Getting To Know Our Feelings

This meditation leads you through a simple yet deeply effective practice for working with your emotions. Emotions are complex and tricky - we often don't realize their influence until after we have reacted to them. To work with our emotions productively, first we need to know what and where they are. In this guided meditation I teach you how to sense emotion within a safe container and work with yourself to stay present yet unreactive.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by Renee Seals,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker,

And astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of this meditation sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance Renee offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi everyone,

This is Renee.

Thanks for joining me today.

So today I wanted to offer our meditation two feelings.

I think that most people are much more influenced by their feelings than they would care to admit.

The emotional and subjective response is one that you really have to train to get away from,

And even then it's not very possible.

So I have a teacher that used to say,

You can see perfectly in 364 degrees,

But you can't see where you stand.

And I think that's true.

You know,

Even when we've worked to be very objective,

There's always bias.

And bias is invisible,

And bias works through feeling.

It works through a gut instinct.

It works through innate response.

And it colors our experience in ways that we don't see.

So working with feelings is deep work.

It is necessary work.

And it can be very healing work.

Because we live in a time and in a culture that often doesn't value feelings,

And that either kind of blows them out of proportion or shoves them into a closet.

And most of us are not taught to self-soothe.

We're not taught to regard our feelings as important information,

But to kind of approach the world through our minds.

And you know,

That isn't always totally helpful.

So I think that the more that we can learn to be aware of what we're feeling and to make choices about how and when we feel,

And to create communities and relationships of acceptance that allow feelings to be,

That the more we're going to move towards the kind of healing and progress that we want.

So yeah.

So that's my preamble to today's meditation.

So as usual,

You can be in a seat,

You can take a walk,

Move around,

Treat your body to whatever position,

Whatever movement are needed right now.

And in honoring a feeling,

Let's just say that what you feel you need right now might shift in 10 minutes,

And allow for that.

When we become more attuned to our feelings,

I believe that we can become more attuned to our evolution.

In a lot of ways,

We can let go of our ideas about what we should be doing and just do it.

So wherever you are,

Close your eyes and start by just breathing.

And breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.

And as you breathe,

Invite the front wall of your abdomen to totally relax.

So you feel the movement of your breath expand into the sides and backs of your lungs and down into your tummy.

And as you exhale,

Hear the sound of your breath on its release.

Feel the weight of your bones.

And relax your brain.

If you're in a place where you feel comfortable doing this,

Wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a hug.

And as you feel the embrace of your own arms,

Breathe into that contact.

And as you exhale,

Feel the movement of your body and as you breathe into that contact,

Feel the way that your hands and palms can spread and the sensory capacity of the flesh on your palms to feel your back and shoulders and arms.

And can you feel and can you feel?

Feel through your hands,

Feel through your torso,

Feel through your hips,

Feel the inner body expanding on the inhale and condensing on the exhale.

And as you notice these different qualities of feeling,

See if you can be present with them all at the same time.

This is a different location for the feeling in the hands as there is for the feeling in the chest,

As there is for the feeling in the nostrils.

And can you relax your mind enough,

Relax your attention enough that everything is felt,

That nothing is pushed away or held back,

That nothing is ignored.

So one thing that happens in meditation is feelings arise.

And feelings are sensations.

They have their own unique quality.

They have their specific ways that they touch you,

Different parts of the body that they reside in.

And arising from feelings,

We often have thoughts,

Stories,

Preferences,

Words.

My invitation to you for these next few minutes is to continue to feel your breath,

To feel these different parts of your breath,

The different places your breath lands.

And then to begin to notice what other feelings are present.

So some of you,

The moment that I said that,

Had an association.

You've been having an emotional time,

You know exactly what the feeling is and where it is,

And you went there right away.

Others of you kind of weren't sure and were absorbed in just the physical feeling.

Maybe others of you left completely and went looking for a feeling somewhere else.

So the invitation is to stay present with the feeling of your breath,

To let that be the container for our meditation,

Just this feeling,

Feeling of breathing.

And then to notice what other feelings arise.

So when you breathe,

Your lungs expand,

Your ribs expand.

When you exhale,

There is a condensing and affirming of your torso inwards.

You might notice the sensation is different in your body when you inhale than when you exhale.

And if you stay with the sensation of inhaling and exhaling,

And then call into your mind someone that you love,

Someone that you care for deeply,

And you can see them in your mind's eye.

Maybe you can smell them or remember what they feel like.

Maybe you can hear their voice.

Notice how the quality of inhale and exhale shift when you bring this person into your mind.

Notice the sensation of inhaling and exhaling as you think about them.

Now in the feeling of breathing,

Can you notice the feeling of love?

Can you notice the feeling of care?

In what part of your breath do you sense love?

In what part of your body do you feel care?

And in your mind's eye,

Wish this person well and let them go from your imagination,

From your attention.

And just come back to the simple sensation of breathing.

Maybe you still have your arms wrapped around yourself.

You can feel that.

Feel what it is to embrace your own body.

Again,

Feel the sensation of your nostrils at the same time as you feel the sensation of your back and your belly.

And then think of someone or maybe it's something in your life that presently feels like a challenge.

So something that you're working on that feels hard.

And notice what the feeling is as you think of this.

Notice how the thought lands somewhere in your body.

What is the cue in your body that that's the thought?

Notice its texture and its shape and its weight.

What is that feeling of challenge?

And then come back again to the sensation of your breath,

To the feeling of the insides of your lungs expanding,

To the feeling behind your forehead and in the back of your skull as you reach the top of your inhale,

To the feeling of release on your exhale.

And then call into your mind something that scares you.

And this could be something simple.

It might be another person.

It could be very abstract and big.

Can you see it?

And can you feel it?

Can you feel the quality of fear?

And where in your breath do you feel fear?

Where in your body do you feel fear?

How is this sensation familiar?

What is it about the sensation that lets you know that this is fear?

And acknowledge it and then let it go and come back to your own breath and feel the way that the inhale and the exhale meet,

The moment before one becomes the other.

So when we experience feeling and in this moment when I use the word feeling,

I mean emotion and instinct,

When we experience feeling about something,

Often usually it lodges in our body in a certain place.

And we have a sensation that lets us know what we're feeling.

And typically as soon as we've identified what we're feeling,

Then we have some thoughts about it.

I like this.

I don't like this.

This is bad.

It's good.

I'm going to do something.

I need to tell someone.

It's someone else's fault.

We have all kinds of stories and all kinds of thoughts that come up in response to feeling.

And a lot of the times those thoughts and stories can lead us down the same roads that we've taken many,

Many,

Many times before.

And this isn't a bad thing.

Not always.

We've learned to be adaptive beings and we can withstand a lot.

And part of that is because we form habits.

We don't have to learn something new all the time.

We can tune out some sensations and go into autopilot.

So again,

It's not a bad thing,

But it is useful.

It's a useful thing.

But it is useful.

It's a useful tool to be able to discern what we're feeling.

And a lot of the time it's less useful to know why than it is to know what.

So you can get into a big mess trying to figure out why you're having all the feelings that you're having.

And a lot of times those whys include assumptions of other people and what they're feeling,

Which is a total waste of time.

But when you know what you're feeling,

Then often you can move fairly quickly into what your needs are.

So if we go back to a feeling of love,

And remember you might need to call up your person again,

And it might be really easy to just slip right back into that feeling.

But if you feel that feeling of love,

I want you to notice if that feeling has something that it needs to do.

So sometimes we have a feeling of love and that feeling is attached to a need to be close to someone else,

To be bonded somehow or connected,

Or to display or express something.

And because love is such a wonderful and healing feeling,

I'm going to invite you to notice if your feeling is reaching out to anyone else,

And see if you can let yourself have this feeling of love in all of your cells,

In your whole body,

In your face,

In your hands,

In your toes,

In your spine,

And not need to do anything with it.

But if you're feeling it,

Let it be there and let it dwell.

And as you notice this feeling and this quality,

Again,

Be aware of where in your body you feel it,

Of what its texture is,

Of how you know what it is.

And a feeling of love can do wonders when we're de-escalating our body.

Wonders when we're de-escalating conflict.

So if you can call up a feeling of love in your body when you're dealing with someone else that's frustrating or a situation that feels hard,

A lot of times just this feeling in itself can create a positive shift.

And you might feel how the feeling of love is expansive,

It's magnetic,

Attractive,

And open.

So similarly,

The more challenging feelings,

Feelings that arise with conflict or with fear or with anger or grief,

Often have very specific physical locations in our bodies.

And where your anger lives as a sensation might be very different than where mine does,

But nevertheless,

It's probably dependable.

It's probably predictable that when you feel angry,

Regardless of what the anger is about,

You'll feel it in a similar place in your body.

So with anger as an example,

We might consider what the use of this feeling is.

And anger can be a very useful tool for us to recognize and to realize when a boundary has been crossed,

When there's a threat or danger that we need to respond to,

When something is inappropriate.

And often we have habitual responses to anger that are not so helpful.

Now,

You probably know what your response is,

Even if you don't know in your mind,

You can probably feel it in your body.

So if I say anger and you say anger,

And you can feel what that is,

Then you can go one step further and feel what it is you do.

So when you have the sensation of anger,

What do you do with it?

And for all of our challenging emotions,

For all of the feelings that are uncomfortable,

Our innate instinct as humans is to change it,

To distract ourselves,

To reach for something,

To shift it,

Because it's so uncomfortable to feel.

So when we go along the pathway of our habitual responses,

Usually we don't learn anything new.

Now obviously,

If you're in danger,

If you're getting chased by a bear,

You need to run.

But chances are that at least some of the time that these uncomfortable feelings arise,

There is actually no immediate threat.

And maybe there's no threat at all.

So what I invite you to do is to continue this practice throughout the next couple of weeks,

And to get very curious about your feelings,

The feelings that arise,

To get curious about their texture,

To get curious about where in your body they live,

And how they move,

And who their friends are.

So lots of feelings have friend circles,

Like anger often goes out with sadness,

And love sometimes hangs out too long with attachment or insecurity.

So we want to feel what our feelings are,

To be able to name them,

To discern,

To acknowledge,

To accept,

And also to free ourselves from being trapped by them,

From being controlled by them.

We want to be the authors of our own lives,

To make our choices.

So I want to offer this practice of feeling what our feelings are,

To be able to name them,

To discern,

To acknowledge,

To accept,

And also to free ourselves to make our choices.

So I want to offer this practice of feeling feelings,

And offer the breath as your guidepost.

So whenever something is coming up,

You might notice that there is a shift in your attitude.

You might notice that all of a sudden you're having a response to something.

You don't know what it is,

But you feel different than you did a minute ago.

Take a second,

And if you can,

Hug yourself.

It's a gesture of solidarity,

You with yourself.

You've got your own back.

And then just feel your breath,

And literally feel your breath.

Feel the inhale,

The exhale,

How your breath moves.

And the sensation of breath is your anchor point.

You're going to keep going back to that sensation,

And then you're going to check in with the other sensation,

Whatever that feeling is.

And if you need to use some kind of imagery to recall a conversation or a circumstance,

That's fine.

And oftentimes I'll do this when I'm trying to work through confusing feelings,

If I have confusing feelings about someone or something.

And again,

It's not why you're feeling something,

But it's what.

And you could take this into a writing exercise or a drawing exercise.

I prefer to write,

So I'll feel and I'll notice sensation,

And then I'll write it down.

I'll just write the words that I'm feeling.

And often they're textures and colors or shapes,

Sometimes they're narratives.

And when we can be with our feelings,

When we can know what they are,

Then oftentimes the why and the what do we do next become a lot easier to figure out.

And this is kind of the difference between feeling our feelings and thinking about our feelings.

It's especially important right now in a world that is reactive and where there are a lot of feelings going on and where it's really easy to let our thoughts rule our feelings and to be very,

Very swayed by strong feelings of others.

So I want to invite this practice and invite you to use it in your lives.

Whenever you're done with a practice such as this,

I'm going to finish up right now,

It's really nice to create a container again so we can become very sensitive with these kinds of practices and attuned.

And going out into the world and doing whatever it is that you do,

It's good to be sensitive,

It's good to be attuned,

But it's also good to be protected a little bit.

And I like to finish up sensory meditations by rubbing my palms together really fast.

So go ahead and do that right now.

Just rub your palms together until they get warm.

Rub them,

Rub them,

Rub them until your palms get warm.

And then when your palms have become warm,

Just bring your hands onto your face and feel the heat of your palms against your cheeks.

You might bring the heels of your hands over your eyelids.

And then use your hands to brush over your head,

Over your throat and neck,

Shoulders,

And your arms,

And your chest,

And your belly.

And feel your own container,

Feel your own skin.

And then I also like to imagine that there's,

I imagine it kind of like a capsule or like an egg shape around me,

A very thin,

Permeable kind of material,

Like a gauze almost.

And this layer discerns what kinds of feelings from others and from the world I want to let in and what of my own feelings I want to put out into the world.

And it's kind of,

It's a filter.

And I like to into the world and it's kind of,

It's a filter.

So I just imagine that,

That there's a filter around me.

And that if feelings that someone else has,

Has can serve me,

Can serve my growth,

Can serve my health,

Can serve my well-being,

Then they're allowed in.

They're allowed into my space.

And you know,

It's not always the good feelings that serve us.

Sometimes,

You know,

We have to acknowledge if we've made someone feel bad,

We have to be able to feel that,

Right?

So we want our filters to be discerning filters that help us to feel our own impact in the world and the community around us,

Which includes people,

Animals,

Plants,

Buildings,

Cars.

You know,

We need to sense our environments.

And then of course,

The filter also works to kind of just remind us,

To give us a sense of place and containment that not all feelings need to be expressed.

But that doesn't mean that they need to be repressed.

So we might have a feeling that comes up and it's hard.

And we might want to just like,

Like push it out and smear it on someone else.

But if we do that,

The chances are good that it's going to make us feel even crummier.

So sometimes,

A lot of times,

We just have to kind of sit with our own feelings and not express them in the moment.

And then how we do this is exactly the work that we were doing before of just feeling what the sensation is and coming back to the sensation of our own breath,

Going back to the sensation of the feeling,

Feeling one and feeling the other.

And as you feel the sensation of your feeling,

So you feel the feeling,

If you can resist the story and focus on the sensation,

I guarantee you the sensation will change.

If you keep breathing,

If you can just be there with it,

It will change.

It might get bigger,

It might need to release somehow.

But if you can be present with what's arising,

Then it will tell you what needs to be done.

Reviews

A lot of talking for my taste, but a good exercise

I enjoyed this very much and I learned a lot from it too. Thank you