Emotions are the entryway into the infinite. They are your route back to your self, and they provide an easy access to the peace that is already there, calling you into your very essence.
You might like to start by finding a quiet space where you can sit without interruption for as long as is necessary. This is not an introspection that can be experienced while reading: record your own voice or consider having a friend read this to you so you can give yourself fully into your own internal process.
This introspection is designed to lead you into an emotion to find the peace already residing within it. The key is to relax totally, be open and welcome fully whatever shows up. If any stories or dramas or memories come up regarding the emotion, please do not entertain them or let them distract you -- for all images are merely a way for the mind to pull your focus away from the pure experience of the emotion. They are simply distracters trying to draw your awareness into some mind game. Instead, let the memories or pictures go, as you notice the way they make you feel emotionally, and just stay open in the emotion...really welcome the feeling fully.
If a memory needs further attention and healing, you can always get a copy of The Journey and do a full Emotional Journey process to release the stored pain and come into full forgiveness and complete understanding. But, for now, with this simple process, just let any images come and go, and let your full awareness be in the emotion you are feeling.
Feelings Come & Go as the Natural Ebb & Flow of Life
If, at some point you feel like opening your eyes, there is no problem with stopping the guided introspection. All feelings can only last a few moments -- they come and go as the natural ebb and flow of life. The vast, boundless presence that you are resting in remains untouched by the activity of emotions coming and going through it. No problem.
Just know that we are all in the baby step stage of learning to befriend, welcome, and feel our emotions, and each time you do this simple process, you will feel more and more relaxed, open, and easy.
It really is a process of learning to trust yourself. Over time, resistances will naturally melt away, as your being learns to trust you more and more.
You are a beautiful flower. It's time to open and let your exquisite magnificence shine. Emotions are your truest of friends. They are the gateway to your soul. They are part of the dance of enlightenment.
Guided Introspection: Emotions
Begin with a prayer or intention that you long to learn to embrace your emotions -- to welcome them, to say "yes" to them -- and let your being know that everything is welcome to come up in this embrace. Even the hidden emotions, the tucked away and secret feelings, and the unaddressed and unfamiliar emotions are welcome. Even feelings you've never acknowledged -- all are welcome to come up.
Then, sit quietly. Let your being settle, and let your awareness become vast and spacious...Let it expand boundlessly in front...spaciously behind...and openly and freely to all sides...It is vast below...and skylike above...Just rest in an open sky of presence.
Make your heart as wide as the world...wide enough to include not just your emotions, but all emotions that exist... even wide enough to include your ancestors' emotions...
Really make the embrace of your love so wide that it can include all the suffering of humanity...Your love is that vast, and it is all-accepting, all-embracing, all-compassionate.
Now, specifically invite a personal emotion to give rise to itself within this embrace: really allow it to come up fully, innocently...with no need to change it, fix it, or analyze it...Just welcome it.
Let your awareness go to the place in your body where it seems to grab you most strongly...Notice the sensation of it as it arises in your body...Now surround that area of tension with your acceptance, your own love...With your whole being, let the emotion know that you are open to really feeling the sensation of it...the full power of it...
If you feel any resistance showing up anywhere, welcome that, too -- it's natural. It's what we've been conditioned to do. It's okay to feel even this, so bring your awareness to any resistance, and let it soften. You can let it know that it's safe to feel...The resistance does not need to protect you anymore...You are allowed to fully feel whatever is here...
Be kind to yourself...Opening into an emotion feels like the opening of a flower...You can't force it. You can only allow it -- coax, welcome, and provide space for it to bloom into fullness.
Let your feeling be allowed to bloom...Let it become fuller still...If an impulse to run away from the emotion arises, recognize it, acknowledge it...Know that this is natural...Bless it and surround it with your loving awareness...then once again bring your awareness back to the original feeling ... and allow it to be fully felt...
Our emotions can be quite timid at first...They are used to being shut down, stamped out, ignored, run from...Like rejected children, your feelings may not trust you at first...They may be shy with you...because in the past you've so often turned away from them...Now is your chance to turn toward your feeling...whatever it is...Welcome it with all your heart...You might apologize to it for having been so judgmental in the past...Really welcome it with every fiber of your being...Fully accept and embrace it...
Good...As the feeling grows stronger, just be curious to know what is there in the very heart of it...Feel yourself opening, relaxing, and surrendering right into the very core of the emotion...You don't have to fix it, change it, or do anything...Just relax in the core of that emotion...Seek out any places that you may be resisting...soften them...and deeply relax...What is there?...
Good...Now, with the innocence of a child, feel yourself surrounding, opening, welcoming this emotion...allowing it fully...like a flower coming into full bloom...And then, with tender curiosity, feel what is in the core, the very center of this new emotion... Feel yourself growing vaster...opening totally...and falling into, dissolving in, opening further into the core of it...
Just relax there...What is here?...(From time to time, with an emotion, you can ask what's behind it or beneath it.)
Continue opening in just this way: as if you were gently lifting back the petals of a flower and falling in naturally, effortlessly deeper.At some point, a vast nothingness, or a black open field or void of emptiness may appear. This too is just another petal. Just ask what is in the core of it. Relax and open, and you will feel yourself dissolving through it as well.
Eventually, if your heart is open and your being relaxed and welcoming, you will find yourself basking, bathing, soaking in an ocean of peace, love, light, freedom: a boundless presence of grace will surround you and suffuse you.
Just rest in this as long as you like...And you may open your eyes when you are ready.
Reprinted with permission from the publisher,
New World Library. www.newworldlibrary.com.
©2006 by Manifest Abundance Unlimited.
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Freedom Is: Liberating Your Boundless Potential
by Brandon Bays.
“This book is written to give you a living experience of freedom.” These are the opening words of Freedom Is — and this book delivers exactly that promise.
About The Author
Brandon Bays is the author of the international bestseller The Journey. She travels all over the world bringing her teachings of healing and awakening to thousands of people each year. She pioneered her transformative work through her own experience of healing naturally from a large tumor without drugs or surgery. Her website is www.thejourney.com.
