[184] Navigating Emotions through Meditation: Recognizing, Responding, and Releasing - with Joe Parent
10:33PM Nov 26, 2024
Speakers:
Joe Parent
Karen Roper
Keywords:
meditation practice
emotional triggers
intense emotions
thought content
bodily reaction
emotional reactivity
trauma triggers
emotional response
posture awareness
breathing rhythm
grounded posture
open awareness
emotional teaching
compassion practice
ruminating thoughts
Thank you, Alyssa. Nice to see everybody, everybody who's visible, and the names of familiar names and faces and some new ones. So welcome. It's It's always my pleasure to be able to do the these meditations. It's an opportunity for to deepen my own practice as well as share with others. So Andrew, I think he's in Costa Rica right now getting ready to do his What, what's the program he's doing? Is he doing it with Mia? I think it's the dream, a dream yoga program.
It actually ended last week, so it was only six weeks long,
the Costa Rica program. Oh, I'm sorry.
I thought you meant the six week class we were doing on nightclub. Yeah, the Costa Rican is coming up in March.
Hmm, okay, I thought it was sooner. So when he when he was talking the other night, it sounded like he was getting ready to leave for Costa Rica. Maybe he was going on a scouting trip, in any case, he's done a couple of sessions for people who were working with their emotions around the election, after the elections, and whether the elections or not we have and this time of year, the Holiday season coming up, lots and lots of emotions. I remember seeing an email come in of an article, how to not fight with your relatives, things like things like that that were that that come up. So I thought we'd, we'd go a little further and delve into how we can practice meditation with regard to our emotions. I was just studying a slogan which is called train in the three difficulties. And the first difficulty is that we get overwhelmed by very intense emotions, and understand that emotions are a combination of thought content that triggers bodily reaction. So we have mind and body going together, and studies have shown that if the body has any kind of reaction, it takes 60 to 90 seconds for it to calm down, and it will come back to homeostasis, to equanimity, if it's not provoked again. So the reason we feel like we have these continuous, long, intense emotions is because we keep re triggering it with another thought and another thought and another thought, and then it feels like it's continuous, but basically the emotion it spikes. And then as it's going down, we give it another boost, and it spikes again. And as it goes and so it never goes all the way back down. Sometimes, if we get distracted, it goes back down. And then as soon as we have that thought again, back up again. And these, these intense emotions can be feelings of rejection, they can be anger, they can be fear of loss and clinging and attachment. I was talking with somebody about this movie called broadcast news. It's an old movie. It's, I still recommend it, and one of the characters in it is played by Albert Brooks and and one of his lines is, why can't needy be a turn on? So, so we all of these, all of these emotions, jealousy and envy, pride and and feeling like we're not good, not getting the credit that we deserve, and and then it's even called an emotion, I Guess as close as close as we can get is denial of shutting down and just, you know, the Hear No, see no, speak No, just just going numb, which is still, again a bodily experience. You. So the first thing it's they're difficult because they overwhelm us. The second thing is, and so, so to be able to deal with them, the first thing is, we have to be able to recognize them. And I've talked about this before the the metaphor of the great teachers, I just heard several of them talking about it as, do you react like a lion or a dog? A dog, if you throw a stick at the dog, the dog chases the stick. You throw a stick at the lion, the lion chases you. So when we're experiencing the emotions, do we look out at the the problem is the cause from outside ourselves, that's the stick. Or do we say, Okay, what is it about me that's react, that has this intense reaction? I want to learn what it is that triggers these things and and recognizing that that you're caught up in, this is the first step. If you're just swept away and you don't even realize it, there's nothing that you can do. So the only way you can do something about it is to recognize, Oh, wow. Okay. Now there are the second part is, then you have to deal with it and and the teaching is, do not suppress, but do not indulge. Indulge means, again, chasing after the object of the emotions and acting out on the basis of the emotion suppressing is, I don't want to feel this. I'm going to push it down and just not feel it. But it's down there. So the antidotes all deal with saying, Okay, what's the source of this? What's the sort it's it's this attachment, and how real is that, and what's the basis of it, and being able to see, see clearly what's going on and what you can do about it, what you don't need to do anything about it, And and the phrase that's used is to boycott, boycott reacting to it. So if we if we are aware of what's going on, then we can choose how to respond. If we're swept away with it, it's react. It's reactivity. So there are various kinds of antidotes, and we're going to explore a couple of those in our session, and then the last is setting an intention that we're not going to get quite so swept away next time, that we're going to catch it sooner, and ideally, that we're eventually going to be able to catch and work with our emotions in a responsive way, rather than a reactive way, as much of the time as possible, and we'll work with what to do in that regard, and to in that regard, it's really looking into the nature of the emotions and the nature of our emotional experience. But again, in the same way that you can't see through muddy water, we you have to let the mud settle, and then the water becomes clear. We have to let things settle. Okay? And I see a question for Karen, what about consistently being triggered by trauma? That's a that's a really important question, and and that is again, seeing the source of it and realizing, oh, you know what, I'm not talking to the person who's in front of me. I'm talking to that person who abused me 30 years ago. Wow. That doesn't mean you're not going to feel the whole physical reactivity, but the whole point is, as soon as you cut the repetition of the thoughts about that or mistaken thoughts that what you're attributing to what's in front of you is actually something from your past, once you can see clearly, Then the impetus for it to continue is cut. So we're not talking about cutting or stopping the emotions. We're talking about cutting the momentum of them so that when they come, they don't overwhelm us as much. And this was in an email this morning. Our difficult emotions are our teachers. They point to something that we need to look into and work with. So let's do let's start our meditation practice. And to do this practice, this is we're starting with the settling, letting the dust, the mud, settle. Then we're going to and get settled and centered. Then we're going to open to what our experience is in the present moment. And then we're going to invite some emotions. And I'd like you to be careful when you're inviting an emotion, not to invite something as as you were saying in the chat that's going to trigger a trauma. So the teaching is to, um, take baby steps and work with something that's that's not as intense to start with
and get familiar with it and and once you've trained in that, then they actually say, work with the ones that are the remote that most often show up. Work with those first. But, but we don't want to jump into the deep end before we can swim. So we work. We'll work with something just like a slight irritation, a slight frustration, something gnawing at us, something that we want and or a memory that gives us, you know, that makes us desirous and wanting to have more of what that was, any of those kinds of emotions, so we'll look that out. Okay. So um, thank you, Patrick for putting in the the chat. Let's take a time out from the chat and do the practice, and then we'll have time for some discussion afterwards. Now we're going to start with our eyes closed, but what I'd like you to do is move your seat or your screen so that when we start practicing with our eyes open, you're not looking directly into your screen, not so good for your eyes and not so good for your awareness of the space in front of you. So start by connecting with your posture. We're doing sitting because if you're standing, there's a tendency to move around, and if you're lying down, there's a tendency to fall asleep. And although this is nightclub and we're working with dreams right now, we're going to be sitting up. So just tune into your body. Fully inhabit your body. We're sometimes we're so much in our heads. It's like we're a talking head, and our bodies are transport, vehicle and something, something separate. So fully inhabit your body. Can even start with wiggling your toes, feeling your calves, legs move, move them around a little bit, and feel how the tops of your legs go into your hip joints. And when you move your hips, the legs move. We're all connected that way. So let's get, let's get connected to our whole body, your torso. Feel it. Turn around your the axis of your spine, and move your shoulders back and forth a little bit, roll them a little bit and feel, feel that. Feel your arms all the way down to your fingertips, your neck, chin, your face, your head, lower enough in our head. So now let's take our posture and start with back with your sit bones pressing into the chair or cushion, make them even so they're not one side of the weight, more on one side or the other, and let your torso be straight up and down, so that you're not leaning forward and not tilted back. Now, ideally, you're not leaning back against something. But if you have to for physical reasons, try to scoot your butt back as close to whatever you're leaning back against as you can, so that you have a vertical, something vertical behind you and you're upright. Some people find it helpful to tuck a little a towel or something under behind the small of their back for a little extra support. All that's fine. If you're on a cushion on the floor, your legs are probably already crossed in front of you. If you're in a chair, your feet can be flat on the floor, with your shins perpendicular to the floor. So your your ankles are straight below your knees, about and your feet are about hip width apart hip your knees and your feet. Now the thing is, if your knees are higher than your hips, puts a strain on your lower back and your legs. So just cross your ankles in front of you, same distance away from you, and let your knees open up and widen out, and you'll find that there they are lower than your hips. Now your arms are hanging. Let your arms hang straight down from your shoulders, and again, your upper arms are perpendicular to floor, swivel your lower arms up so that they're along your thighs with your palms, palm hands, palm down on each thigh, they'll end up a little bit behind your knees probably, so you're not reaching forward and curling forward, and not pulling back and arching back. Now I mentioned your spine being upright. We want to upright, but not rigid, not tilted one side or the other, or forward or back. And if you can, to the extent that it's comfortable, feel like your breast bone comes up and forward a tiny bit, just a quarter of an inch, just a centimeter or two, and you'll find that what happens is your chest opens up, your breathing becomes easier, your shoulders come back naturally to be in line with your ears. You might even feel a tiny pinch of your shoulder blades behind you. You'll feel how much fuller your your breath is as it comes in, your chest is open now, so we want a firm back open chest, which is like open heart, as far as your neck and your head, the back of your neck and the back of your head. Regard that as a straight line coming up from your spine. So there's as if a straight line from the top of the back of your head straight down all the way to your tailbone. It isn't straight because there's curvature in your spine, but feeling that way, your chin comes in a little bit naturally, and then you're not because we spend so much time going forward, our chin is like sticking out going forward. And sometimes, if we sit up, our chin tilts up and we get spaced out, or tilts down and we get sleepy. So by the back of your head being a straight line down to your tailbone, the chin comes in naturally, and you're nicely upright. It becomes a dignified posture, open heart, chest and shoulders open, chin tucked in, and now relax your jaw without your mouth being slack Open, we're going to breathe in through our nostrils. And if some breath comes out through your mouth as well, that's not a problem, but just breathe in through your just through your nostrils. See if you're comfortable. You can either have your lips slightly open or lightly touching your tongue. Can rest naturally, or let it drift up so that the tip of your tongue rests gently against the upper palate, just behind your front teeth. It said that that reduces the flow of saliva that particular way of holding your tongue. And if it's a concern that you find you have saliva in your mouth, just swallow. We're not making a big deal. This isn't rigid. If you have a sharp pain, move. We're not this isn't supposed to be torture, and we'll have times during the session where we can refresh. It said, sometimes this practice is good to do short sessions, then refresh and then another short session. Now drop your awareness deep into the core of your torso, a couple of inches below the navel, just in front of your spine, feel the three dimensionality of your torso. Sometimes we feel like we're two dimensional beings just our front, like we see in a mirror we have. Depth, front to back as well. So as you breathe in your deep core, there'll be a feeling of expanding. It's actually your diaphragm pushing down to pull the air in, and then a contracting as the diaphragm comes up to push the air out. But it'll feel like your lower core is expanding in all directions, all the way around 3d 360 feel that expansion. Feel that contraction.
Now, the key here is to relax your control of your breathing, just be an observer and let the body breathe itself. I promise it will keep breathing and just observe your body might take a deep breath or a shallow one, a long one or a short one. Just be openly curious about how your body breathes without you running it. You know when you're paying attention to other things and not thinking about your breathing, it's happening without you controlling it. So just feel your whole body and let the breathing happen by itself,
but rest your awareness deep in your core and let yourself be soothed by the rhythm of your breathing like being at the shore of the ocean or a big lake on a calm day, and the tide generally comes up the beach And then back into the ocean up the beach, then back into the ocean, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. Let your breath be like that.
Relax and enjoy that feeling, that rhythm. It's soothing. I
as you relax with the rhythm of the breathing, notice if there are any parts of your body that you're holding tension your thighs, are you clenching in your deep belly or pelvis? Your shoulders? Are you holding them up? Just relax into the soothing rhythm of the breathing, let all the tension melt and flow down and out of you.
The only tension you need is to hold Your posture you
as you hear the sound of the gong fade, we're going to gently wake up a little bit without losing the rhythm and the relaxation deep in the core, just letting your eyes. Is open halfway.
Soften your gaze. You're not looking at anything particular. It's as if you're looking just at the space that your body is sitting in just a couple of feet in front of you into the sides.
This is our transition to engaging with the world, but we're going to remain mainly focused that rhythm deep In our core,
filling and empty, filling and empty We'll
do that for A couple of Minutes And
and if your mind is drifted off into a daydream, a thought about what you're doing, or something else that leads to another thought or another thought, or another thought, and your actually mind is completely someplace else. At some point, it pops, and you're back. Just smile and go, Ah, I was away, and return to your posture, the rhythm of the Breathing awareness of the space that you're sitting in and
And now focus a little more on The up breath. Not the breath coming out of you, but the feeling of emptying deep in your core when there's a when the diaphragm goes up and the core pulls in and but put with a feeling as you breathe out of sinking down, filling, emptying and sinking without losing your posture, emptying and sinking down.
With each out breath, you sink down a little bit more, and imagine that you're becoming part of the Earth, sinking down and merging with the earth. Down through whatever seat you're on. Breathe out, sink down and merge with the earth and
it's as if you're a mountain, the base merging with the Earth, but your spine and your body extending upward from that solid,
secure base.
Breathe out. Feel grounded. You can't be more grounded than being part of the earth. Breathe out and feel grounded and
and now as the gong fades from that grounded, upright posture, let your eyes be fully open. Let them look ahead naturally, which will be slightly below the horizon, and soften your gaze to open up your peripheral vision, as if you're looking at a landscape
now from our base of groundedness, we turn to openness, open to What you see, hear and feel in your body and
your breath is in exchange with the environment your body is breathing in that. Is around you and you're breathing you into your environment.
As you do this,
you might experience the separation between you and your environment just softening a little
less barrier,
softening and opening and
you, you're part of The environment, and the environment is part of you. You
within that open space, whatever feelings, thoughts, perceptions, arise in your mind, just let them come up and go by, identify with the space The awareness in which they're arising, rather than the contents. Let's work with that for A couple of Minutes. You
now within that open space of awareness, Bring a mind to a situation that provoked a little bit of emotion,
some situation not progressing the way you want it to and you become impatient.
Someone doing something that irritates you, or you get frustrated with, or you get angry at, how dare they.
You're impatient at the progress of the meeting. What's wrong with them? You
something you're attached to, you're not getting what you want, or it's being taken away from you. Someone's leaving, and you're going to miss them.
Maybe you're feeling like everything that's happening in the news is just too much. I need to shut down. I want to go to, I want to go to just get in bed and pull the covers over my head.
Notice the thoughts, feel what it's feeling in your Body. We'll do that for A minute or so I'm
I shift your attention to just as much as you can, mainly the feeling in your body. Drop the storyline you
I feel like your breathing is ventilating, that feeling it becomes lighter,
less solid, less strong, and
until Mostly what's left is your breathing in Your body and
generate a feeling and a little bit stronger emotion, anger that It's hard to let go, longing that's painful, overwhelmed and this
is another antidote, another way to to work with it. Whatever it is you're feeling, feel the pain of it,
and then think there are millions and millions of other people feeling the same thing. And.
I'm not alone. I
and if you want to lead your practice into compassion and caring for others. You can add, I wish that the pain they're going through could simply be included in mine, so they'd be free of it. You
as the gong fades, let go of what you're imagining, bring your awareness back to your core, let your gaze be eyes half open, looking down in front of you, and return for a couple of moments to the rhythm of Your breathing. You
I Thank you for your practice. It's always good to practice together. It feels good to be practicing with others. And now, if you have any comments or questions about the practice, you can unmute yourself. I think they're allowed to read Alyssa. They can just unmute themselves. You don't. You don't have to raise your hand or put things in the chat if you'd rather you
and while we're waiting, let it percolate a little bit, we always like to finish a practice session with furthering our intention to benefit others. So although we're working on our own emotions, we talked about how many other people are sharing the same experiences. So you can put in your own words or repeat after me, may the practice we have just done, may the practice we have just be of benefit to others as well as ourselves.
Yeah, benefit. To others as well as ourselves and.
Anybody like to share anything I
Patrick wrote something.
Do you think our human emotions are obstacles on the spiritual journey? I I'm not sure. Are you thinking of particular human emotions? I'm not. I'm not aware of, I don't, I don't remember or have awareness of experience of other kinds of emotions. But are they? They can be our, like I said, they can be our teachers and point to things that we need to work with. Or they can be obstacles, if we make them into obstacles, if, and you know, that's why the challenge of trauma, because it there's something called the window of tolerance that people who have a lot of trauma, the window of tolerance shrinks. So there's certain conditions that, if they're not just so everything else can trigger this kind of emotional reactivity, so working on ourselves to open up that window and not and working with our fears and and processing those traumas so that we can so They don't have as much control over us. That's what needs to happen to to overcome the obstacles that you were just describing. Let's see. Joey's a little Match Girl, just before we turn to compassion. That's good. That's great. Yes, feel it in your body and take it on the season. Yes, so many others. Thank you, Sharon, for your comment. There
Tim wrote, they seem to affect our perception. Do we need to subdue them to see reality? Well, again, we're not talking about subduing. We don't want to suppress and we don't indulge, but we want to see through Yes, you we need to see through them to see reality. And it does affect our perception, because think about it, when you're meditating and you go off into thoughts, you go off into thoughts and you're thinking about something else. One of my favorite examples is, is somebody sitting there. They do two or three breaths, and they go, Oh, this is very relaxing. This reminds me of that yoga class I took. I wonder what happened to that instructor. She was really good. I think she moved to New York. I really liked New York. You know, last time was in New York I saw this play. It was really good play. And in six thoughts, you're you're watching people singing and dancing on stage. Now you've lost perception of you're not in the same room. You're looking at a stage in New York and and you're not feeling what you're feeling in your body. It's like, it's it. They call it a daydream, because it's like you're dreaming. And when we're in the dream state, our bodies are paralyzed, so you're actually not seeing or hearing or feeling what's actually there. You're you're off in there. And then you you wake up and go, Oh, not in New York. And that's when you come back. To the back to the technique. So yeah, it does affect our perceptions. And whenever we're caught up in emotions, they tend to distort our perception. If we're angry at somebody, we we build a case again against them, and we do not want to see any evidence that goes against our case, and we find the evidence, and sometimes excuse the expression, Trump up the evidence that that supports our case about this person. And it's not that it's not true. It's not a full representation of reality, because we're picking and choosing. So yeah, that affects our perception and affects how we relate with others. The spacious part was your favorite tonight.
Yes, space
the last frontier.
That part toward the end, would you let we were led up to it, but then that part was really cool. I
Well, we're just past the top of the hour. Thank you all so much for your practice. We're supporting each other really, and we all share at least we know at least all of us, we share the intention to be present, to be compassionate, and that sometimes we get taken away by the emotions, and this is and we and we want to work on them so that we can be more at peace with ourselves and and be more available and helpful to others. So thank you again. And please, if you would like, you're welcome to come to the Thursday morning and Tuesday morning after Thanksgiving, the Thursday the fifth, Tuesday the 10th, and Alyssa put that in the, in the connection, in the chat. And I think I'm going to be coming oh. Rita, may raised her hand, yeah, and I'll be coming back. I think December 9 is my next one on Monday. Rita, yeah,
one thing, okay, working through emotional triggers and that, you know, something that's been going on decades. Mm, hmm, with another person. And so whenever things happen, like the the triggers are not there, like the anger or the, you know, the the physical emotions, however, the ruminating in the head won't get out of there, like, like, even, you know. So how, how do I get to that next level.
Okay, so first of all, it's the top of the hour, so if you need to go, thank you and but let's talk some more. So the ruminating sense of humor is really helpful. Okay? And that is, and that is no, okay, I'm thinking about something that no longer exists. It's in the past. I'm thinking about something that is in the future that I'm imagining. And you and then say, and then notice how similar the thoughts are that you're repeating the same script over and over again. You're re you're replaying, and you go, you know, how many times do I want to watch the same TV show over and over again, again, and then, and then, and the same thing for the future? Well, there's another version of it. There's another version of it. How creative I am. So it helps to laugh and say and sometimes I go, Really, I said that. I heard that already. I heard that already. So Jerry's gonna like this? And you can say that when you have that same ruminating thought you heard it already, really and have a sense of humor about it, Jerry, you're gonna like this one. Okay, so I was on a train ride, and the guy in front of me, I noticed every now and again would laugh out loud, and then in between the last he'd go like this with his hand, like he was brushing something away near his head. So I got curious, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and I said sorry to I don't mean to be rude, but what are you laughing about? And he said, Well, I. But on long train roads to pass the time, I tell myself jokes. Said, Oh, and what's this thing? He said, Oh, those I heard already. So if you if you hear yourself ruminating and the same thing, just go like this. Just go, heard it already ready. And ready and have a laugh about it. And the one technique that you can use is counting them. Oh, my God, that's the fourth time I've thought about this in just 15 minutes. Enough already. Yeah, enough. Yeah. Like that, and then, but you have to do it with a laugh. Like fleet, no, go away. Go away. Go away. No, then they'll come back. Those kinds of thoughts are like, like, pesty kids in class who really like they, if you get they get a rise out of you. They just keep coming. And if you go, Oh, please. And you don't really care. They get bored and go away. That's what those thoughts are like.
Okay, thank you. Sense of
humor goes a long way. Do you like that one? Jerry, you
all right, gang, so thank you all very much, and have a great Thanksgiving. If you're in Canada or another country, have a great week and weekend, and we'll see you next time.