Cultivate Emotional Strength - Maitreyabandhu

Take a moment to sit with what's going on for you right now, and you'll find that your emotional strength and resilience naturally unfolds. This practice focuses on what's being felt in the body, giving the space to really feel into that and discover a way to work with it, whatever's going on - positive or negative.

Transcript

Okay, So I want to lead us in a short meditation to broaden the range of our emotion So often we don't feel very much or we don't feel very deeply and we can sort of worry about that that we really should but Probably the best thing to think of is in terms of see if we can broaden the range of feeling See if we can be more curious about what we feel without deciding that we don't feel anything and then see if we can gently and patiently try to Warm up our feeling sense make our feeling sense more positive and outward going and courageous So let's have a go at that So when you're ready closing your eyes Soon as you've closed your eyes see if you can engage with your sense of the body And the simplest place to start the simplest way to start is just your weight resting on the chair And you don't need to think about that you don't need to imagine Yourself sitting on the chair Just feel the support of the chair itself And feel your feet on the floor Your hands what your hands are touching Just tuning into the weight and mass of your body And your body might be comfortable or uncomfortable But at the moment we're just trying to feel what's there Whether it's what we want to be there or what we whether it's what we don't want to be there We're just trying to have the courage to feel what is there even if we don't feel anything very much that's fine And then see if you can feel Any sensations in your chest? In what we call the heart area the center of your chest And again you don't need to analyze those feelings you don't need to think about them Just as best as you can see if you can Feel your heart center the center of your chest Inside your chest And you might feel that you can't feel anything there But you'll be able to feel that sense of not being able to feel anything it'll just be bland and a bit Neutral and that's that's fine as well. Just feel that You're not trying to Have any view about what you should feel Or ought to feel So you've got this sense of your body and weight of your body on the chair And then you're trying to be curious about Any feelings more subtle feelings in the heart area In the center of your chest around your chest In the center of your chest around your chest And if you feel that you feel nothing and what does nothing feel like So you're just being curious about what your direct experience actually is Not what you think it is Not what you think it should be or what you'd like it to be But what it actually is And you're just being curious About what your direct experience actually is But what it actually is particularly if you can around your chest and your heart So keeping your awareness around the heart center As much as you can Just imagine yourself feeling well You might even say to yourself may I be well May I be free from suffering May I make progress May I make progress or you might just imagine feeling well What would you what would your body feel like if you felt okay just now And remember you're not trying to pretend you feel well if you don't feel well You're not trying to make something happen. You're just quite lightly imagining it What would your body be like how would you feel just now if you felt confident and well Perhaps even picturing yourself well And then you come back to the sensations you feel around your heart Perhaps excluding your belly So that your broader sense of this inner world of Your inner self And then you come back to Excluding your belly so that your broader sense of this inner world of your chest and belly And just opening to whatever sensations you feel there So you're just trying to be open to what is you're trying to be curious about what is there just now Then you're gently patiently intelligently Just trying to nudge that towards something a bit more positive, But you're not Forcing that you're not trying too hard. It's Quite a lot of effort Forcing that you're not trying too hard. It's quite a light thought So again, You might just want to imagine yourself well Some people will find An image helps like just imagine the sun shining into your body Or the sun in your heart some people find that helps some people don't Be trying to imagine being well and happy Being confident and outward going And then come back again to how you are Come back again to the sensations in your heart area in your chest Being interested in those sensations being curious about them In a kind of open-ended way without having some idea of what you want there to be there And then extending to include more and more of your body The weight of your body Extending to include the sounds around you Letting everything that is there be there in your experience And then when you're ready opening your eyes coming out of the meditation And then see if you can keep a little bit in touch with any sense of awareness and Warm thought whatever you developed in that practice Perhaps even try to imagine as you move around the rest of your day that just for now You can feel positive about other people and outward going towards them

Reviews

I appreciate this guidance. I feel more calm.

This meditation carried me through the emotional turmoil of starting my first jobb as a civil engineer - I’m so grateful for that!

Excellent meditation to help shift yourself mindset very gently towards more positivity.

Thank you for this meditation. I had a hard time hearing you at times, though. Thank you again

Amazing reflections