Holding Our Emotions with Care

This mindfulness based practice offers a skillful, nuanced way to work with our emotions. Includes a brief talk on the "Holding Environment" at the beginning.

Transcript

So we're here to explore mindfulness of emotions for the next little while. And there's a concept that comes out of the psychoanalytic tradition that I find immensely helpful when discussing emotions and specifically working with emotions in the atmosphere of meditation. And that concept is called the holding environment. The idea of a holding environment originally was applied to the relationship between a therapist and a client. There's an energetic space that is created and it's a space that's infused with caring so that difficulties can arise. How can you bring the realness to a therapist if you don't feel safe with them, If you don't feel comfortable, If you don't feel like they care? And this is very analogous to the holding environment of an ideal parent-child relationship. An ideal parent or a good enough parent will create an atmosphere that is rich with caring, Rich with caring so that a child can learn how to traverse the fluctuations of life, The good stuff, The bad stuff, The high highs, The low lows, And everywhere in between. So that's the ideal situation. So I like to think of meditation actually as a holding environment as well. Meditation as a holding environment because there are particular forms to this practice that are very much like an embrace. The frame of the practice that we're going to hold the posture, That we're going to work with our breath, That we're going to try to meet our experience with kindness and care, In that if we find ourselves distracted or very far away from the present moment, We just simply return, All with an attitude of caring. Why? Because this is actually hard work, In case you haven't noticed. The mind is very busy, Our lives are very busy, We hold so much just in our being. We are truly mysteries to ourselves in so, So many ways, And this is a practice of discovering that, Which isn't always nice. Yes, We have very wonderful parts, But we also have some parts that are dark and mysterious and sometimes angry or even hateful or full of rage, And again, Everywhere in between those two polarities as well. So we're here to wake up to all of that, And if we're going to allow ourselves as a whole person with all of those parts to emerge, Then what we need is an atmosphere, An internal atmosphere of holding, Of caring. So that's what we'll work with today, Is holding our experience, Metaphorically holding our experience with our minds, With our attention, With care. So let's give it a shot. So legs loosely crossed, Seat plugging into the cushion. If at any point your legs become too uncomfortable and it's too much of a distraction, You're welcome to move to this position, Knees hugged into your chest, Right? Let the spine round, Give the back a break, And then hands placed on either side of your lap, I like to move mine back just half an inch after I do that to open up the collar bones and expose the heart. Crown of the head lifts, And leave your eyes open for a moment and just let your gaze fall five to six feet in front of you towards the floor, And then you can gently close your eyes. If you work with an open-eyed meditation practice that is wonderful, If it isn't broke, Please don't fix it. Let the tongue rest in its palate, Or you can take the tip of the tongue and let it press against the back of the top row of teeth right where the teeth meet the gum line. Just give that anxious little muscle something to do. And the chin moves a little bit closer to the neck, And this will help alleviate tension in the shoulders. So drop in. Drop into your body, And just begin with a simple noticing of what it's like to be me right now. What does it feel like to be inside this body? What does it feel like to be inside this mind? And check in with your emotional self as well. If there's any part of you that doesn't want to emerge, Or that feels too scary to work with, That's okay, But we want to invite all of our parts to be present here. The joyous parts, The stressed out parts, The sad parts. Just making space. Please take a moment to contemplate your motivation, Why you're doing this practice, What it means to you, How it fits into your life. Just take a moment to dwell on that. And to the possibility of genuine inspiration to practice arising. And then we'll take three deep breaths together to demarcate our formal entry into the space of practice. So begin by exhaling and squeezing all the stale air out. Then a big fresh breath all the way down to the belly, And let go with sound. That was really nice. So breathing in to energize, To come awake, And exhaling to relax, Release, Let go. Beautiful. So letting the lips be closed and the teeth can remain parted so that the throat stays open. And stay connected to your breath. And maybe your next breath can be sent down to your seat, Your legs, Your feet, The lower half of your body. Just spend a moment being aware of this region of your body. And just, Even though it might sound funny, Just take a breath into your legs, Just a natural breath. When you exhale, Let them relax. And then direct your next breath, Natural, Easeful breath, Into the belly, A place of so much holding, And see if you can let the belly relax and unfurl, Let go. And then let the next breath land in the region of the heart, And see if the heart can just soften and let go. Letting the next breath land in the shoulders, The arms, The hands. And the exhale just washes away any unnecessary holding that's going on here. Letting the next breath land in the throat, In the neck, And softening the throat and the neck. And then letting the next breath fill the head and the face and the brow, The eyes, The jaw. And can you allow all the muscles of the face to surrender to gravity? And then come to the heart center. Fall back down to the center of the chest, Feeling the breath in the heart space. Almost like your nose is in the center of your chest and you're breathing into the heart and experiencing it filling up, Expanding, Rising. When you exhale, You exhale from the heart and there's a gentle falling, Collapsing. Just feeling the breath at the heart. Really being there moment by moment, Breath by breath. And then letting the next breath land in the chest, The chest, And the face. And then letting the next breath fill the chest, The chest, And the face. And then I invite you to invoke, Just in your own intuitive way, To invoke the holding environment. To just declare this to yourself as a space infused with caring, Infused with love. Your mind as a holding environment. So that you're holding the breath with care. Not crushing it because we're holding too tight. Not letting it fly away because we're holding it too loose. So that you're holding it with care. So that you're holding it with care. And as we work with the space of the heart, You might find that something wants to emerge. From feeling quality, The stresses of the day, A particular struggle that you're hoping meditation can help you heal. Maybe you just feel really good and there's a sense of holding that. Or maybe there's a sense of I'm bored or I can't do this or I'm waiting to get out of here. That happens too. Whatever is true for you, Just keep breathing in and out of the heart and just holding your experience with care. So that you're holding it with care. And as we work with the space of the heart, You might find that something wants to emerge. So that you're holding it with care. And as we work with the space of the heart, You might find that something wants to emerge. So that you're holding it with care. So that you're holding it with care. Another important aspect of working with our emotions is to hold them lightly, Which to me means not getting too caught up. Just noticing and moving on and noticing and moving on. So if you're too caught up, This is the moment to just take a breath and start to back away a little bit in preparation to switch gears. Just reminding yourself that this world of mind is, We think it's so real, We think it's so heavy, Don't we? But the contents of our mind are more akin to a puff of smoke than they are anything substantial. So we'll conclude today by placing our two hands over our heart center. And just transitioning to a sense of gratitude, Of thankfulness to oneself for showing up for your practice or having the guts to engage with your mind, Engage with your heart. For being here for yourself in a profound way today, Truly. Can you conjure the feeling of gratitude and direct it inwardly? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The last thing is to smile for no reason, Just a big fat fake smile, Just to flex the muscle. And one final big deep breath all the way down to the belly and letting it all go. So we have just a few minutes here. I'm always curious what folks have experienced or if there are questions about this particular way of practicing or questions about meditation in general in the room. You get a gold star for going first, By the way. So I'm going to start with a question from a friend of mine. Breathing into different regions of the body is so cool. So simple. But yeah, I find it so valuable too. Lately that's actually been, Sometimes my entire practice is just breathing into different regions of the body and experiencing them expanding and opening. Very, Very enlivening to the mind. Coffee helps too. It's like a little bit different than a body scan, I guess, Right? Yeah. Same way of getting at the same thing, I think. Yeah. Yes. I find that when I sit down to meditate, I don't think it's because of the way I'm sitting, But like certain pains always arise in places that I don't usually feel them. Or it'll be something that I feel throughout the day, But then I feel the most when I'm sitting here. And then with this, I was thinking about it yesterday when I was here and then today was validating it more that it feels very connected to emotions, The pains. But then even after, I don't know how long it would take, But after breathing into them and breathing into the pain and the emotion, It's still there. And so then it gets to this point where it's like, I'm kind of desperate, Then I realize that's another emotion and it's like, There's always a next emotion. This is kind of like another thing I was noticing and you'll feel what's considered a good emotion, Like happiness, And then what's associated with it, Not everybody gets to feel this happiness or something like that. I don't even know if that was a question or a question. It's really valuable, I'm sure, To folks in the room, You know, Because we are very unique, Each of us, But our experience is so shared at the same time. And there is this layered quality to emotions, Right? Underneath anger is often sadness or hurt or feeling disrespected or disregarded in some way. Underneath that can sometimes be loneliness. Underneath that can be some sort of fundamental longing, You know, Just to give you an example from my own experience. And yeah, You're on the money there that it's connected to our bodies. Our emotions live in our bodies. They're primarily a physical experience. We don't realize that so much in our disembodied 21st century culture where we walk around like this so much of the time, You know. So overly identified with our thoughts and not even knowing how to take a breath down to our feet, You know. So yeah, So I would, I mean, You weren't asking for my advice and I'm going to give it anyways. And I do hope that's welcome or useful, But I would consider that a big success. That's a positive step that you're beginning to notice, Everything that you're noticing, Even though it's uncomfortable, Right? The nature of the human organism is always to move in the direction of healing. Not in a linear way, It's very chaotic, But that's always where some part of us is going with the proper care and attention. And the first thing that manifests is often discomfort because that's what we've been ignoring or shutting away, Right? So finally it's presenting itself and presenting itself to be understood and to be healed and integrated and investigated. Yeah, So keep going. Yeah. We're out of time. Can it be quick? Yeah, Sure. Super quick. So, Based on what you were saying, I think another lesson that what you said taught me was just the idea that feelings, I've been thinking about this a lot, Are visitors. And it sort of helps me when I'm here to be able to shift from emotion to emotion and handle it and just sit still. When I'm outside, It's a little more difficult when I'm shifting. So I just put this moment as a capsule to bring out there. It's great. And the way you described it was so wonderful. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And thank you to all of you. Enjoy the rest of your days. I hope to see you again.

Reviews

Thank you for being so gentle with us. Thank you for sharing these recordings with us. You are truly missed.

I love your tracks ralf wish I’d attended one of your classes live

A huge loss. Ralph's meditations have been a regular stopping place for me in my emotionally messiest moments, for his compassionate but eminently straight talking. He knew how to cut through the crap whilst encouraging and fostering self-compassion. I hope his work stays on Insight Timer

🙏🧘🙏

Perfect for a settling, calming feeling before trauma therapy
appointment in a few hours. Ralph- you complement the therapy and my therapist so well and it feels safe. We are working on creating a holding space for the old yucky stuff to emerge. My trauma is generally activated within moments of waking up. I follow that with this and can manage my distress better each day. Thank you!