The heart of mindfulness for healing emotional pain lies in our growing capacity to turn toward pain and embrace it with mercy and a soft heart. Our habitual pattern is to turn away from or try to escape what feels unpleasant or painful–physically, emotionally, and mentally. We may try to turn away from the pain by judging it, wanting it to be otherwise, or turning toward whatever works to numb it—overindulging in alcohol, food, drugs, shopping, and TV, or creating chaos in our lives that keeps us distracted.
Try meeting whatever arises with kindness and curiosity.
Mindfulness for Healing with an Open Heart
When pain or discomfort arises, our habitual pattern is to meet it with an attitude of, “No, not this,” and the body, heart, and mind tighten in response to this attitude. We resist. What is called for in our moments of pain is imagining welcoming it into an open heart and whispering silently to ourselves, “Yes, this, too.”
When we become entangled in the pattern of wanting things to be otherwise or trying to escape by numbing out, we create layers of suffering on top of the pain. Our lives then become roller coasters of highs from attempts to numb out and lows when we crash from those indulgences. When we learn how to skillfully meet all of our experience, whether pleasant or unpleasant, with a soft and welcoming heart, we begin to heal.
Practicing Nonjudgmental Awareness
In your formal mediation practice, practice taking a step back from the difficult sensations, feelings, or thoughts to observe them as an objective witness to your own internal experience. We can use mindfulness to witness our experience rather than becoming entangled in it and overwhelmed by it. Practice turning toward whatever arises with an attitude of non-judgment, kindness, and compassion. Breathe. Repeat.
If there is a single definition of healing, it is to enter with mercy and awareness those pains, mental and physical, from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay. –Stephen Levine