This belongs…

If you know me for 30 minutes, you’ll know that I love all kinds of podcasts. One of my favorites is Tara Brach. She is a psychologist who specializes in mindfulness and meditation. Her podcast feed alternates between posting recorded talks on mindfulness one week and free guided meditations the next.

I meditate each morning using either the free Insight Timer app or listening to one of Tara’s guided meditations.  This past week, she led a meditation on the idea that “Everything belongs...” as a way to allow all of the thoughts and emotions to be present.

 At one point in the meditation, Tara suggests to let it all in, even the hard stuff, to let it all be here. She encourages the listener to whisper “This belongs” to it all.

I don’t know about you, but for me, letting it all belong doesn’t come naturally to me.  I want to get a little shrieky and say, “What do you mean it all belongs? Clearly, my negative behaviors and thoughts that are making me feel like crap DO NOT belong.  They need to be eradicated, destroyed, alienated, dissolved, taken apart, pushed out, evicted, and buried where they have zero chance of ever surfacing again.”   Right??  

This is my desire. This is what I often want to do with uncomfortable feelings:  avoid, stuff, resist.

But here’s what I know.  I know I am not alone in this desire.  It is part of what makes us human.  I know that there are no “Good” or “Bad” feelings.  Feelings are feelings.  They have something to tell us.  So yes, I know this AND I often find myself wanting to shoot the messenger.  

When anger shows up, my go-to response to shut that puppy down.  Anger was not an emotion I felt safe to feel for most of my life.  Until my mid thirties I would’ve told you that I just wasn’t an angry person. I just didn’t feel anger.  No anger here people. Nothing to see, keep moving.

Are you rolling your eyes as you read this?  Bless our sweet, naive younger selves.  You can imagine my surprise when I started my meditation practice and instead of a peaceful zen feeling, anger took center stage.  

I was completely surprised by this.  It felt like an alien invasion.  I felt perplexed, incredibly upset, disappointed and then angry again.  I was the angry meditator.

I was the angry meditator until I wasn’t anymore.  Somehow sitting with it, letting it belong helped.  I realized later that I was practicing a type of emotional inclusion.  

I’ve come a long way since then, as we do.  But Tara’s gentle reminder of “This all belongs...and this too...and also that…” reassured and inspired me this week.  I wondered, how would things shift in my everyday life this week if I kept this mantra close to my heart. How would it feel?  

So I took it with me.  I took it with me the same way I grab my purse as I head out the door.  

 “This belongs…” came to work and sat next to me in sessions.  I hoped clients would feel it’s grounding presence.  “This belongs…” hung out in the midst of a disagreement with my husband.  It sat by my feet as concerns for a family member swirled in my brain.  “This belongs…” danced around when I realized I forgot to attend a meeting at my son’s school.  

Here’s what I noticed, when I remind myself that “this too belongs...” something inside of me takes a softens. Something releases just a bit. Some part of me nods her head knowingly.  I  stay grounded instead of getting sucked into the anxious quicksand of judgment and doubt.

Let's circle back to you. I wonder, what tricky emotions or thoughts pop up for you that you want to avoid, stuff or resist?  

What would happen if you noticed those feelings and instead allowed them to belong?  How would that feel if it were possible?  Could you breathe into that possibility?  Or does it feel like a big ask right now?  And if it does, if it feels too much to do that, would it be possible to let that belong too?  To allow  the resistance to even trying to belong and hang out?  

Emotional inclusion: What if it all belongs? 

I’m not fully there yet myself.  I may never be.  But the process, the inquiry, the decision to lean into the tricky parts of life even when it feels uncomfortable, somehow that does feel liberating even though it’s tough. 

I wish the same for you this week.

This belongs…and that too…