Meditation For Tending To Difficult Emotions

Our most difficult emotions can be overwhelming and challenging to integrate, whether that be anxiety, anger, jealousy, fear, grief, etc. This gentle meditation is here to support you in building an awareness of how these emotions are connected to the body, remembering that they are not your entire being, and letting yourself untether from whatever needs to be released.

Background Music: Frankel by Syntropy and Fractions of Light by Rebecca Mardal | Available on Epidemic Sound

Transcript

Hello my friends,

Welcome back to Your Journey Yoga.

My name is Natalia and today we have a guided meditation for tending to difficult emotions.

This practice can be done lying down or seated,

Whatever is most supportive for you.

Just take a moment to cozy up and we'll begin.

As you arrive in your meditation seat or lying down,

Wherever it is that you are,

You can allow yourself to close or soften the eyes.

Just begin to bring some relaxation physically into the body by relaxing the space between your eyebrows,

Unclenching your jaw,

Allowing all of the muscles of your face to be soft and starting to invite a little bit of ease into the muscles of the neck and your shoulders,

Finding a sense of heaviness in your arms and your legs and an openness in your hands and your fingers,

In your feet and your toes.

Take a moment to observe the way that the body is responding to your breath.

Physically maybe noticing the rise and fall of your ribcage,

Of your belly,

Observing what the air feels like in your nose and your lungs as it travels in and out,

Attuning to the uniqueness of your breath,

However it is showing up for you today.

And there's no right or wrong but if there is something more intentional you would like to do with your breath,

Like finding ujjayi breath,

Making it more audible or even simply slowing down your inhales and exhales,

You can start to cultivate that more intentional awareness of the breath now or you can simply continue to receive the breath in its most natural state,

Letting your awareness float on the inflow and the outflow of your breathing.

And as you are deepening your awareness of the breath you might find that the body begins communicating with you through sensation.

You can just allow the body to be an entire field of sensation here.

You don't need to look for anything.

Just allow sensation to arise,

Let it ebb,

Let it flow.

Start to notice the transitory nature of your sensations in the body.

Even if some of them feel like they are stuck,

Stagnant,

Maybe they've been around for a while,

You might find that there is still a subtle ebb and flow to those sensations.

Just allow yourself to get curious here,

Grounding into your awareness of the body.

And if any of that feels overwhelming for you,

Remember that you can return to simply observing the breath.

Allow the body to soften as much as possible into the space you are in.

Whatever surface you are sitting or lying on,

You might imagine becoming more interconnected with the surface beneath you,

Letting the muscles,

The bones,

The skin of your body melt,

Connecting with a deep sense of ease.

You can also allow your awareness to expand out beyond the breath,

Beyond the body,

Into the space you are in by creating a soft awareness of any sounds that you may hear,

Anything else you might be picking up on in the space,

Like the temperature,

Again maybe noticing the surface beneath you,

Or transcendentally also observing the energy of the space you're in.

Recognizing yourself as a part of this space,

Your breath,

The physical sensations you can feel all interplaying with the elements of the space you're in.

And just allow this to help you connect more deeply with the now.

Acknowledging that you cannot be separate from the now.

Only thing that's really real is what's here,

In the now.

Now being that this is a guided meditation for tending to difficult emotion,

But imagine you may be feeling something inside of you,

Whether that's emotion,

Energy,

Pain,

Or all of the above.

We're going to give these things that we've come to this meditation practice with some space to be here.

Whatever it is that you are feeling,

Take a moment to accept it also as part of the now.

Can you give yourself a little bit of grace and patience in accepting that this is where you are,

And there's no right or wrong,

And maybe even there's something for you in whatever it is that you're experiencing.

No matter how uncomfortable or tumultuous it may feel,

Just give yourself to come into a state again of deep presence,

Of open awareness,

And connect with a level of acceptance for exactly where and as you are,

Right here,

Right now.

As you continue to create space and tune in,

You might find that particular parts of your body feel connected to whatever emotion it is that you are experiencing right now.

Keep your heart and your mind open as you begin to get curious about how these emotions land inside of your body.

Where do you feel them?

What parts of the body are holding on to this emotion,

And maybe there's multiple emotions present.

Again,

Just keep yourself open and curious and allow your awareness of this connection to deepen emotion and the physical body.

How are they interconnected?

Begin to also explore whatever physical sensations you find may be connected with these difficult emotions.

Exploring their depth,

Any movement that they may have,

Their intensity.

You may also observe some narratives that you have about the emotion you're feeling,

The sensations associated with it.

Your only job here is to observe.

Notice what's coming up for you.

What words or stories do you have about this emotion you're feeling?

What does your relationship to it feel like?

Again,

There's no right or wrong.

Allow yourself to be as open to this as possible.

If at any point in this meditation you find that you feel that you want to cry or move the body,

Know that you can.

These are some of the ways that the body attempts to ease and move emotion through.

So if you feel like you need to wiggle around,

Shake or cry,

Allow yourself to do so.

Continue to allow your awareness to be as expansive as possible.

Allow yourself to be as curious as possible.

And whether or not you have been able to identify where these emotions are connected to your physical body,

We're going to do a little visualization to aid in the curiosity of our experience.

If you have found where these emotions live in your body currently,

You can use those as focal points here.

Otherwise,

Just keep yourself open to whatever it is that comes into your intuitive vision field.

Begin to imagine some energetic threads expanding from your body,

Taking form as the difficult emotions you are experiencing.

Maybe they are extending from a particular part of the body or maybe not.

How many energetic threads do you have and what do they look like?

Are they moving?

Are they still?

How far out beyond the body do they expand?

And at the end of these energetic threads,

Allow these emotions to form however they want to.

Maybe they take the form of the actual word of the emotion.

Maybe it's more of a blob of color or an object.

And the job here is not to be right or wrong.

Just trust in your creative intuition,

Whatever arises for you right now.

Take a moment here to just be with this visual of these energetic threads of emotion extending out beyond you,

Allowing them to take whatever form is most intuitive to you.

And just be with them.

Just observe them.

How do they move?

What do they look like?

How do you feel seeing them extending out beyond you?

You might find that you can actually create a little bit more space and distance between you and your emotional threads.

Feel free to take a step back from them if that feels right for you.

Whatever distance away from these emotional energetic threads feels right for you is perfect.

Take a moment to extend some gratitude for these emotional energetic threads,

Allowing themselves to be present in your awareness.

Thank them for being here,

Even if that feels hard or weird to do.

Let them settle in your mind's eye.

Let them be seen.

And just take a moment to continue tuning in to how you feel through this process.

Maybe you have some questions for these emotional energetic threads,

These little parts of you.

Feel free to pose any questions and maybe one of them is asking what they are here to teach you.

What is it that they are trying to show you?

Keep your heart and your mind open.

Allow whatever messages want to come through to come through.

If you feel like you're thinking too much or nothing is coming through for you,

You can always settle back into your awareness of the breath of the body in your surroundings.

As you continue to be curious and open with these emotional energetic threads,

You may find that some of them change shape.

Some of them may begin to dissipate.

Some of them may become stronger.

Just continue to allow this process to unfold naturally,

Keeping that curious loving awareness.

Part of this process for you may involve clearing your energetic and emotional slate.

If that is part of your process,

Take a moment to extend gratitude to these energies and these emotions for what it is that they have come here to teach you.

What it is that they have come to offer you.

From there,

You can allow yourself to very gently and lovingly begin to clear the slate,

Allowing these energies and emotions to dissipate,

To dissolve,

And to be transmuted into something new.

Wherever you are at in your process,

Know that you can continue to be with this meditation and this visual process for as long as you need to.

Feel free to pause the audio and continue practicing on your own.

Our most difficult emotions often have some of the most potent lessons for us to learn.

It just requires us to be open to that even being a possibility.

When we understand that we can learn from our pain,

We're at a better opportunity to transmute it into something new.

But it's really important to begin exactly where we are.

So thank you for meeting yourself exactly where you are today.

Thank you for engaging with this process and allowing it to unfold.

This is something that you can do without sitting down to do this exact meditation,

But know that this meditation is here for you to utilize as many times and whenever it is that you would like.

You can engage with dialogue with your energetic and emotional parts at any time.

Curiosity is the best medicine here.

So again,

I thank you for showing up and I hope that this was helpful for you.

I'll see you in the next practice.

Namaste.

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