Happy Tuesday beautiful hearts! One of my favorite mindfulness teachers is Tara Brach. Her teachings inspire and transform my life, but sometimes I forget to practice these insightful ways as real life experiences draw even 'nearer' into my view. Can you relate? It seems more manageable when fear is 'over there' rather than staring us in the face? Over the past several weeks I have been working with some of emotions surrounding fear. Fear has had a very prominent voice in my life and in my resistance of it I have often frozen and become unwilling to move. It wasn't until I stumbled upon this teaching from her that I found myself able to touch this fear and create a compassionate relationship to it. In hind site my resistance was quite worse than the fearful story I was recounting to myself. I hope you find this of benefit in your life. When we participate in this life changing work, we wake up not only our own hearts, but the hearts of the world. May this invitation permeate your life:).
In Gratitude,
Sarah
In Gratitude,
Sarah
Tara Brach: Feelings will come and go, and it’s not necessary with every arising feeling to take a deep dive. But you will need to work with those that you habitually run from if you want to wake up and be fully openhearted.
When a feeling comes up—let’s say it’s fear—you can simply recognize it and name it by saying, “I sense fear here.”
When you witness and name what’s there, you free yourself from its domination.
There’s been research done at UCLA that shows that when you name an emotion, it activates the frontal cortex and helps to sooth and comfort the amygdala, lowering the reaction in the limbic system.
After you’ve named the emotion, the next step is to allow it to be there—to have the conscious intention to give room to whatever has come out of the woods. There are two questions I find useful to bring a full, present attention to difficult emotions.
The first is, “What is happening inside me right now?” Try to contact the felt sense in your body. Investigate where the feeling lives and how it’s expressed. Feel your throat, chest, and belly—feel where the emotions actually live in your flesh.
Then ask yourself, “Can I be with this?” or “Can I let this be?”
In some way, offer the message that’s needed, whether it’s one of kindness, gentleness, or care. You can say to the emotion, “You belong.” Even if it’s fear or shame, I will say, “You belong. You are a wave in my ocean.” As soon as you give the message that “this belongs too,” you signal there’s no resistance, and that gives the space for the emotion to unfold, release, and be integrated into a greater whole.
When a feeling comes up—let’s say it’s fear—you can simply recognize it and name it by saying, “I sense fear here.”
When you witness and name what’s there, you free yourself from its domination.
There’s been research done at UCLA that shows that when you name an emotion, it activates the frontal cortex and helps to sooth and comfort the amygdala, lowering the reaction in the limbic system.
After you’ve named the emotion, the next step is to allow it to be there—to have the conscious intention to give room to whatever has come out of the woods. There are two questions I find useful to bring a full, present attention to difficult emotions.
The first is, “What is happening inside me right now?” Try to contact the felt sense in your body. Investigate where the feeling lives and how it’s expressed. Feel your throat, chest, and belly—feel where the emotions actually live in your flesh.
Then ask yourself, “Can I be with this?” or “Can I let this be?”
In some way, offer the message that’s needed, whether it’s one of kindness, gentleness, or care. You can say to the emotion, “You belong.” Even if it’s fear or shame, I will say, “You belong. You are a wave in my ocean.” As soon as you give the message that “this belongs too,” you signal there’s no resistance, and that gives the space for the emotion to unfold, release, and be integrated into a greater whole.
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