Emotional Balance

Many of the people I work with struggle with "negative" emotions--fear, anger, anxiety, sadness, etc. In my own journey I came to see a process unfolding so quickly, that I hadn't even realized it was happening. It goes like this: (1) feel a familiar emotion approaching, (2) label it bad, dangerous or otherwise unwanted, and (3) push it away in some fashion.

But that wasn't working! The negative emotion wouldn't go away. Or if it did, it would just pop up again later--usually stronger and at an even less convenient time! So I started experimenting with a new approach, based on an essential truth that I hold dear: Everything in life can be my teacher, if I only I respect it as such.

Now, when I start to feel that familiar emotion approaching, I do my best NOT to jump to steps 2 & 3. I do the first couple steps of my meditation ABCs--arrive, breathe and connect to care/love. Then I turn toward that emotion as if it is my teacher. I honor it. I ask what it's here to show me. I listen.

I find that, if I can honor it, not only is there something to learn, but the emotion--having done its job in delivering this message--can move on out. No more holding it all in, repressing it so it can pop up later from inside. No more acting it out, unleashing it onto some other beings who will eventually just send the negativity right back. The process all unfolds inside the powerful, aware, spacious, healing stillness within.

In this 21-minute guided meditation we become what is bigger than these emotions so that we can explore their nature and learn from them.