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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners

10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation

What is Meditation?

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Melli O'Brien

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The Container of Loving Awareness

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today I'm going to talk about creating

a container with which to hold

emotions, impulses, and thoughts.

So one of the things that can be really

challenging in our mindfulness practice

is when difficult emotions arise.

Whether it's fear, irritation,

anger, sadness, or shame, our

instinct is usually to struggle

with or try to avoid those feelings.

So it can be really hard to be with

these kinds of emotions, no matter

whether you've been practicing

for a long time or a little time.

But the reality is that running

from or repressing our emotions

just tends to prolong them and

they tighten their grip on us.

So how do we handle these

challenging feelings when they arise?

One way is to have a sense of creating

a container within ourselves with

which we can hold and make space

for our emotions so they can arise

and move through us in healthy ways.

So if you think about awareness as the

container that can allow all emotions

to arise and pass through it, we can

rely on this steady, compassionate place

to help us handle whatever comes up.

You know, this container of awareness

offers everything that arises with

acceptance, kindness, and warmth.

So when difficult emotions arise, you

can hold them tenderly in awareness,

having the same attitude towards

the emotion that you would have

towards a loved one who was hurting.

You wouldn't run away from your loved one,

or try to force them to stop feeling bad.

You'd simply give them

your love and compassion.

Right?

See if you can meet and hold

difficult emotions in the same way.

Allowing them to arise ,and when

they do, embracing them in this

container of loving awareness.

See if you can let go of any judgements

about them, any resistance towards

them and just let them arise,

stay or pass away in their time.

When we learn to honor, allow

and give space for all of our

emotions, we find that we can be

with and work with anything, no

matter how hard or scary it feels.

This container of loving awareness,

therefore, gives us an enormous amount

of inner strength as we learn to face

and hold anything, the hard stuff, the

scary stuff, the parts of us that hurt.

We learn to face it all with

openness, compassion and wisdom.

So today I'm going to guide you

through a meditation so that you

can practice this for yourself.

But also today, if anything arises

that feels difficult, just doing your

best to give it space and hold it

in a container of loving awareness.

As always, thank you for your practice

and your presence here with us.

And now let's settle in

for today's meditation.

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