The horrific tragedy of the school shooting last week is still echoing through our collective conscience, triggering arguments on-line and in the media.
When we struggle to take premature action in response to strong emotions instead of allowing the emotions to be fully processed, our creative mind can become blocked and solutions evade us.
Our reaction to feeling powerless and to the fears it will happen again create a reactionary divisiveness within ourselves and with others that is unproductive. This is true whether the trauma is recent or in the past, but still unprocessed such as with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).
The following meditation is designed to help us find our way through trauma by utilizing a practice of embracing strong emotions and transmuting them within us:
Turtle Breathing: Sublimation of Opposites
This meditation will help you to learn how to change your mental constructs. With practice, this thought reversal process will become a reflex that can be applied to more complex thought and feeling patterns.
Begin by breathing easily, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Gently allow each breath to be deeper and longer than the last.
Prepare yourself for meditation by thinking of all the blessings of your life and all the beauty in the world. Feel gratitude and well-being, filling yourself with its radiance.
Begin Turtle Breathing. With each long, slow, deep breath:
Breathe in the suffering, pain, fear, anger. Breathe easily, deeply and slowly, drawing the emotion into you with your breath.
Breathe out peace, love, joy. Breathe easily, deeply and slowly, allowing the peace, love and joy to expand in all directions, with each out breath.
If the strength of the emotions is a challenge for you, start by practicing with breathing in Dark and breathing out Light. You can then try practicing with Thickness and Lightness/weightlessness, and/or Hot and Cold. Once you are comfortable with the process of sublimating into opposites, it becomes easier to transmute more active pain and emotions.
