A practice in observing emotions as they arrive, noting them, and letting them pass without being pulled under.
Listen to the Meditation
About This Practice
Emotions are rarely singular. When we are angry we are often also frustrated, or envious, or quietly ashamed of being angry in the first place. Several are usually running at once.
They are also not random. An emotion is what happens when a belief we currently hold meets a situation, and that belief may be conscious or may be running well below the surface. This is why emotions are useful rather than inconvenient. They are data. They tell us which beliefs are active right now.
So the work here is not to change what you feel. It is to observe it. You take the stance of an observer, with curiosity and kindness rather than judgement, and you note what is present. Anger. Restlessness. A tightness that has no name yet.
Noting creates distance. From that distance, an emotion stops being something you are and becomes something you are experiencing, which is the point at which you can start to ask what belief is underneath it. That question belongs to Insight, the third step, and this practice is how you get in a position to ask it.
Nothing here needs fixing. Emotions arrive and pass on their own when we stop holding them in place.
Micro Practice: Three Breaths
When an emotion has you in its grip, take three breaths.
- Breathe to settle into the present moment and make a little space.
- Breathe and observe what you are feeling. Note whatever you can name.
- Breathe and let it be there, without pushing it away.