The Emotional Vipassana is a type of meditation that allows you to
focus on your feelings/emotions. This practice has been the MOST beneficial for
my healing and ascension path.
Here are the fast and short steps of the meditation process:
1. When the feeling of rage, sadness, depression, or any other trigger appears, go into a safe quiet place and assume a meditation position.
2.Sit with that feeling. Calmly stay there in meditation with your focus completely on that feeling, be present with it, no matter what it is (even if it's a feeling of futility). Take this feeling seriously, it's important, validate it and give it all your attention.
3.Sensations may arise. You may feel a pressure on a part of your body, you may see an image with your mind's eye, you may even hear something in your mind or a memory from your childhood may surface. When this happens, give IT your full attention.
4.Revelations and better understanding will happen. Sometimes just doing these 3 steps are enough for healing/integrating a part of your consciousness.
The process is simple in concept but profound in nature. Below is a detailed explanation (taken and slightly modified from a book called "The Completion Process" by Teal Swan; the text in between commas are quotes taken from the book itself) of the DOs and DON'Ts you need to look out for:
Whenever you experience a strong or uncomfortable emotion or feeling, find a quiet place (or you can do it on the go if you're already familiar with it), close your eyes and sink into the feeling. Familiarize yourself with the unique sensation of that uncomfortable feeling. Ensure that you are unconditionally with that feeling, truly experiencing and observing with without needing it to change. See if you can name that feeling.If thoughts arise, just observe them in a detached way and allow them to be there.Though you can do this process at any time, it's much easier and more impactful when a strong emotion is present.
Here's how it works:
When we feel pain, we are usually compelled to try and get away from it. Unfortunately we can't escape our emotional pain because it is always within us. We carry it around at all times and the more we try to push it away the more it will hurt and damage us.
It's helpful to think of this pain as a part of your conscious that is trying to let you know they are in some amount of discomfort. In the majority of cases they just want to be noticed, herd and understood.
By allowing the feeling, listening to it, experiencing it and being completely with it, that part of our consciousness feels understood and is allowed to merge back with us. This usually accompanied by a feeling of bliss, effortless realization and insight.
This is an important practice because when we have a strong emotional feeling or reaction, it allows us to consider that there must be a good reason to feel that way. In essence, your (negative) emotions are your compass, your guideline for awareness of a broken or rejected part of your consciousness. Without them, we wouldn't be able to find and reintegrate the parts of our soul that got hurt or split off.
We tend to try and escape our negative emotions (sometimes the
positive ones too) through many coping mechanisms like: substance addictions,
all manner of internet related dependencies, distractions like TV, books,
movies, work related or even some friend hangout activities & sports.
"By giving yourself your unconditional attention and
presence in the face of uncomfortable emotion, without being in a hurry to get
over it, you are giving yourself the unconditional love that you did not get
enough of when you were young. This is what is really doing the healing. Nothing
on this Earth is more healing than unconditional, focused presence."
During this meditation you might experience sensations in your
head or body. These may include: feeling a chest pressure, tingling or mild
pain in a part of your body, small audio or tactile hallucinations, a short
glimpse of a visual representation in your head, etc. Be on the lookout for
when these sensation will arise, they are important.
This is in fact a very positive sign. It means you are doing it
correctly. When this happens, the main emotion you were sitting with tends to
fade away in favor of the sensation in the body and you need to set your
focused attention on the sensation now. Sit with it for no matter how long it
takes. Focusing on the feeling might intensify it sometimes, this is also not a
bad sign.Eventually, either a memory will arise or you will feel bliss as a
result of healing and integrating that part of yourself.
This hasn't happened to me but some people may feel a more extreme
version of these sensations. Example: your whole body is expanding or
shrinking, your skin is on fire, Lilliputian hallucinations (you might feel
minuscule or gigantic and you may see things around you in distorted sizes).
Teal recommends that you "breath through these strong sensations and
surrender to them with the intention of allowing them to run their coarse. Just
let whatever surfaces surface and whatever changes change".
When feelings of futility, numbness, hollowness or even the need
to fall asleep arise, be sure to focus on them too. They are no less important.
These types of feelings are what I personally like to call 'barrier' or 'wall'
feelings. They represent a layer of 'coping' feelings that were put there (by
you) to protect you from the much more painful feeling underneath.
Do not attempt to push through, hit, destroy or any types of
brutal reactions against this wall because it will only make it thicker. The only
way to get through is to 'sit with the wall'. Focus your attention and
unconditional presence on the 'wall' feeling itself for however long it takes
and eventually the wall will fade and the real emotion will make itself felt.
And if the feeling is the need to fall asleep, let yourself fall asleep.
Even if you weren't able to get through with the wall that day,
you're still chipping at it and next time (or the hundredth time) you might not
need to fall asleep anymore. I have personally post-phoned this process on many
occasions and whenever the time came to concentrate on that specific feeling
again, it was there, exactly the way I left it.
Sometimes we miss the mark by adding a self made story to the
feeling. This happens when we recognize the emotion and our mind plays out a
separate scenery/movie. It's like an artificial layer that obscures the real
feeling. Here's what Teal was to say about finding the real feeling:
"we want to stay with the sensation of the feeling, not the mental
story about it. For example 'I feel unwanted' is a story about a sensation. 'I
feel heaviness or buzzing' is a feeling. In order to truly get out of the
mental story and into the feeling, try to describe, recognize or notice
anything you can about the unique quality of the sensation that belongs to the
emotion or the feeling. [...] Familiarize yourself with it. The stronger the
emotion is, the easier this will be." That's why it's recommended that
you do this practice as soon as a trigger happens.
There are cases when intense physical reactions appear. You might
want to cry or your body might start shaking. Don't try to suppress these
reactions, allow them to happen and run their coarse while still concentrating
on the feeling/sensation. This is just a physical response of our body to the
energies that are moving around in it.
You might find yourself going from one emotion to another during
this meditation. That's because of something called 'Cover Emotions'. Examples:
Anger is a cover for fear; Hatred is a cover for hurt; Desperation is a cover
for despair; Numbness is a cover for shock or confusion, etc.
These are different from the 'wall/barrier feelings' I mentioned
above. These emotions are there to try and raise you up to a higher vibrational
frequency (happier state). Whereas the 'wall/barrier' feelings are there to
completely prohibit you from accessing the feeling underneath/behind
them.
The goal here is actually to find out what's underneath this type
of emotions. You can always sit with it until it plays out (or as I endearingly
call it 'until it's done ranting') or you can ask yourself 'What's underneath
this feeling?'; 'What's below this?'; 'Is there something deeper or more
painful there?' and in some cases you might want to start with 'Am I ready to
find out what's behind this?'. The 'cover emotion' doesn't hold the actual
truth of your trauma so it's necessary to find what's actually underneath it.
"Validate the present feeling, [...] give the emotion or
feeling the message that we are completely with it, that we see it as valid,
that we care about it, that we are ready to listen, that we want to know what
it has to say and that we are fully open and fully receiving it.
This is the validation and unconditional love that we didn't get
growing up. [...] This is what we have been wanting all our lives, and to give
the gift of validation to ourselves is life changing."
The validation step is actually the follow-up after the 'Emotional
Vipassana' step in Teal's 'Completion Process'. But I have decided to add it
here because I personally use the two together in almost every occasion.
Some tips:
Don't rush it! This will invalidate the emotion and the part of
your consciousness. It won't want to even try to integrate with you if you're
not giving it the proper attention.
Don't judge it! We are sometimes taught we shouldn't feel one way
or another. Or perhaps it's a truly shameful emotion for you. If you want to
succeed at this process, it's important not to 'tell it what it should be
feeling'. Because it's not interested in changing for you, it' interested in
being heard and understood.
Don't force it! I did this mistake where I wanted to get rid of
all my problems in a short time. So I sat down to meditate when I didn't feel
like it and I tried to meditate on extra things when I didn't actually want to
anymore. Your feelings deserve love and care not efficiency.
Do it when you feel good too! I usually focus my attention on
doing shadow work (trauma healing) bit it's important to balance with practices
that raise your vibration too. The 'Emotional Vipassana' will help you anchor a
good feeling into your psyche and after done enough times, you'll find yourself
floating in bliss and gratitude for the most part of your waking hours.
This is it for the 'Emotional Vipassana' meditation. If you find
that you have trouble feeling your emotions then you'll need to take the
precursor step to this practice which is 'Feel your own emotions". It
sounds simple but for people & cultures who have spent their lives hiding
and running away from their emotions, this is a very difficult practice. If you
find yourself in this scenario, the quick tip i have to give you is:
Ask yourself "How do I feel?". Do it every day, many
times throughout the day. If you start validating and placing importance on
your emotions they will slowly emerge and eventually they'll be quite obvious.
I have been practicing Emotional
Vipassana for about a year and it has opened the door for me into my connection
with guides & ascendant masters, connection with my higher self,
channeling and communicating with other light beings, sharpened intuition,
understanding and connecting with other people's emotions and needs, my calling
and parts of my life's mission and be a healthy, functional & mature
person.
