Week Four – Awareness of Feelings

We went live with Week Four on Wednesday April 22nd, 2020.

You can watch the entire YouTube recording HERE.

Below we are breaking it down into seven separate chunks. The format for this (and every week) is that there are some meditations broken up by some commentary about the nature, purpose and benefits of meditation.

Part One – Welcome and Introduction

Welcome to week four of Introduction to Meditation. In the opening piece we briefly summarize what we covered in the first four weeks and give some guidance as to how to approach the class.

Part Two – The first meditation (10 minutes)

Relatively quickly we get down to do our first meditation. Simple, classic, focussing on the breath. When you notice you’ve lost focus, simply let go of the new focus and re-focus back on the breath. Start again. Rinse and repeat.

Part Three – Meditation and Feelings (i)

Awareness meditation involves placing our attention and focus onto something happening right now. Often our breathing is used, but we can also use our body, music, or a candle flame burning as examples. One other thing that is always occurring in the present moment is our feelings. This can be challenging for many of us but for those willing to add this to their meditation there can be great benefits.

Part Four – Emotional Journey Meditation

In this guided exercise we are invited to experience a few different emotional states and to practice sitting with them using the building blocks of non-judgment, non-striving, and curiosity.

Part Five – Meditation with Feelings (ii)

Continuing the talk about how meditation and our emotional feelings can work together. If practiced with care, we can train ourselves to be better at sitting with our emotions, without immediately reacting to them. In this way we can still have our emotions, but our emotions won’t have us.

Part Six – Final Meditation

The last meditation of the class where we open ourselves up to experience everything in the present – our breathing, our body, anything we can hear, but in addition to be aware of our feelings in the moment.