Working with Difficulties (Digital Download)

This is a guided meditation practice offered by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. It helps to work with difficult emotions and body sensations. The practice involves focusing on a pleasant part of the body, then shifting attention to any difficult sensations or emotions, and finally bringing loving-kindness to oneself. The goal is to maintain mindfulness while giving oneself a break from overwhelming feelings. The practice encourages connecting to the body's peaceful and pleasant areas while acknowledging and accepting the presence of discomfort. Today we're spending time together in a Working with Difficulties meditation. This practice is offered by the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA. You can use this practice to work with difficult emotions and body sensations. To begin, take a few deep breaths. Find a posture that's comfortable to you. And then check inside your body and try to locate part of your body that feels good to you right now, a part that is pleasant or safe, at ease, or at the very least, neutral. You can check out your hands or feet or legs, but let your attention go to this pleasant part of your body, hands or feet or wherever you've chosen, and let your attention rest there. Feel it. Sense it. Notice what those sensations are. Let your mind relax a bit, feeling that part of your body. And now, if there's something difficult that's happening for you, a difficult emotion or a physical sensation that's hard, let your attention go to that. So it may be an aching in your shoulder or your back, or a headache, or it could be a sense of sadness, or anxiety, or anger. Where do you feel that sensation in your body? Where do you feel that emotion in your body? Notice it. Just notice it for one moment. Now tap into it. Feel it. Make sure you breathe. And now return your attention back down to that area that feels at ease, your hands or feet or legs. And just let yourself stay there for a moment, feeling it, sensing it, relaxing, maintaining the mindfulness, yet giving yourself a break from what could be potentially overwhelming to feel. And now, once again, return your attention to that part of your body that feels unpleasant, the body ache or pain, or the emotion, that sensations of the emotion in your body, the vibrations in your chest, or the clenching in your belly, or the tightness in your jaw. Just notice and breathe, and let it be there. Let whatever is there be there. And then bring your attention back down to this pleasant or neutral part of the body, hands, feet, so forth, relaxing, staying present and alert, healing the safety, the connection in that place. And now let yourself stay connected to this place, but see if you can cast what we might call a sidelong glance at the difficult area in your body. Is it possible to still feel connected to your body in the area that feels good? And yet know there's something going on that feels unpleasant, and just let it be there, keeping maybe 75% of your attention on that part that feels peaceful and at ease. Still breathing, casting the sidelong glance at that difficult area, noticing what happens to it. Is it growing or shrinking? Is it changing, shifting into something else, becoming aware of whatever it's doing, relaxing, breathing? And now see if you can bring some loving-kindness, just some loving-kindness to yourself for whatever you're feeling right now, physical pain, emotional pain. Hold yourself with kindness. You are not the only one. So may we all be free from our pain and our suffering, and may we all have happiness.