A guided meditation on cultivating a friendly mind when intense emotions like fear, anxiety, and shame arise. The speaker explains why suppression and acting out backfire, then offers compassionate phrases and practices to plant seeds of friendlier thoughts that reshape how you respond.
A Deeper Dive into Friendly Mind when your feelings are taking you over and it's clear they can't be changed, this is a time to really seek out friendly mind. It could be fear, anxiety, anger, shame, guilt, inadequacy, depression. There's too many good choices. Our will doesn't work to try to change these feelings. Suppression makes it dangerous. Acting out is misery. Friendly mind comes in and recognizes what Einstein has said again and again. We can't solve the emotional issues and moments that we feel the worst through magically changing our feelings. We need to change the level where our guidance is coming from. And friendly mind carries that guidance. It may say something like, I'm so sorry that you have to go through this. You're not doing this on purpose. It may ask what will be most helpful or I'm glad you're listening to me. Rather than letting feelings control thoughts, we can say to ourselves, I am dedicating myself to a practice of my wiser friendly thoughts arising whenever I feel the worst. I see it as a source of great guidance. We're looking for our most out of control feelings, giving endless suggestions to remember. The friendly mind can be there to serve us right when we most need it. It's important that we recognize that we've normally seen our minds as a booby prize relative to our feelings, but now we might be able to see it as a major source of guidance and healing to shift our intention and focus. You see that it is unrealistic to feel better when you feel the worst. What you can do is guide yourself. The alternative is to plant seeds of thought that focus on this guidance. These friendly mind thoughts will not have feeling when they are counteracting our greatest disturbances because our suffering is so primal. You might say to yourself, I am dedicating myself to what I can control and influence. Friendly mind thoughts, seeds of future peace and sensible responses are what I'm seeking. And I'm really dedicated to what's possible. I am committed to the great possibilities of friendly mind rather than the impossibility of changing my feelings. Friendly mind, I ask that you join me when I most need you. Sa.
