Welcome.
Today's meditation will support you to meet negative emotions with non-judgment.
So take a few deep breaths and make yourself comfortable.
Let's breathe in and out together,
Making sure to lengthen your out-breath so that you are in a parasympathetic healing state.
And let's begin to contemplate the path of self-love.
Self-love involves learning to open up to and accept your inner experiences,
Moment by moment,
With kindness and compassion towards yourself.
And so the next time you have a noticeably pleasurable or painful emotional experience,
See whether you judge the emotion.
As good if you like it,
As bad if you don't like it,
Or as boring if you feel neutral about it.
This is the art of being present in a non-judgmental way with whatever is happening in your mind or body.
And as you pay attention to the emotional disturbances in your mind and body,
You will eventually be able to be more present to them.
And with practice,
You will become stronger and larger than what has commonly overwhelmed you in the past.
Being present to your emotions without judging them will lead to less and less emotional pain.
So the practice of mindfulness is simply about observing the dislike of your painful emotions with strong witnessing awareness.
And as you gradually choose to refrain from judging your emotions as good or bad,
With much more kindness and compassion towards yourself,
You will become much stronger and more able to hold your emotional pain with compassionate presence.
And so it is helpful to make the mindfulness of uncomfortable emotions a daily practice.
And the next time you have a noticeably painful emotional experience in your body,
Just see whether you judge the experience as bad if you don't like it.
And right here and right now,
See if you can just witness your current emotional state from a kind distance with perspective,
With mindful attention.
Surrounding your difficult emotion with a spacious sense of love and acceptance instead of reacting from a sense of annoyance,
Emergency,
Urgency,
Or stress.
And over time and with practice,
You may find that being less judgmental of uncomfortable emotions,
A compassionate holding space will become more and more your default setting.
You may also find that you are kinder and more accepting of yourself whenever you experience emotional discomfort.
And as you've probably noticed,
Resistance to difficult emotions comes in the form of anxiety,
Annoyance,
Anger,
Resentment,
Fear,
Self-loathing,
Withdrawal,
Or contraction.
And this usually increases the intensity of your pain mentally,
Physically,
And emotionally.
So it is helpful to remember that mindfulness is the art of being present in a nonjudgmental way with whatever is happening in your mind or body.
And over time,
Whenever you're dealing with your emotional pain,
It is important to know and remember to create a more spacious awareness around it.
And as you probably know already,
The present moment is where all emotional healing happens.
So when you inhabit this moment,
Just as it is,
You will realize that you are healing your emotional pain just through your loving acceptance of it,
Even as it is uncomfortable.
So be present with whatever is emotionally happening inside of you right here and right now.
For when else can you heal your emotional pain fully?
But in this very moment.
But it takes a lot of practice,
As most of us have a great aversion to feeling and processing emotional pain.
And over and over,
You can use this meditation to help to build the habits of present moment awareness and to accept and embrace the arising of emotional pain.
And of course,
As you know,
It's always easier to show up more in the present moment when your feelings are pleasant.
But perhaps today,
You've been able to stay with an uncomfortable emotion in your body just a little bit longer than you normally would.
And so as we wind down this mindfulness meditation for today,
You can slowly open your eyes when it feels right and orient yourself to your outer surroundings.
Perhaps noticing the first three colors that you see.
Taking a few deep breaths with a gentle stretch.
And I offer you a very warm blessing for the rest of your day.
