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Guided Meditation: Giving Freedom to Emotions

Warm greetings for the beginning of our week. As a way of beginning this meditation, we can use an analogy. Imagine a time when you are relaxed—maybe sitting in a park, laying on the grass, or sitting on a hilltop. There might be a single cloud floating through the blue sky. It might be enjoyable to just watch the cloud float, maybe shift and change its shape as it does so. But it's very clear that you are not interfering with the cloud, or holding on to the cloud, or stopping it from floating by. You're simply watching the cloud. In a certain sense, you are giving the cloud its freedom to be a cloud. You're giving the cloud the freedom to just float in the sky and do what clouds do.

If that kind of idea—that you're giving the cloud its freedom—is something you can relate to, the same thing is true in meditation for our emotional life. For our emotions, for how we feel, our moods, and the attitudes that we might have. It is possible in a relaxed way to watch them while giving them their freedom to move through as they do, as they wish. The operating idea is that one is not involved with them. We are not even being for or against them. We are not resting in them, doing them, or even enjoying them—if enjoying them means savoring being involved with them. We are not resisting them, either—if resisting them means pulling back, pushing against them, or closing down.

It's possible in meditation to give freedom to the emotions that are floating by, that are moving through, that are appearing and are just there. That does not mean we are for or against any emotions, or that we've come to some kind of conclusion that they are good emotions or bad emotions. The operating idea is simply that we have the stability, the ease, the relaxation, and the freedom that we can give to things, or the freedom we have from things. And so it is with our emotional life.

To begin this meditation, very simply, as you are, close your eyes. Check in with yourself. How are you feeling now? Do this as if you were checking in with a friend to see how they are, offering a kind presence that doesn't interfere with your friend's feelings. You're just there to be a companion to whatever they're feeling. Check in with yourself. How are you? Is there some way that you could watch, perceive, and recognize how you are, and give it some freedom? Allow it to be, as if it's okay and allowed to be there. In this way, how you're feeling doesn't influence your judgments, your ideas, or your reactions to sitting here and meditating. It is not the filter or the veil through which you see things.

Then, from that part of you that can choose—that is free, that is not entangled with anything—choose to take a few long, deep breaths. Feel the stretching and opening of the rib cage and the chest as you breathe in deeply. Feel the relaxing as you exhale, the letting go. Perhaps as you exhale, you can also let go of the thoughts and concerns of the day, or of the week. Settle into your body, into the simplicity of your body sitting here right now.

Let your breathing return to normal. Ever so gingerly, ever so tenderly, allow your exhale to extend a little bit. A longer exhale. Do this not with a strain, but almost more with a letting go, a relaxing. A settling in at the end of the exhale. Maybe for a moment, a fraction of a second at the end of the exhale, pause before you inhale. Perhaps within that pause, let your thinking mind be quiet. Sometimes a little teeny pause at the end of the exhale can allow you to be fresh for the inhale, or prepare you to feel the inhale more fully or more gratefully.

If it's nice to breathe this way, you can continue for a while. Or, if this is enough, by all means you can stop and just breathe naturally instead.

Perhaps as you exhale, you can relax the muscles of the face and the eyes. So many of our emotions somehow involve the muscles of our face. Allow your face to release and relax its holdings every time you exhale. Also, relax the thinking mind. Relax your involvement with thinking, your interest in thinking. Settle in to your breathing. Just breathing, in the simplicity of the body sitting here.

Notice now how you're feeling. Whatever emotion, mood, or attitude seems to be most pronounced for you—even if it's subtle—simply recognize it. Recognize it as if you would see a cloud in the sky. You're not identified with it, or even taking it personally. It's a natural phenomenon. You could even say to yourself, "Of course I feel this, I'm part of nature, too."

Just notice how you feel and offer it its freedom. Leave it alone; just know it, see it, and feel it. Give it permission to be there. Allow how you feel to feel safe. It's safe to feel how you are. There's no danger of you being for or against it. You have permission to be just as you are. But you're not being the emotion. You're not defined by it. You're watching it like you're watching a cloud.

If it's helpful, you can breathe with it. Breathe through it. Sometimes breathing with or through something helps us not be entangled with what we're present for.

Sometimes, when meditation allows us to relax deeply into ourselves—below the surface layer of our mind, our being, and the surface layer of our life—we can feel depths of feelings. We can touch into the deeper emotions within us. We can feel the ones that are eclipsed by the reactive emotions, by the afflictive emotions^[1]. Sometimes in meditation, as we relax and settle deeply, we can feel the places that are the wellsprings of love, of compassion, of care.

In this last little period of the meditation, can you feel into the depths of yourself? Maybe you can even catch a little hint of where the source is for you—for compassion, for love, for care. Is there a place from which these things arise, or where these things are felt the most? Feel them, and allow them to be there. To whatever degree they're there, give these feelings their freedom, too. Allow them to be there.

From this place, turn your attention to the world of the people you know, the people in your community, and outward into the whole wide world. Can you gaze upon the world with the eyes of love, the eyes of compassion? The eyes of care. Be still and gaze upon all things kindly.

How would it be, coming out of meditation, to reflect now on how you can live this day—the next 24 hours—in some way to make the world a better place? Even if it's as simple as saying a few more kind words to whoever you might communicate with. Simple acts of kindness.

May the goodness and the benefits of our practice—of our meditation together today—allow us to go out into the world for the welfare and happiness of all beings everywhere. May we work for the happiness of all beings. May all beings be free. And may all beings be deeply respected and appreciated. Sometimes respect is more important than food. And may it be that through your meditation, you respect yourself and value yourself, and in doing so, learn to respect others.