Words cannot accurately convey what we are experiencing. Do you remember the last time you were telling a story? Was there a moment in which you reached a point that you were out of words and found yourself saying ‘Oh man you just had to be there to see it’. This is what happens when an experience is so intense emotionally; Words are simply not enough to describe it.
Now imagine this in traumatic situations or moments of uncertainty like the times we are experiencing now. Lockdown in self-distancing, restricted from family, friends and living in uncertainty. We don’t know for how long this situation will last; we don’t even know how the world will be after this. Not to mention the unavoidable economic hardship and insecurity.
My friend Anthi described this feeling in one of her writing posts in this way ‘it feels a bit like walking into the darkness. The Unknown’.
Words sometimes are impossible to describe the anguish we are feeling. Often times we are unable to make sense of the felt sensations we are having, including the actual emotions we are having our selves.
Tarthang Tulku said ‘Our feelings and our bodies are like waters flowing into water. We learn to swim within the energies of the body senses.’
The self-work and meditation practice Is not about changing the emotions, or resisting any feelings. It’s ok to be afraid and It’s ok to feel upset; we are living in unfamiliar situation with an unknown outcome, constantly bombarded with all sort of information feeling that we have no saying in this. Not to mention that just before we found ourselves in the existing situation, we were already lost in our own mental narrative of not being clever enough, not important enough, not being able to hold a relationship, or being in the wrong one; and our mind just won’t stop spinning around thoughts and self-blame.
STOP
Take a breath.
Take another breath.
Sometimes to make sense of what we are feeling we create a story which we tell ourselves and then we confuse that with our actual emotions. The moment we start to think of the emotions and feelings we simply create a mental narrative we keep telling ourselves. This is the time for you to learn that feelings, emotions and all sort of other felt senses are only physical. You SIT with the emotion; you notice it as separate from you; and you discover that here it is the sensation and here is ‘YOU’ noticing it.
The aim of the following meditation is to make sense of our emotions by learning the language of our own bodies and senses.