Flowing with Change Meditation

We've had several requests for a meditation having to do with coping with change, and here it is.  

Just looking at my own life over the past couple months reveals a staggering amount of change.  I'm sure any one of you could report the same. 

Change, of course, is in the nature of life.  It's constant.  Life is movement.  Life is one thing morphing into another.  We don't realize how many changes we are experiencing all the time. The weather changes, our moods change as our hormones fluctuate, relationships, technology and institutions are constantly changing -- it's endless. 

Change can be exciting, but it can also be challenging.   Whether it's a major life change or a myriad of other smaller changes, change is constant and change takes time and energy.  What's more is that it can be mentally and emotionally challenging.  We need to develop mental clarity, emotional stability and adaptable bodies to deal with all the change.

Meditation is one of the best ways to surf the waves of change.  The Flowing with Change Meditation can help with change in several ways.  First, it helps us relax into the reactions that we have to change so that we can be more clear mentally and have more emotional stability. The second is that the deep relaxation of meditation helps us recharge our batteries so that we have more energy for dealing with change.  And finally, the meditation helps us connect with that which doesn't change -- the unchanging nature of our own awareness which is present throughout all our experience.  That awareness is wakeful and intelligent.  It is unchanging and constant, and recognizing it helps us to feel anchored in the midst of change.

Emotional pain in chakra meditation

I am responding to a question from a listener who experienced emotional pain while using the Chakra Meditation.  Here is his email:

I was today listening to the Chakra meditation podcast, but felt it was necesarry to turn it off at the Heart Chakra. I found that I became overwhelmed by a feeling of great emotional pain in my heart... I thought I would e-mail you to see if you knew what might be causing this, and how to find the solution.

It's not unusual to become more aware of our emotions during meditation, and even to have strong emotions or emotional pain come up.  I will write about that in general in another post (or talk about it in another podcast), but for now I'll talk specifically about having this happen during the Chakra Meditation.

During the chakra meditation, we put our attention on the various chakras.  The chakras, or energy centers of the body, are like doorways to different aspects of ourselves.  They process the energy for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual functioning.  When we put our attention on a chakra, we become more aware of what is going on in the part of our life that the chakra represents.  Not only do we become more aware, but the energy in the chakra is enlivened by our attention.  

Our attention is a beam of energy and intelligence and, like a laser beam, it affects whatever it is directed toward.  With your awareness on your heart chakra, you may get in touch with something going on in your heart area.  It's like shining a light into a dark room -- what has been hidden becomes revealed.

In this case, you felt great emotional pain.  This could be pain associated with something going on in your life now that you've been ignoring, or it could be some pain "releasing" from the past.  The heart chakra has to do with our relationships and connections with others.  If there has been some loss or hurt in relationships, it is felt in the heart area.  The loss or hurt could even be associated with things and events, such as moving or losing a job.  If the feeling of hurt (or perhaps grief) isn't fully "processed", the energy of the feeling gets "stuck" in the heart chakra.  When we put our attention on the heart chakra, we may feel what is waiting there to be processed.  It's the job of the heart chakra to process certain emotions, and when we relax in meditation and allow our attention to go there, the heart chakra gains the energy to do its job.  While no one likes to experience emotional pain, it is a part of healing and recovering from an emotional trauma. 

Very often we have grief that hasn't been fully resolved in our lives.  Some cultures are better than others in supporting people through grief.  In many of our Western cultures, we've learned to suppress grief.  But our mind and body will always move toward greater balance and emotional well-being given the opportunity.  While meditating, things that have been under the surface can come up to be felt.

When something comes up that makes you feel too uncomfortable, you can always do what you did and stop the meditation.  It would be good if that happens to lie down and rest a bit to let things settle down. There are some other ways of dealing with strong emotions as well, and for something like this an experienced meditation guide could help.  The advice the guide would give would depend on some one-on-one exchange with you.  

After responding to the person who asked this question, he emailed back that indeed he had recently experienced a sort of emotional trauma and had been feeling quite numb until listening to the meditation. Based on that, I also want to add that it is quite normal to feel numb after a traumatic event like the death of a loved one, breakup of a relationship and any other intense loss or change.  It's a healthy response of the body and psyche to protect itself from overload and allow us to continue functioning.  Usually that phase passes and we begin to feel our emotional reactions.  Sometimes, however, those reactions are buried and may surface again after a long period of time.  It's not always possible to know where a strong emotion in meditation is coming from -- it could be an emotion from a recent event or left over from something long ago.  In any case, part of healing is experiencing that emotion and meditation can sometimes facilitate that.  

Usually an emotional release will in meditation will not take too long to resolve and won't cause undue discomfort.  Occasionally, however, meditation can open us up to some feelings that are so difficult for us that we would benefit from help from a trained counselor or therapist.  Be kind to yourself and get support if needed.

Trust Guided Meditation Podcast

Our latest podcast episode is about trust in life and trust in oneself.  It's about a very fundamental kind of trust.  It doesn't have to do with trusting people or things, but with a basic sense that everything is all right just as it is in each moment.  Most importantly, it has to do with the sense that we are alright, just as we are.  This trust allows us to relax into the flow of life and living, rather than resisting what is happening. We can learn this kind of trust in meditation as we learn to relax into whatever comes up in our experience.  You may notice that at times you resist what is happening.  You may feel your mind shouldn't be filled with thoughts, and a resistance comes up.  Or you might try to push out a particular emotion.  You may also find there are times when you try to be a certain way.  Often people feel that since they are meditating, they should feel peaceful.  There can be an attempt to try to feel peaceful.  A kind of struggle comes up, a struggle with ourselves and with life.  This struggle comes from a lack of trust.

Everything that we experience is an expression of the natural flow of life.  The energy of life flows as thoughts, emotions, sensations in the body, sounds around us.  As we meditate, we can learn to let that flow happen without interference.  We can develop a basic sense of trust in life as we learn to trust what happens within ourselves.

You already know how to meditate!

I just received an email from a woman who said:  "Most importantly, your guidance also helped me recognize that I already knew how to meditate, but that I just thought of it as 'being still' or 'paying attention.' "  Eureka -- that's it!  When we experience a meditative state during meditation, we tend to think it's something special that happens only in meditation.  In fact, it's something we all experience from time to time outside of meditation, but don't notice.  We could actually think of it as the mind's "natural state".  It's a very simple form of awareness, uncomplicated by the mind's habits of judging and comparing.  It's a state that's there when we are neither resisting or trying to change what is naturally coming up in our experience.  It's a state of "simply being".

Much of the time, we are "simply being" but don't make note of that, because the mind isn't in the mode of standing apart and observing our experience at that time.  Sometimes, however, we'll notice a dramatic shift into the simply-being-mode.  As I mentioned in the previous post, meditation often happens spontaneously when something we see or hear or touch jars us out of the preoccupation with the past and future.  The sight of a hummingbird at my feeder always does it for me.  What does it for you?

Watching-a-fountain-meditation

While I was recording my latest podcast episode, I found my attention drawn to a fountain outside my window.  A fairly large fountain, it's water shoots several feet straight up.  It captivated me with its grace and beauty and as I was talking, I found myself being drawn into a meditative state.  That experience got spontaneously incorporated into what I was talking about and became an example of two ways of meditating -- one is "contemplation" and the other is what I'll call, for want of a better word, "diving". Had I wanted to stop recording, I could have used the experience of watching the fountain in a number of ways to meditate.  If I were to use it for contemplation, I would have found meaning in the way the water moved, the shapes the water takes, the whole phenomenon of the existence of the fountain.  I could have thought about how the fountain was a reflection of life or how it mirrored my emotions and inner world.  I could have found all sorts of meanings in the patterns of the water.  Contemplation involves the exploration of meaning.  Traditional contemplative practices might start with a brief reading followed by time spent exploring the meaning.  

The other type of meditation, the one which I was drawn into, doesn't involve meaning.  Rather than thinking about the fountain and what it might symbolize and mean, I was simply watching the movement and patterns of the water.  In such a meditation,  meaning is left behind.  The object of attention is viewed without meaning.  Meaning keeps the mind actively engaged and when we let go of meaning, the mind can "detach" and go within.  This allows for a deeply restful and rejuvenating experience. 

Meditation always involves a shift in attention.  When we meditate, we use our attention in specific ways to achieve specific effects.  In this case the focus of attention was the fountain, and I could have used that focus in a number of different ways.  Another effect of watching the fountain, or anything in nature, in this way is that you take in the qualities of what you see.  Everything we see, hear, touch, taste or smell has an effect.  It's as if our nervous system is a complex tuning fork that resonates in different ways depending on where we put our attention.  Allowing in the impressions of the patterns of nature realigns us with our own life force.  As I remember the experience with the fountain now, I can feel the energy and vitality of life as it is expressed in flowing water.

Spontaneous meditations happen all of the time.  Usually we're in too much of a rush to take advantage of these moments.  The next time you step outside and the sound of a bird, sight of a flower or light of the moon captivates you, pause for a bit to drink in the experience.  Notice those times during the day when your attention naturally shifts in a way that is nourishing and brings peace.  It could be something as simple as a smile from a co-worker or an image on the web.  Take advantage of those shifts by slowing down a bit and giving yourself time to sink into them.