Hello and welcome to Wise Puppy Meditations.
In this practice,
Entitled Finding the Calm Within the Storm,
We cultivate a sense of open,
Non-judgmental,
Compassionate curiosity toward our emotional state.
This meditation is particularly supportive in moments of challenging emotions.
However,
It can be used to bring increased awareness to however your emotional body is showing up in this moment.
We can start this practice by getting grounded.
As we are right here,
Right now,
We can find a comfortable upright position,
Experiencing that balance between relaxed and upright.
You're also welcome to lie down,
Making a point to continue that sense of balance,
That sense of symmetry in the body.
Once you've joined me here,
We can use our breath to promote a sense of peace throughout the body,
Activating what's known as the parasympathetic nervous system,
The part of ourselves that communicates and radiates a sense of safety,
A sense of calmness within the body.
We do this by elongating our exhale by deepening our breath.
So together we will take five deep breaths,
Sealing the lips and drawing our inhale through the nose and exhaling through the nose.
Again,
Inhaling,
Allowing the pressure of the inhale to expand the belly and then using the strength of our abdomen to deepen our exhale,
Contracting as we breathe out through the nose.
We'll do three more.
Inhale and exhale.
Inhale,
Exhale.
One more.
Inhale and exhale.
If you find that this balanced and intentional breathing is supportive for you,
You can feel free to continue it throughout the practice.
But if not,
Now can be an opportunity to simply return to your natural breathing.
Maybe noticing how your breathing changed from before just five deep breaths to now.
When cultivating mindfulness,
We are cultivating a mentality,
An approach,
A sense of being that is able to sit beneath the waves of experience and observe that which is occurring in this moment with spaciousness and openness,
With curiosity and non-judgment.
So when we sit down to meditate as we are doing now,
One of the things that may pull at us,
May pull at our attention is our emotions.
We may try to push them away or we may be overcome by them.
Instead,
The encouragement is to observe and modify our relationship to those emotions using those constructs,
Those approaches and mentalities of mindfulness.
Many of us were brought up thinking of emotions as positive or negative,
As good or bad,
As allowed or not allowed.
For example,
We might feel like joy is a good emotion or like we're not allowed to be angry or that we're weak if we show signs of sadness.
In this space,
Here in this moment,
We can allow these constructs,
These beliefs to fall away.
The spaciousness of mindfulness allows us to simply appreciate the complexity of the human emotional experience,
Appreciate the strength and the vulnerability and the humanity it takes to acknowledge the presence of our emotions.
With mindfulness,
We can bring a sort of neutrality to our emotions,
Not judging them or pushing them down,
But staying open so that we can experience them as they need to be experienced and then process them through us.
You see,
When an emotion gets triggered,
A chemical reaction happens.
We can't just decide that it didn't.
By ignoring it or pushing it down,
It continues to live on inside of us,
Often coming out at an inopportune moment or making us feel heavy over a long period of time in a way that we can't make sense of.
It is our choice.
We can avoid or we can allow.
We can tighten or we can release,
Reflect and integrate.
The curiosity of mindfulness allows for us to explore the underlying function at play.
We can get curious.
What is it that this emotion is trying to communicate to me?
Emotions are meant to help us.
They are an evolutionary advantage,
Even the ones that are desperately uncomfortable.
Emotions like anger and sadness can motivate us to address conflicts and challenge.
They can prompt us to confront perceived injustice or signal to us that we need support or assistance from other people or beings.
In that way,
Our emotions bring us closer to one another.
By taking the time to process the emotion thoroughly through our bodies with the breath as our stabilizer,
We can respond to the situation with clarity rather than reacting from a place of obscurity.
We can honor our emotions as guides and in doing so,
We can take responsibility for them as ours.
We can tend to them and then when we are ready,
We can use the wisdom gained from those emotions to grow personally and collectively.
There is so much beauty in this process.
It's not to say that there won't be discomfort but simply to advocate that there is a deeper part of us that can observe that discomfort without getting lost in it,
That can find the calm within the storm of our emotion.
So let's practice.
We can take a moment to simply sit back and observe,
Allowing for a sense of gentleness toward ourselves as we show up in this moment.
Maybe we ask ourselves,
How are you?
How do you feel?
Maybe our experience is saturated with emotion and it's very obvious that emotions are present.
Maybe it's very faint.
Maybe there's a dominant emotion or maybe the emotions are complex.
There is so much spaciousness in this moment.
There's room for all of it.
You can be sad and angry and happy and joyous.
You can be confused.
All of it.
There's room for all of it in this moment or none of it.
There could be a simple sense of neutrality.
Emotions are a multi-faceted psychological and physiological response to what's happening outside of us and what's happening inside of us.
So it can be helpful to look to our mind,
Noticing the quality or the content or nature of the thoughts that are happening,
Remembering not to hold on to them,
Taking the seat as the observer.
We can also look to the body,
Noticing where in our body we feel the physical manifestation of emotion.
Maybe in our facial Maybe in our facial muscles or a contraction in the throat,
A tightening or opening of the chest,
Tensions in the hands,
Maybe a squeezing of our pelvic floor and so on.
We're cultivating a sense of openness and non-judgment.
There's no right or wrong way to be in this moment.
The full spectrum of emotional expression is allowed in this moment.
If you feel called to and there are moments of tightness,
See if you can soothe them with an exhale.
See if simply addressing the physical manifestation of the emotion allows for the emotion to dissipate a bit and we can notice if an altering,
A releasing of our identification with this emotion,
Be it of the mind or in the body,
How that changes the way that we think.
Maybe we are afforded a sense of clarity as the fog of these emotions is cleared,
As the storm begins to pass.
As always,
I will be quiet for a moment,
Giving you an opportunity to practice.
No need to hold on too tight.
Be gentle.
I hope that this practice allowed for you to find some calm within the storm of your emotions and maybe even allowed for you to shift your relationship to your emotions,
To one of curiosity and openness and non-judgment.
I hope that you take this moment now to cultivate some gratitude for yourself,
For doing the work.
It really is something to be proud of.
May we be well so that we may do good for ourselves,
For one another and humanity and for the planet.
Peace and many,
Many,
Many blessings to you.
I will see you next time.
