25 TRUST THE HEALING

On many days I have sat down to meditate and been overtaken by an emotion. Anxiety, for instance, hits me hard in my gut. It may feel quite strong—so strong that I can barely meditate. I’d rather do anything else. And I have been known to call it a day and bury myself in a book or check my emails instead of face the emotion.

Experiencing emotions is a normal part of meditating. With both classical mindfulness and natural awareness meditation practices, emotions often surface, as if they are plants longing to grow toward the light. The light is awareness. Awareness (of any type) is very safe; a fully aware mind is completely safe—free of attachment and aversion. Our job is to recognize the fact that the grief or fear, pain or anger, or any other emotion is arising because that is the truth of the moment. With positive intentions as a baseline, we can trust the healing that comes as we shine the light of awareness on whatever emotion arises.

This space of safety is exactly where healing can occur. When we speak to a therapist or a trusted friend, finally able to get something off our chest as they fully listen to us with compassion, we experience a healing effect. Similarly, this healing can occur in natural awareness meditation (as well as in classical mindfulness). Why? Our own nonjudgmental, loving, open, and aware mind meets the strong emotion and offers it the safety to integrate and potentially resolve.

When my daughter is struggling with sadness or any other challenging emotion, my job as a parent is to hold her in a loving presence. I don’t have to fix her emotion, give her advice, tell her not to be sad, or take the pain away. My job is simply to be there for her. This approach is analogous to what we do for ourselves when meditating with our emotions.

Often when we practice and emotions arise, if we let them pass through us, physical knots loosen, and we deepen into greater relaxation. As we let these things that need to be healed surface and move through us, as we hold these processes in awareness and kindness, we then have more and more access to natural awareness. It takes a lot of awareness to be able to hold something challenging. Once the challenging emotion has blown through us, what’s left is the strong awareness.

When anxiety surfaces during my meditation, I often put my hand on my chest lovingly. I let myself sense the anxiety as it emerges organically. Sometimes I use other practices, like offering loving-kindness to myself or saying the incredibly useful phrases “It’s okay” and “You will get through this.” I let the anxiety emerge in a field of loving awareness, trusting that it needs to come forward, trusting that I am up to the task of allowing it to do so.

So if emotions arise during your meditation session, there is nothing wrong. They are a part of you that can reveal itself in the light of awareness. In chapters 26 and 27 I’ll offer you some tools for working with these emotions.

However, please know that if an emotion arises that feels stronger than you can handle, you need to seek the appropriate therapeutic or spiritual support.

Most of us travel through life with heavy, bulky emotional baggage. To our great relief, with meditative practices and other healing modalities, we can shrink this baggage to carry-on size.