaths,
Emptying the lungs fully at the end of each out-breath so that the next breath may flow in.
We're not forcing the breath here,
But just allowing the lungs to empty so you can feel the breath flowing back in.
When we get anxious or have a difficult experience,
The breath can become shallow,
Fast.
So here we're deliberately keeping the breath deep and slow,
Breathing into and around the sensation.
And now creating space as your breath flows into and around the feeling.
Imagining you're creating extra space within your body if it's needed.
You're opening up a space around the sensation,
Giving it plenty of room to move.
If it gets larger,
Allowing it to grow,
Or if it starts to shrink away,
Just being present to it taking less space.
Continuing to breathe into and around the sensation,
Creating space for it,
Allowing it to occupy as much space as it needs.
So even though you may not want the sensation,
Allowing it to be there.
We're not allowing it in order to try and get rid of it.
We're allowing it so that it may be held as it is in this moment.
Bringing compassionate kindness to this sensation of pain or struggle,
Rather than trying to work out how do I fix this,
How do I get rid of it,
How do I become happy by never having to feel it again?
Which is like trying to throw that child out of the family circle.
Remembering Jeff Foster's words,
Reflecting on this saying,
Sadness does not arise to be healed.
It arises to be heard.
It arises to be held.
Here in the loving arms of awareness.
Our sadness,
Pain,
Struggle is like a child wandering lost in a storm.
And it's come knocking at the door,
Asking to be let in.
Can we stand here at the door,
Holding the door open and welcoming whatever is here right now,
Allowing it to be what it is.
A painful sensation here in this moment.
That doesn't then mean we're wrong or failed or broken.
It's simply a painful sensation here in the body in this moment,
Asking to be held.
And we breathe into this place,
Create space around it,
Allow it to be here,
Create space and allow it to grow if it needs to grow.
Breathing in,
Breathing out,
Breathing into any difficult sensation in the body,
Creating space around it,
Breathing into it,
Breathing around it,
Breathing through it.
You may like to rest your hands on your body to feel a sense of contact,
Of warmth,
Holding.
And noticing how it is now.
Has the experience shifted,
Changed?
What's the physical sensation like?
Remembering we're not looking to fix this.
It may be that in one practice it dissolves and fades away,
Or it may be that we simply open to being more present to the experience without feeling it has changed.
We're not looking to succeed in this meditation by making the sensation disappear,
Although it may.
And when the energy flows,
It may shift and change into something else.
We may need to cry in order that we then laugh.
But we're not looking for any fixed result,
Just noticing,
How am I right now?
What are the sensations like now?
Are they the same or different to when I started?
And if the difficult emotion has faded away,
Then simply returning to the breath,
Continuing with a period of mindfulness practice.
But if the difficult sensations are still here,
Then breathing into that place in your body,
Or if it's shifted somewhere else,
Breathing into this new place,
Creating space,
Allowing it to be as it is,
Gently observing how it feels.
And if your attention does wander off or get distracted into thinking about the past or the future,
In that moment of noticing,
Then gently coming back into your body,
Back to any difficult sensation,
Breathing into this,
Breathing around it,
Breathing out from it.
Noticing how you're feeling now.
Noticing if there's an image that connects with the sensation.
And sometimes the image can even help you connect with a sense of humor about it.
Maybe it shifts from being this frightening monster to something less threatening,
Something that invites you to hold it,
To embrace it.
Or you may get a sense of it as something that's shifting or changing.
There might be an image of ice dissolving into water,
Or whatever your subconscious wants to use as a poetic way of communicating what's happening here.
Continuing to breathe into this space,
Breathe around it,
Create space,
Observe the sensations if they're here,
Or resting your attention on the breath.
If the difficult emotion and the sensations connected with it has passed.
And now letting go of attending to whatever difficult sensations are here.
Knowing the intention of the meditation isn't a fix will bring to an end these sensations,
So if they're still here,
That's fine.
If you wish to continue with the practice in your own time,
Then continuing to sit.
But if you're ready to bring the practice to a close,
Then feeling the weight of your body in contact with the chair or cushion,
The contact of your feet with the floor.
If the soles of your feet are in contact with the floor,
Noticing the contact of your big toes,
Little toes and heels with the ground.
Noticing any sounds around you,
Bringing some movement into your fingers and toes into your body.
Rubbing the palms of your hands together,
Warming your hands and placing the palms over your eyes as you take a breath in.
Gently massaging around the forehead and face before opening your eyes.
