For so many of us, the intense feelings of anxiety and fear that come up when hearing daily news can be extremely overwhelming—especially when we long to be agents of transformative love in a wounded world. We want to make a difference. But it’s hard to know what to do when we’re feeling overwhelmed by negative thoughts and emotions.
When painful emotions are circling all around, our instinct is often to reach for external reassurance. We want better news, signs of hope, proof that everything is going to be okay.
In this practice, law professor and author Rhona Magee offers a gentle reminder that the key to calm starts with a simple pause—and we get to choose that.
Taking a moment to pause can enable us to move in the direction of suffering. This allows us to work, and to alleviate that suffering, with wisdom and compassion. This gentle practice from law professor and author Rhonda Magee can provide support to you in remaining grounded as you open up to information that might cause you pain. When we move towards what’s most uncomfortable for us, it can actually help us to feel less overwhelmed by negative thoughts. In the pause, we can catch our breath, find our center, and actually get clarity about what to do next.
Peace Begins With Me: A 12-Minute Meditation for When You Feel Overwhelmed By Negative Thoughts
A 12-Minute Meditation to Work with Difficult Emotions
1. Noticing any of these kinds of reactivities coming up for you, you can, as always, just take a few deep and conscious breaths. And as you do so, you’re turning your attention in a very purposeful way toward these sensations that are coming up for you beneath the breath and in the body.
2. Taking a long, slow breath in, and a gentle, even longer breath out. Continue to follow the flow of your breathing as best you can, resting your attention there.
3. On an in-breath, breathe in for a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven, and then release for a count of eight. We’re doing the four, seven, eight cycle here. So on the next in-breath, breathe in for four counts, hold for seven counts, and then release for eight counts. Repeat that four, seven, eight cycle of breathing in and out one or two times. Breathing out through the mouth, if at all possible.
4. Next, settle into a natural rhythm and as best you can. Maintain awareness of the quality of your breath—in and out. And rest as best you can, along the river of these sensations, resting in the long, broad, and deep now.
5. Now, as you rest, gently call to mind your desire and the will you have inside yourself for peace that begins with you. For well-being that begins right here, right now, in your own body and being and spirit, for justice that begins here.
6. Perhaps on the next in-breath, consciously focus on the love and compassion that exists in your own heart. The peace that can begin with you right now—extending through you, right now.
7. As you breathe in, bring greater awareness to this love. This warm, loving softness within you. Notice other characteristics that you sense in your own experience. Name other ways you would describe your own warming heart. Tune into the will in your heart for justice and positive social community, for global change. As much as possible, allow yourself to completely feel the compassion in your being for everyone who’s suffering. This includes you, includes all of us. And particularly those who are suffering the most in your community and in the world right now, wherever they may be.
8. So as you breathe in and out, breathe in the sense of awareness of the love in your heart. And breathe out very consciously, sending loving support toward all those you believe to be in need of it in this very moment.
Breathe in a sense of your own loving heart and what is well within you. While breathing out, gently extending the wish for well-being from your own head to toe. Imagine it flowing out through you, to the communities you meet and touch and work with. And out as far as my reach can go, circling the globe.
9. As you bring this meditation gently to a close, take a moment to appreciate all that you are, all that you do. The body that is carrying you through this very life in all its perfect imperfections—just as you are.
10. Call forth an intention for staying in attunement and holding with grace, your spirit, your being, and your energy for the work today.
As we say in metta meditation: May you be filled with loving-kindness. May you be well in body and in mind. May you be safe from inner and outer dangers. And may you be truly joyful and free.
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