A guided meditation on noticing when someone triggers you. You name the emotion, recognize it as yours, offer yourself kindness, and work toward peace with that person. Four steps from awareness to genuine generosity.
So just let yourself start off by becoming aware of where your contact points are with your body and wherever you're sitting or lying and just feel the points of contact. And then just let your tension rest on your breathing and how the rhythm is going, how it feels, is it natural? Does it feel easy? Are you feeling stressed? And let the breathing just find its own natural rhythm and ask yourself the question, who is the person that most triggers me into an emotional reaction in my current life? And take a few seconds to really let one person come to your mind's eye, to where you can really locate a certain kind of reaction to perhaps it's something they say, perhaps it's a facial expression, a tone of voice they use, an action they take or don't take. But really zero in to a place where you're emotionally triggered either into frustration or anger or hurt or fear, and just appreciate the fact that you're really looking earnestly to discover what that emotional reaction is. And see if you can come close to naming what that emotional reaction is. And as you have identified that, see if you can recognize what the thoughts are that go along with that emotional reaction. Like, I can't believe he or she is doing so. And so again, I've told them so many times, it's really upsetting to me. And just notice the accompanying thoughts that go with the emotional reaction. Now, as you're recognizing this emotional reaction as and the accompanying thoughts, you're really at the first level of development of being aware of your own emotions. And now as you're noticing that, see if you can find a way to go deeper inside yourself and recognize this is my emotion, emotional reaction. But take your time with this one, because just doing this is a severe act of transformation. Because instead of just staying with all those thoughts that it's because of you that I feel this way, you're actually taking a much deeper level of responsibility. And you're recognizing this is my emotional reaction to you. And I want to recognize that it's my emotion so I have a chance of working with it. Because I recognize if I try to change you, I've got no chance. If I'm willing to face the fact that it's my emotional reaction, I have a chance of somehow having my life be more peaceful, more fulfilling. Now, as that starts to stabilize with this person as you're imagining it, let yourself ask, what would it take for me to care for myself while I'm in this state? What would it take for me to have a chance of not just being caught in this form of suffering and consider the possibility of suggesting to yourself something that would be soothing, like, I'd like to be a little kinder, I'd like to be a little softer, I'd like to stay more harmless. And see if you can plant a seed for yourself when you're really there that this is what you'd like to move towards. And you're not doing it just to be a great human being, you're doing it because it's going to allow you to feel potentially better. For you to hold onto your emotionally challenged state isn't creating any benefit for you or the other. So you're doing it from a place of just simply wanting to be in a better state. You could also move towards a prayer like state and ask, may I be as harmless as possible, may I be as peaceful as possible, may I relax as much as possible? Now when I say as possible, I'm saying that so that when you have this prayer like state, it's not a demand, it's really kind of a humble request. And then the last way that you might be able to support yourself is to ask questions like how could I be? What would I do to be able to create a greater sense of calm or peace while I'm in this state? So it might be that you say to yourself, don't react outwardly, relax your muscles. So you're asking questions and you're feeding your intelligence and saying, intelligence, how can I actually respond to this state in a way that would be healing towards me? And then this last fourth level of development, which is very rare, is once in a while you might be able to find a state of peace and just visualize with this person that you're most triggered by, that you actually might be able to be in a state of generosity or peace or ease and take the whole situation so much less personally because you realize they have a whole history and you don't have to get hooked up in it. And once in a while you'll be graced with just this ease and peace and trust and calm. And most of all, if this makes intuitive sense to you, just suggest I would like to plant these seeds of greater peace and move in this developmental way because it makes sense to me.
