The toughest thing in your meditation practice is witnessing difficult memories that carry a strong emotional charge ⚡️
What does this look like in real time?
You’re sitting in meditation noticing your to-do list, thinking about lunch and everything else. Then BAM 💥 A painful memory pops up that carries emotional weight or trauma.
Suddenly, you’re reliving it all over again as you remember hurtful words said or painful things that happened. Intense feelings of anger, sadness, embarrassment, shame, unworthiness, resentment, powerlessness arise. Overall, it feels extremely uncomfortable. It keeps replaying in your head as you’re wishing it would go away. But it doesn’t and you stop your meditation practice.
This is one of the many things you’ll experience in meditation, memories with intense emotions, and it will most likely make you want to quit your meditation practice.
However, this is a pivotal moment for your meditation practice because you just became aware that this memory still impacts you negatively. That’s why it’s coming into your conscious mind or awareness (even though you may not want it to). There’s unfinished business there and now’s the time to finish business.
Consciously witnessing how you experienced that moment gives you a chance to now see it differently. You can’t change what happened, but you can change the story around what happened and make it a better one. And, unfortunately, sometimes in life we were legitimately wronged. Practicing acceptance and compassion will help you get through this and how that looks will be different for everyone.
Is this easy? Nope. But no one ever said changing your life for the better was always easy. So give yourself permission to give yourself what you need.
And what do you do with those unpleasant emotions you’re feeling?
Embrace them. Feel them and they’ll transform. The discomfort won’t last forever and after those emotions are felt, it’ll be the biggest relief and most liberating feeling that begins to sets you free from the past. The emotions will soften and that memory will feel more neutral next time it comes up.
This is the practice of meditation, which involves consciously experiencing difficult moments and learning how to mindfully navigate those moments with awareness. This is the process in which meditation changes your life for the better.
Have you ever experienced a BAM in your meditation practice? 💥
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Main photo by Katerina May on Unsplash
