#RealHappiness - Day 18 - Meditation on Emotions

I've been so busy and behind on posting my daily meditations that I hardly realized that I was almost at the end of Week Three and I wasn't really focusing on the book and it's Week Three practices. So, on Saturday I reflected on Week Two and looked at what I should be focusing on as Week Three comes to a close.

In Week Three of the Real Happiness 2012 Meditation Challenge, Sharon Salzberg recommends some of the following practices for us.

• Meditation on emotions. 
• Meditation on calling up difficult emotions. 
• Mental Noting. 
• Meditation on positive emotions. 
• Thinking Meditation.

So, Saturday through Tuesday, I'll be working with these. Saturday I started with the Meditation on Emotions. For this practice I used Sharon's guided practice and reviewed the instruction on this.

She invites us to find a balanced and tranquil state but connected to our emotions. Recall feelings of things like when we were "In the zone" so to speak, such as when running, dancing or even cooking. Anything where we got in stride. Settling in to this meditation and following your breath as you pay attention to the emotion, you start noting the feeling tone in your mind. For me, it was around my walking meditation. Not the slower ones, but my three to four miles walks. The feeling tone is usually peaceful and exhilerated. Also, typically, a sense of oneness with things. And so it goes, observing your emotions as they come and go.

This can be a challenging practice, I'm told, but so far it's been OK for me. I think the level of difficulty depends (I would imagine) on your emotional "baggage" so to speak, and how easily you access your emotions.

What I took from this practice as being the most important thing is to establish the habit and capability of stepping back from your emotions and allowing them to unfold, while observing their causes and effects, but not reacting to them. Or perhaps, more succinctly put, to reflect as they go by and not get swept away with them. Let's face it, most of us spend our lives being swept away by emotions, whether we realize it or not!

See you tomorrow!

_/\_

[note: This post was deleted by the blogger interface on the iPad, and had to be reposted.  Sorry if that caused anyone any confusion.]