Rx: When You are in Emotional Distress

There are times in our lives when we fall into emotional distress. We lose our footing and slip into a whirlpool of feeling. Our capacity for clear thinking and perspective diminishes and we are immersed in suffering. When this happens, it is helpful to have a practice to use to help restore our equilibrium.

Here are some suggestions.

• Sit quietly. Breathe. Into the belly and out. Into the belly and out. Soften, soften. Deepen, deepen. Mercy, mercy.

• Notice the emotional distress. Notice where you are holding it in your body. Notice where and how you are contracting on it.

• Begin to make space for it by relaxing your body around it. Breathe into it. Breathe a large space around it.

• Keep breathing and softening and making space until the distress has room to float. Open your heart to it.

• Ask for guidance and support from your Source. Recite the Serenity Prayer. “God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

• If you are a walker, walk. If you are a runner, run. If you are a dancer, dance. If you are a yogi, do yoga. Take refuge wherever you can. In prayer, in sleep, in the simple tasks of the day — doing the dishes, feeding the cat, tending the children, watering the plants, sweeping the floor. Keep breathing. Keep making space. Keep softening. Keep opening your heart.

• Participate in group practice. Ask for guidance and support from a trusted friend or counselor.

• Practice forgiveness. Forgive yourself and others. Ask for forgiveness. Do this in prayer or in person.

• Practice blessing everything and everyone, including yourself. “Bless all those who are suffering. Bless all those who are causing suffering. Bless all those who are witnessing suffering.”

And remember, all things change. This too shall pass.

Bless you!

Excerpted from An Invitation to An Extraordinary Life
© 2011 Anacaria Myrrha ~ All Rights Reserved