Session 03: Mindfulness of Emotions

We began Session One by exploring the importance of the breath, and then we expanded that to an awareness of our bodily sensations. In Session Three, we will learn how to open the field of mindfulness to include emotions and feeling states, and then we’ll broaden that exploration to our thoughts and thought patterns at the next session.

Grounding Meditation

So to start, let's do a little bit of practice with them. Again, let yourself find a way to sit as we have with a sense of presence and ease, and alertness. And we had begun our practice with an awareness of the senses around us, of the breath and the body, using the breath and body as our anchor. Now, we will open the field of mindful awareness, to include the flow of feelings.

So allow your eyes to gently close and try to sense yourself seated here, on this earth, resting in a safe and steady way, just here and now. And, as we have done before, sense your body seated here and the life breaths moving within it.

And now, as you start to become present, turn your attention to notice whatever feelings might be present. There might be calm or ease or a touch of frustration or sadness. There could be loneliness or grief, delight, happiness.

And as you notice whatever feelings are present, and there may be more than one-- there may be several-- stay also connected with your body. Soften, allow the feelings to be known and received with mindful awareness, kindness. (PAUSE)

There are also quite a few people who-- in bringing mindful awareness to feelings-- experience that there isn't much to feel or that it's hard to know feelings. And this is also important to receive with mindfulness. Sometimes it's hard to know feelings. So you can be aware of that. Sometimes there's not much happening, and it's quiet. And you can notice that. (PAUSE)

You can become curious, interested. Perhaps in the quiet, you'll notice there's a feeling of being disconnected or a sense of emptiness or a feeling of numbness. As you let yourself sit and open, feelings are present. Invite them to come forward to be received with a gracious, kind attention. (PAUSE)

And now, for another minute or two, to expand this capacity to be present for feelings-- first, let yourself remember a pleasant situation you've been in in the last weeks or months; some circumstance where you felt pleasure, happiness, ease. And let that memory arise. And feel the flood of feelings that may come with it in your body and mind, heart. (PAUSE)

There might be a smile or a sense of joy or appreciation, sweetness, well-being, delight. (longer pause) And notice how mindfulness can receive and acknowledge them all, the whole play of feeling life. (PAUSE)

Now let's go in another direction. With the same balance and kind attention, let yourself remember a difficult situation in the recent weeks or months-- not the worst one, but one that was at least a bit difficult. And as you remember or picture the situation, notice again the wash of feelings that fill body, heart, and mind—tension, frustration, anxiety, anger, sadness, or whatever feelings they might be. (PAUSE)

 And notice as well how the space of mindful awareness and kindness or compassion can allow all these feelings as well to arise and move through body and heart and mind. And you remain present, grounded, seated, balanced. (PAUSE)

And finally, let your attention come back to the breathing: the life-breath, the rhythm of the body breathing that's underneath all the waves of feelings. And rest in the breathing as it calms and steadies your attention. . (PAUSE)

And now you know from this practice how feelings too can be included with the same relaxed and kind attention you have given to the breath and to the body. (PAUSE)

[CHIME]

After sensing your capacity to be present and to acknowledge the feelings in the body and mind and heart with mindfulness and kindness, the next step that many people find helpful in this training of wisdom with feelings is the practice of naming or acknowledging by naming feelings.

The practice of naming or acknowledging feelings gives you a sense of perspective or creates a space for you with which to witness or observe, to know, to feel them without being quite as caught in them. So you can say, oh, this is anger. This is hurt. This is rage. This is joy. This is longing. And vulnerability feels like this. Sadness or sorrow feels like this.

There are common ones that come in meditation practice. For example, restlessness or sleepiness. And do you know why? Because the body is tired…

So you don't want to judge it, it's called the poor man's nirvana.

And so instead of judging yourself or resisting, you simply acknowledge, "Oh, this is what sleepiness feels like." But it's important to learn how to touch the feeling of sleepiness with the same kind of attention that you give to your breath. Or maybe you'll be sitting and concerns come up about all the things you’ve got to do – thinking turns to fear, worry, anxiety, and so forth. The poet Hafiz writes, "Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I'd like to see you in better living conditions."

So how do you do that? You do it by acknowledging the fear. And you notice that there are feelings in the body associated with fear or anxiety. The hands get sweaty. The breath gets held in the solar plexus-- all kinds of physical experiences that come with it, and then a whole story that it triggers like a chain reaction and then you realise that’s not the real story or what’s really happening and the storyteller has become a fortune teller of fear  

as Mark Twain said, "My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened."

Or maybe it's the judging mind.

So all you can do is turn and bow to it, and say, oh, judging mind, Oh hi mom, inner critic, parent figure, teacher, thank you for your opinion. And the moment you acknowledge this as the judging mind, there's a graciousness, a space, a sense of humour about it, that you don't have to believe it.

Or maybe it's a very strong desire or craving that arises. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. There are healthy desires and unhealthy desires. What's important is for you to be able to recognize, "Oh, this is the craving mind. Thank you." Fulfilling this desire is okay or maybe I can wait and see if this is something I want rather than really need and what are the consequences.

Or maybe it's loneliness or boredom or restlessness. And you sit and you acknowledge restless, restless or lonely, lonely. And these are hard things, hard feelings to stay with. But if you can't stay with them, then the minute you feel bored or lonely or restlessness, what do you do? Open a bottle or a bar of chocolate, right? Or go online, go shopping or check YOUR PHONE because you can't be with yourself.

So if you're sitting at home and you’re bored, do it right. Be really bored… bored, bored. As my brother said last Spring, nothing left to do except cut the grass with the scissors again. Or restless -- restless, restless. And feel what it's like to sit in the middle of a storm of restlessness or boredom or loneliness. See what happens…For me tears of grief and self-compassion came that I hadn’t allowed myself to release and when I did there also came a great sense of relief and freedom. My body felt light and present again.

And people ask, well, what happens if the feelings just get too strong? And of course, if it's really too strong and you feel overwhelmed, you can go back to the anchor of the breath or body or open your eyes and focus on something in your environment to ground yourself in the present. But mostly, if it's too strong and you're naming it, here's the practice to do: say, "Alright, I give up, I surrender to you restlessness" I'll be the first person to die in an online meditation session of restlessness.

And you begin to realize that the difficulty with loneliness or boredom or restlessness is not so much the feeling itself but the resistance that we give to it. And that when the resistance is gone, these feelings and things all become workable. Everything can be met with the same spirit of mindfulness and self-compassionate attention.

(PAUSE)

The same can be said for beautiful feelings. It's not just these difficult ones. There are some people who are afraid of their joy. We're so loyal to our suffering: We make an identity out of our wounding or out of the past or the traumas that we've had, which need to be honoured, but it's only a part and not all of who we are.

So sometimes there'll be lightness or calm or ease or joy and a sense of well-being and contentment that happens and we feel in us or amusement, and laughter, which like yawning is contagious, so laugh out loud and share it -- And so you can notice that with the same awareness and acknowledge it -- joy, laughter, amusement, this is fun or funny. And really try to savour the feelings of these moments in your body. Remember what I said about how The Body Keeps the Score: it records and stores every experience even if we not able to consciously remember everything the body senses and feel and remembers every experience when we feel glad, bad, mad, and sad. 

From a Trait to a State 

Because of the evolution of our brain we’re wired in this fearful and sometimes negative way. “Neurons that fire together wire together” so we’re like Velcro for the negative, Teflon for the positive so, unless we take the time to appreciate the good moments and practice gratitude and savour the taste of joy in our lives we find it harder to recall or remember the happy and more positive experiences. This is the way we and with the help of our neocortex can change the balance of our normal mental state to have a more positive outlook on reality and help our more positive character traits develop and have a more optimistic outlook on life.

As you can hear, the point is not to stop feelings, nor is it to react to each one. But it's to know the feelings that arise with mindfulness, a kind of spacious and loving awareness. And then it's possible to decide how you'll respond to those feelings.

As the poet Rumi says, "Treat each guest honourably." And the beautiful thing is you can't do it wrong. Whatever happens, you can meet and greet that feeling with non-judgmental loving awareness.

So again, let us do a practice working with the breath and body that we started with-- mindfulness of breath and body-- and then opening it to the naming of the feelings as they arise.

Guided Meditation: Mindfulness of Feelings

[CHIME]

So let yourself settle in your posture of dignity and presence, steadiness and relaxation at the same time. So there is an ease and alertness together. If there's any obvious tightness or tension that you can easily release, do so. The shoulders relax, the arms and hands rest easily.

[BREATHE DEEPLY]

Sometimes people like to take one or two deeper breaths as they begin to release any holding.

And as you sit quietly, bring your attention back to your breath, to your body seated here and its rhythm of life-breath. Relax with each breath, feeling it, letting a steady attention and calm come as you breathe in and out, rise and fall.

Now as you pay attention to the breath and let the waves of sounds, sensations, feelings, and thoughts rise and fall like waves of the ocean around the breath, periodically one of the waves will get strong, after three breaths or five breaths, and pull your attention away from the breath. As we've learned, if it's a sensation in the body, you can shift your awareness to feel the sensation.

And now you can even name it gently if that's helpful-- tightness, tightness, throbbing, heat, heat, tingling, pleasure, pleasure. And as you name it, be curious. Notice if it gets stronger or weakens and dissolves. Let it be received with a bow.

And after a time, when the feelings and sensations of the body have changed or you feel like you're at ease with them, then you can return back to be aware of the breath again -- this breath.

And in the same way, as you feel the breath-- three, four, five breaths-- when a feeling arises, or several feelings, you can pick whichever is strongest and becomes strong enough to pull the attention from the breath. Then let go off the focus on breath and body as the centrepiece, as if to bow to the feelings. Name it gently-- restless, restless, or sad, sad or excitement, excitement, joy,

And notice the feeling in body, heart, and mind that moves through you as you name it gently, keeping your loving awareness, your composure very simple.

And then when the feeling diminishes, you can return back to three or four or five more breaths until another strong sensation or sound or feeling arises. In this way, you've expanded the field of mindfulness, including breath and body, senses, feelings, and emotions when they arise, alternating being with the breath as you can or naming the other experiences.

And for the sake of this training and mindfulness of feelings, now deliberately turn your attention, again, to notice whatever feelings are present, even if they're subtle. It might be stillness or quiet. Again, it might be a sense of no feeling at all, of emptiness. Or there might be feelings that are quite apparent. Notice the feelings that are present. And whatever you notice, name gently. And be aware of what happens as you acknowledge it, as it moves through the experience of body and mind. Sometimes one feeling follows another, as I've described. You can notice a sequence of several feelings.

And now to finish up, let yourself come back to the breath, grounding in the body.

[CHIME]

So this naming of and acknowledging of feelings and emotions gives you the tools, or the perspective, that can allow you to really open to your feeling life with wisdom and an understanding.

Wrap up & Homework

And now I'd like to invite you to use this as part of the home practice in these next days-- to sit for 15 minutes a day and, as we've just done, to establish a sense of steadiness and presence in your body, and when you're ready with both relaxation and alertness to return or establish the fundamental awareness of breathing.

And then, as body sensations arise and are strong, receive them with mindful attention, as we just practiced. And similarly, when feelings and emotions arise and become apparent to you, let go of the breath and receive them, name them, and acknowledge them as we've just done so that your mindfulness practice now has expanded to include these new dimensions.

And you'll find that to be so tuned into and aware of this rich feeling life, of your own humanity, and also to have the perspective and spaciousness that mindfulness gives you, you can respond wisely to whatever circumstances and situations you find yourself in.

So thank you and see you next week all going well.