Can Mindfulness Transform Feelings?
By Oneironaut
@_sketch_ (5742)
United States
January 26, 2011 2:34pm CST
I found this article, which provides steps of a particular meditation exercise.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/dbt/2011/01/can-mindfulness-transform-feelings/
I use similar techniques in my own practice. Why would this work? Well we all have feelings. We get these different feelings so that we may know what we need. We feel pain so that we know that there is a problem. If we didn't feel pain, we would behave very differently and recklessly.
Our spirit and mind are the same way. When we get phobic, lonely, sad, etc., it means that there is something present that is harming us. It's telling us this so that we may fix the problem, remove that negative thing from our life.
These things take time, however, and we don't want to feel all this pain in the meantime, especially since the pain itself can drive us in even further, by changing how we may react to certain things. So how do we stop the pain? By acknowledging it. You need to let your subconscious know that you see the problem and are taking steps to correct it. Focus/visualization meditation is the way you let it know. Make sense?
Meditation has also been found to help with physical pain as well. Same thing applies. Just instead of letting our subconscious know, we are letting our body know.
The technique I use is one that I learned in the book Your Aura & Your Chakras by Karla McLaren. I highly recommend this book. Read it. You won't regret it. The picture on this discussion is the book cover.
So basically what you do (sorry if I don't explain well) is you visualize a cord (or more like a tube, I guess) running from the area of pain to the center of the Earth. So if you have a migraine, it will start at your head. If the pain is emotional, I usually run it from my heart, stomach, or sometimes head. (Depends on where I feel that that emotion is)
Then what you do is visualize that pain as some sort of energy. You can picture it however you want. It could be some kind of light, or some kind of goo, or just a color. It's up to you. Visualize this pain being drained out through the tube and down into the center of the Earth, where it can be recycled as new energy, free of any association. Just by picturing ourselves letting go of this energy, we are able to let go.
I hope that this made sense and I strongly encourage you to give this a shot. If you believe you will benefit from this, then you most certainly will. I know it sounds silly to say that "it only works if you believe", but noone can make you do something you don't want to do. If you don't want to change, you won't.
2 people like this
4 responses
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
27 Jan 11
This technique is very like one that I use from time to time called "Emotional Freedom Techniques". It involves acceptance of ourselves and the way we are feeling and is necessary because our feelings and emotions are 'primal' and we don't have complete control of them without practice and conscious realisation.
There is a theory that, unless the energy (variously called 'Qi', 'Chi', 'Prana' and other terms) through the 'energy paths' in our bodies is allowed to flow freely and unopposed, it can cause many emotional and physical problems. Opposition to this free flow of energy happens when we have not fully accepted the emotions and attitudes we have to events.
It is a fact that, unless we have consciously recognised (and welcomed) the emotions we experience, we cannot truly let them go. If a visitor knocks at our door or the phone rings and we do not answer it, how can we know what the call was about and will it not bother us for the rest of the day as a result?
I don't think that it matters very much what technique we use to bring the emotions up from the subconscious to the conscious mind. The important thing is that we do so and learn to accept them and to recognise that they are part of our uniqueness.
Whatever technique we use can easily be seen as 'mumbo-jumbo' by critics (and, in a sense, it is). If I say "My way is the best and only way" (whether it be meditation, Reiki, EFT, prayer and a belief in the God or gods of a particular religion or whatever), then I am trying to impose my methods on someone else. If I say, however, "This way seems to work for me. Perhaps you may find it useful, too.", then I am sharing whatever wisdom I have with you and, perhaps, can be more open to learning something from you. If it happens that the techniques that you use successfully have no meaning to me, however, I cannot justifiably denounce them as 'rubbish': I can only say that I, personally, cannot see any value in them.
1 person likes this
@_sketch_ (5742)
• United States
27 Jan 11
I love that. I would like to read more about this technique. Is it from a book or...where?? If so, could you give me the title and/or a link or something? Thanks.
@greenline (14838)
• Canada
28 Jan 11
I have been practising "Mindfulness Meditation" for over 20 years now. I do that atleast for 30 minutes every evening after I get back home from work. Over the weekends, I practise for atleast an hour a day. That is very helpful to relax, calm the mind, and cleanse the mind of the stresses of the day. It certainly is very helpful for mental health as well as physical health.
@thedaddym (1731)
• United States
26 Jan 11
I think it is just mostly about being calm and getting calm that can help your health. Obviously if people are stressed out all of the time they are constantly causing themselves stress, and that is bad for the heart, the head, and can even cause us to gain weight. If you are able to get to some kind of calm through these types of exercises then you will be doing yourself some good and taking some relief off of your body.
@_sketch_ (5742)
• United States
26 Jan 11
Yes being calm is very beneficial to our physical, mental, and emotional health.
@wonttakelong (3555)
• United States
26 Jan 11
That is actually the technique I have always used
In fact I have taught it to my kids
they use it in many ways now
to help them fall asleep, to relieve pain, to help relieve symptoms of illnesses, and even to give them courage when they need it.
@_sketch_ (5742)
• United States
26 Jan 11
That is awesome. I would have liked to have learned these techniques when I was younger. :)
