Working with Emotions

Meditation can help us control our emotions, in a sense, although ‘control’ is not necessarily the right word. It’s common to want to turn off our emotions, to allow them to arise only at our command, but to do so wouldn’t be healthy. Our emotions are what make us human. When using meditation to work with difficult emotions, the goal is not control, but to develop a healthier, more trusting relationship with our emotions so that even our strongest, most challenging feelings become workable.

To meditate for emotional healing, it’s best to start at the beginning. In the context of meditation for emotional healing, the beginning entails gaining an understanding of how the mind works and how emotions function. By learning to observe our emotions as if from a distance, we see that we are not our emotions, nor do we have to react to each one. Learning to accept our emotions as they arise, and remain present and grounded as they dissipate is key to emotional healing.

We meditate working with thoughts and emotions because generally, our thoughts and emotions are the very thing that causes us to suffer. When we ruminate on unhelpful thoughts or habitually react to strong emotions, we tend to harm ourselves and others. Because we meditate to find more balance, peace and ease in our lives, working with our thoughts and emotions – the frequent source of so much pain – is a logical progression of our practice.

Meditation can release emotions in that during meditation, advanced practitioners can observe an emotion arising and stay present without reacting to it. By not grasping to the emotion nor pushing it away, the meditator allows the energy of that emotion to dissipate, as it naturally will when left alone. Many of us have been reinforcing emotional reactivity since childhood, and so meditation to release emotions takes practice. However, it is something that every one of us can learn to do.