When I first started meditating, I was often overwhelmed by waves of difficult emotions. I wanted to meditate to feel happier, not more irritated and anxious. At first, I thought: Am I doing this wrong? Am I supposed to push these feelings down and always come back to my breath? AM I DOING THIS RIGHT? I found the basic shamatha instruction of developing concentration alone to be confusing.
With time, I soon learned that the onslaught of emotions that arose weren’t necessarily new, but simply hiding below the surface of my awareness. The container of formal practice offered me the space to hear what was calling out my name, wanting to be heard, held, and taken care of.
So many of us are often moving through life simply crossing off the next thing on our to-do list—getting to work, making sure the kids’ shoes still fit, scheduling an overdue dentist appointment—that we forget to give ourselves the space to tend to emotions that live in our body, sometimes unconscious to us but nevertheless present.
This doesn’t even include the strong emotions that we experience in the moment, punctuating our everyday life. We may not have the time or capacity to fully feel and explore a difficult emotion that arises when scrolling through the news or after a tough conversation—but the feeling lingers, and it can be helpful to have a container to give this emotion our full attention.
Meditation practice offers us a somatic space of stillness to listen, feel, and cultivate the courage to be with what arises. Not to fix or even make sense of it, but to allow the emotion to fully express its wisdom, held in a self-made cradle of loving-kindness.
In this week’s video, you’ll learn:
Why difficult emotions are a natural part of shamatha practice
When RAIN meditation can be supportive
Step-by-step guidance for working with the RAIN technique
How this practice can help you see that emotions are neither permanent nor a fixed part of who you are
‘RAIN’ Guided Meditation [15-mins]:
