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How to Meditate on Emotions
Meditation can be used to confront emotions that impact your daily life. Some emotions can be powerful and positive, and others can be destructive and negative, but all emotions contain energy.
Though it can be harmful to deny one’s emotions, it may not always be possible to express those emotions in the moment. Meditation provides an opportunity to recall the moment, confront it, deal with it, and release it, if desired. If you experience an emotion, it is best not to judge what you are feeling. Rather, simply acknowledge the emotion with an open heart and mind. Welcome the emotion, listen to it, and observe it within you. Doing so may offer a different perspective on and its root cause and its effect on you.
How to Meditate on Anger
Everyone experiences anger from time to time. You don’t have to repress or deny anger or let it control you. Here is one meditative exercise that may help you contemplate your anger and release it when you are ready. Repeat this exercise as often as is necessary for you.
- Light a candle and set it in front of you.
- Begin in a comfortable meditation posture.
- Close your eyes for the first part of this exercise.
- Observe your breathing.
- Acknowledge each inhale bringing energy to your body and each exhale releasing energy to others.
- Be mindful of your breathing for several minutes.
- Invite the anger that you are feeling into your space. Focus on this anger. Acknowledge it. Observe how it feels in your body.
- Open your eyes and focus on the flame of the candle. Consider the light of the candle to be an illumination of your personal awareness of your anger.
- Transfer the anger you feel inside onto the light of the candle.
- Observe your anger as it dances in the flame before you. Talk with it. Try to understand it. Spend as much time as you need experiencing this energy.
- When you are done visiting with your anger for this meditation session, thank it.
- Blow out the candle.
- Close your eyes and take three, deep cleansing breaths.
How to Meditate on Fear
Fear often requires us to move. This is natural—when you experience danger, you instinctively move to a fight-or-flight response. Your body may respond with sweaty palms and a pounding heartbeat. Fear is energy. Through meditation, you can transfer the energy of fear to energy of peace. The following exercise is one way in which you may transform fear into a more positive emotion.
- Begin in a comfortable meditation posture.
- Close your eyes if you prefer.
- Observe your breathing.
- Acknowledge each inhale bringing energy to your body and each exhale releasing energy to others.
- Be mindful of your breathing for several minutes.
- Invite the fear you have felt into your body. Acknowledge it and observe it. Spend as much time as you need with it in this safe space.
- Now imagine that you are sitting beside a babbling brook. Imagine that you pick up a stone that is resting beside you. Hold the stone in the palm of your hand.
- Focus on this stone while transferring the fear you feel onto that stone. Spend as much time as you need with the stone.
- When you are ready to release your fear, picture yourself throwing this stone into the brook. Imagine the water washing away the negative energy you transferred to this object. In its wake is peace.
- Sit and observe the water flowing beside you. The water passing before you is always new. It never passes the same place twice. You, too, are no longer the same. Your fear has flowed downriver.
- Take three deep, cleaning breaths. Return to the present moment.
How to Meditate on Sadness
Sadness is a universal, healthy emotion. In some cases, though, it’s difficult to handle sadness well. At particularly sad or stressful times, you may not give your feelings of sadness and grief the time they need and deserve.
If you are feeling sad but finding it difficult to honor the emotion or let it go, consider the following visualizations:
- Begin in a comfortable meditation posture.
- Close your eyes if you prefer.
- Observe your breathing.
- Acknowledge each inhale bringing energy to your body and each exhale releasing energy to others.
- Be mindful of your breathing for several minutes.
- Invite the sadness you have felt into your body. Acknowledge it and observe it. Spend as much time as you need with it in this safe space.
- Now imagine you are sitting beside a waterfall, but due to a drought, there is no water going over the falls. You hear nothing but silence.
- Sit with this for a moment.
- In the distance, you hear a thunderstorm. Feel the energy in the air.
- Out of the silence, you hear the sound of a single water droplet, then another, and yet a third. Droplets of water begin to go over the falls. Perhaps you have been unable to cry with your sadness. These droplets may represent your unshed tears.
- As the storm intensifies in the distance, the amount of water over the falls increases. Eventually, the drops turn into a steady stream, which becomes a heavy flow, and then raging water.
- Observe this raging water for as long as is necessary. Note how your body feels as you experience the flow of water over the falls.
- When you are ready to leave this visualization, take three deep, cleansing breaths. Return to the present moment.
| Acknowledgments & Disclaimer |
