17. Meditation Tips for Resilience: Emotional Awareness vs. Toxic Positivity

We learned in the previous episode with Dr. Marie Cross that meditation and gratitude are science-supported practices for cultivating optimism, positivity, and even better health outcomes. Additionally, at the beginning of every episode, I ask you   to "stay in the light". But what happens when you're not feeling grateful? Or your experience is feeling pretty dark? What happens when you don't believe your positive affirmations?  

When you or a loved one is having a hard experience or emotion, the biggest gift you can give to them or yourself is to stop trying to fix it and to just sit with it. This is what people mean when they say "hold space" (for yourself or others)--and it is a very valuable skill.

Feelings aren't facts, they are signals. Invitations to notice the link between mind, body, and emotional landscape. Meditation, astrology, and yoga help us cultivate awareness on all three fronts and give us the gift of separation of ourSelves from those experiences. The main tip I offer in this episode is how to cultivate alexithymia--which is the big fancy word for emotional awareness that I learned from my research that I referred to in the episode--through meditation. Your brain will think until you die, so don't worry about trying to stop thinking altogether during meditation and try the tips in this episode instead.

For the guided meditation I mentioned: https://the-science-of-light.simplecast.com/episodes/cultivating-resilience-through-trauma-informed-yoga

Guided meditation for cultivating body and emotional awareness starts at 57:19 in episode 6 linked above.

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