Open to What Has Been Here
Many of us come to meditation because we have a sense that we’re not seeing as clearly as we could, that we’re missing important parts of the full picture. This lack of clear-seeing has confounded us, and we hope that meditation might offer us, over time, some greater clarity.
Meditation does, in fact, help us take in more information as we learn to pay attention. It helps us identify where we might have a blind spot (or two, or three). Perhaps we’ve ceded control to monkey mind so we’re less aware of what’s going on in the present moment, stressing our nervous system. Or we realize that, like James Joyce’s Mr. Duffy, we’ve been living a short distance from our bodies. Often the increasing ability to integrate these missing pieces is a pleasant experience, a sense of greater ease may be felt rather quickly.
Sometimes, though, it takes courage to open to what we’ve been missing, to look it square in the eye, to shake its hand, and to see that what we thought was a detractor is actually a benefactor. This can be the case with emotions, especially for men, and for women who work in what have traditionally been male fields.
We may have believed that being “unemotional” has been a strength, skill or asset, and it can be a bit uncomfortable to come to the realization that not being attuned to our emotions hasn’t been serving us well. This can put a small dent in the ego, lead to a temporary sense of vulnerability, and might make the ground feel a bit shaky for a moment. And then we realize that emotions had been present all along, driving our behavior, but we just hadn’t been aware of it. We weren’t “unemotional”, we were simply emotion-blind. Once we gently open to our emotional experience, recognizing it, and acknowledging it, we gain not just comfort with it, but we also gain one more piece of the bigger picture, one more element to clear-seeing.
If there is trepidation about opening to emotions, one way to approach the process is to thank emotions when we realize they are present in us. “There is some worry here. Thank you worry, for letting me see you.” It may sound hokey, but give it a try. And while you’re at it, give yourself a thank you for taking the time to explore your full lived experience.
We hope you will join us this week as we open to what has been there all along. In the meantime, if you'd like to listen to a description of Mindfulness of Emotions, you can click here. If you'd like to listen to a guided Mindfulness of Emotions meditation, you can click here.
May all beings, without exception, find peace on the journey to clear-seeing,
Your friends at CMP
