The ‘Guest House’ A fantastic way to think about our emotions and feelings. Welcome them into your life, don’t judge them for they may be coming to you for a reason!

Mindfulness and meditation practice allows us the valuable time to connect deeply with our inner self, to spend time with ourself and to listen to what is going on with our mind, body and soul. Lets take a quick look at emotions and feelings through the use of meditation and mindfulness and as Rumi says, ‘welcome them into our guesthouse’.

As we sit or lie and start our meditation, we close our eyes and relax our body, concentrate on our breath, in and out, in and out, we can take our time to bring our awareness to our breath, focussing our attention only on our breath, the feeling of our breath as it raises our stomach, inflates our chest or the coolness of the air entering through our nose, the key is to allow the time for our mind to become calm and concentrating on the breath certainly helps us do this, it may take you some time because you may; at the beginning get caught up with thoughts flashing into your mind, you will hear sounds which break your concentration, feel an itch, cough, hear your children playing, the phone ringing etc, but please take my word for it; with practice it gets easier 🙂 So, back to our breath, in and out, in and out, feel the cool air entering your nose, in and out, in and out, feel the air inflating your chest, be aware of the gap/time in -between the top of your in-breath and before the out=breath starts, then feel the air slowly leaving your lungs, moving up through your throat and up and out of your nose, in and out, in and out. If your mind starts to wander, don’t worry, its normal, just recognise the fact that it happened and bring your focus back to the breath, in and out, in and out.

As thoughts enter your mind place a label on them ‘thought’ or thinking’, you can label them more deeply if it help you like such as ‘ work’, ‘children’, chores’ or whatever helps, but try to regain your composure and bring your awareness back to your breath, in and out, in and out.

Emotions and feelings may arise  like ‘Happiness’ or ‘Anxiety’, if they come; then accept them in, concentrate on your breath, in and out, in and out, what is ‘Happiness’ why are you feeling Happy? Concentrate on your breath and get acquainted with the emotion of’ happiness’, where did it come from and what are the feelings behind it, maybe your feeling so happy that you have given yourself some time for yourself, maybe your heart is telling you it loves you. This is your journey of discovery so enjoy the feeling. If ‘Anxiety arrives, then accept it too, why is it there, what made it arrive? Do you feel anxious because your spending valuable time on yourself? does that make you anxious? Are you anxious of not knowing the outcome? Are you anxious of time and wanting the session to end? Get acquainted with the emotion and allow it to come and to go.

Concentrate on your breath, in and out, in and out.

Also from Rumi as posted by Dr Victoria Lee

The purpose of emotion
A certain sufi tore his robe in grief,

and the tearing brought such relief….

his teacher understood the purity

of the action while others

just saw the jagged appearance.

If you want peace and purity

tear away the coverings.

This is the purpose of emoton, to let

a streaming beauty flow through you.

Call it spirit, elixir, or the original

agreement between yourself and God.

Opening into that gives peace, a song of

being empty,

pure silence.

In this poem, dear Rumi guides us once again toward deepening our spiritual experience. Stripping away the covering imposed by the false self is always the path. This means letting go of our attachment to the ideas we have about ourselves, as well as to the ideas others have about us. The most fundamental of these may be our limiting beliefs–I am incapable, the world is too harsh, I am too old, too young, too attached to obligations, too unable to feel anything transcendent, too ____; when we allow all that to dissolve, Rumi famously tells us that we will find glints of treasure in the dirt of the demolition of the house we’ve built out of false ideas about who we are. Then the streaming beauty emotion is meant to allow us can flow through us.

Then we may look in the mirror–and in every human and animal face–and know that:

Inside you are sweet beyond telling. There is a sun in everyone!

May you look in the mirror today, dear visitor, and look deeply into any human face; look into the eyes of a child. See the longing and see the beauty!

Mindfulness and meditation my dear friends can bring you so much awareness and help you come to terms with your emotions, feelings and pain.

Good luck on your personal journey of discovery.

Namaste with Love

Always

Mark