This guided meditation for emotional healing changed my life

Last year I reached a state where nothing was working anymore.

Not inside me, not outside me.

There I was, in quarantine, seemingly out of options and at a dead end.

My emotions were churning like a stormy sea and all around me I felt like there was darkness, deceit, and disappointment.

A New Age type of friend had been telling me for a while about how meditation had helped her get through some rough times, and it was in the back of my head, but I’d always dismissed it as kind of silly, to be honest.

I Googled “meditation for emotional healing” even though I thought it sounded kind of wishy-washy.

What I found piqued my interest.

I found this free self-healing meditation from the shaman Rudá Iandê that really hit home for me. Instead of demanding that I feel differently, “snap out of it” or otherwise enter some state of bliss, Rudá worked on a deeper, more primal level to help me tap into my inner life force, through the power of my breath.

He started right where I was at and made it clear that I don’t need to force myself to “be” any certain way: I just need to be.

Rudá’s self-healing meditation made me understand the power of my respiratory system and how I can use it to go inside myself and my body and begin healing deep blockages and traumas that hijack my conscious mind in my daily life.

It was not the kind of intellectual or fancy spiritual thing I expected: it was real-world, practical, no-nonsense and … most importantly … effective.

I also found out more about meditation for emotional healing …

The more that I read and listened to, I began to find out more about meditation for emotional healing and how many people it’s helped overcome and weather tough situations.

I’m talking about emotional turmoil and chaotic life situations that seem to be just begging you to dive off the deep end into anger, despair, blame, and victimhood.

It isn’t that meditation for emotional healing suddenly “solved” everything, but the more people I talked to and teachers I listened to the more I realized that a big part of emotional healing is learning to accept and not be OK in some cases rather than resisting, repressing or unhealthily re-channeling trauma and pain into lashing out, self-hate or destructive behaviors …

This meditation for emotional healing from Sanjeev Verma (embedded below), another from Great Meditation, and other articles also started to stimulate my understanding of what was possible.

In addition, I began listening to Tara Brach’s audiobook Meditations for Emotional Healing: Finding Freedom in the Face of Difficulty, and bit by bit I found it making a very positive difference in my daily life.

Benefits of meditation for emotional healing

More and more studies are showing that meditation can have enormous restorative and healing effects – not only on the mind and emotions but also the body.

In my life, I was struggling with a lot of depression and mental confusion as well as insomnia.

Meditation for emotional healing brought me out of a dark place, mainly – and somewhat ironically – by helping me first accept that I was in a dark place and that didn’t make me a “bad” or unworthy or weak person.

As the influential psychologist and author Carl Jung puts it: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

With that goal in mind, I wanted to write this list of eight key benefits I’ve noticed from doing meditation for emotional healing.

I am confident that with only a short time each day you can also experience these improvements in your own life.

1) Overcoming emotional hijacking

One of the biggest issues I struggled with before learning meditation for emotional healing and mindfulness meditation was reacting impulsively without thinking to strong emotional triggers.

I would get hit with an emotional right hook and be down for the count.

Before I knew it I’d be emotionally hijacked by a person, situation, memory or thought and be churning with resentment.

Jealousy. Anger. Sadness. Disappointment.

I would fly off the handle with almost no warning, already primed up by underlying and unhealed trauma that bubbled to the surface almost without warning – and with no ability or desire to exercise self-control.

Practicing meditation for emotional healing showed me various “rapid response” approaches to use when my emotional states became hijacked by overwhelming emotions and situations.

Instead of identifying so fully with my emotional state that I turned into my emotion and thought it was me I learned to get back into control and observe myself more impartially.

Even though emotions and situations still hit me hard sometimes I don’t immediately “buy into” them and I am able to step back for a moment and assess what to do and how to react consciously, which often provides a crucial amount of much-needed clarity, calm and sober-mindedness.

2) Face the pain instead of running away

Meditation for emotional healing has really helped me to face the pain instead of running away.

There are times I still reach for a drink or watch mindless TV to try to numb some emotions, absolutely, but I do it less and I have less need of it.

Practicing mindful healing and emotional healing has helped me to be able to sit with painful emotions and withstand emotionally difficult situations with patience and forbearance.

I used to get raging mad just from being put on hold on the phone for more than five minutes.

Or getting cut off in traffic when I was running late for work.

Now I still feel that instinct rise up to lash out: “that fucking idiot, driving like that is insane.”

But I acknowledge this reaction and choose not to roll down my window and yell something or flip them the bird.

I choose to speak civilly to the poor man on the customer call center once I finally get through.

And I honestly thank the work I’ve done in meditation for emotional healing for giving me that increased inner centeredness.

I’m not perfect, but I’ve found some peace in the imperfection and accepting other people’s imperfections as well.

3) Clearer communication of my emotions to others

Learning to accept and work through emotions and how to deal with them has also made me much better at communicating my emotions to others, especially awkward or difficult emotions.

Meditation for emotional healing has allowed me to separate myself and my identity from my emotions themselves, and this, in turn, allows me to communicate to others what I’m feeling without making it personal, conditional, or pressurized.

I also no longer carried around all this shame and awkwardness about feeling “bad” things like anger, fear, guilt, disgust, sexual desire, and more …

I could take these feelings and openly acknowledge them to myself, which lets me be much more open – when appropriate and necessary – with others.

I don’t associate any weakness or shame with the fact I am feeling something so I’m able to communicate it clearly and not expect any certain response or feedback.

And if somebody is uncomfortable I empathize and hear them out. I don’t feel the same need to be “right” or be emotionally more valid than anyone else.

I speak my truth and march right on.

3) More emotionally vivid experiences

One of the best and most remarkable effects of doing meditation for emotional healing has been a steady intensification of experiences over the past year or so.

What I discovered through being still with my thoughts and feelings through the meditative process, is that I’d been drowning in “white noise” and confusion for years.

I’d been so uncontrolled and in the grip of emotional states and underlying stress and sadness that I hadn’t been feeling positive emotions as fully either.

Working through some difficult emotions and blockages in my body had the amazing effect of making my experiences in life more vivid overall.

The colors seem brighter and flowers smell sweeter.

It’s not that I’m always “happy” or something, it’s just that I feel more alive. I don’t know how else to explain it.

4) Becoming more comfortable with myself

Most of my life I’ve pushed strong emotions down, including happy and positive emotions.

The thing is: they always popped back up at some later even more inconvenient time and washed over me including in publicly humiliating ways like the time I drank too much at my brother’s wedding …

Well, that’s a story for another time, but let’s just say that not a lot of meditating was going on in that case.

Stoicism was my default position, followed by big emotional blowouts at the worst times.

But through meditation for emotional healing, I was able to start becoming more comfortable with my emotions and more comfortable with my emotional ups and downs.

I don’t fall for New Age spiritual narcissism anymore, and I’m comfortable in my own skin.

I don’t feel the need for gurus or to “follow” and worship the teachings of any person.

I find teachers who I can work with, but I don’t depend on them or become a devotee. I’m my own person, and that works just fine for me.

5) Recognizing my emotional limits

In addition to feeling emotions and experiencing life more vividly, meditation for emotional healing has helped me realize and stick to my limits.

I don’t push myself for weeks at work, nor do I get enmeshed in bitter arguments with a family that used to leave me heaving with frustration for weeks afterward and sitting locked up in my worries at night.

I recognize and respect my emotional limits, I tell other people when they’ve stepped over them and I take the time and space I need when they’re being exceeded.

Honestly, it’s ended up saving a lot of heartaches and leading to a lot better relationships, work environment, and home life.

The fact is that learning to be more open and accepting of my emotions also included learning to be more open and accepting of my emotional limitations.

Before I could expect others to respect my boundaries I had to respect them for myself.

6) Openness to trying new meditations and practices

Another plus to meditation for emotional healing is that it’s opened me up to trying out various kinds of healing meditations.

Once I saw the potential I became much more enthusiastic about researching what’s out there and giving it a try.

I found this free self-healing meditation from the shaman Rudá Iandê that really hit home for me. Instead of demanding that I feel differently, “snap out of it” or otherwise enter some state of bliss, Rudá worked on a deeper, more primal level to help me tap into my inner life force, through the power of my breath.

Our respiratory systems are the link between our somatic and conscious systems and they can also be the reparative connection between healing unhealed trauma and pain that’s stored in us at the subconscious, instinctive level.

Finding that out and working through it was a big step for me and it really opened a lot of doors.

I also tried another meditation called the feeling awareness meditation that’s based around deep awareness of feelings in the body and emotions that I found very effective.

7) Better relationships

Another of the major benefits I’ve experienced from practicing meditation for emotional healing is healthier and better relationships.

Not only in my romantic life but also at work … in my family … with friends, and even with strangers.

Relationships with strangers? you might be asking. What I mean is that my daily interactions and relations with people when I park my car, go to lunch, line up or anything at all have become much more positive and enjoyable.

I’m no longer feeling like a ship tossed around in a storm.

And I feel like I’m able to bring a little bit of the acceptance and peace I’ve found to the big bad world around me.

I’m just glad I found meditation for emotional healing and gave it a go because it’s really made a noticeable difference in my life.

Healing yourself …

I’m always grateful that I found out about meditation for emotional healing.

I still have problems – we all do. But my challenges in life no longer dominate and crush me.

They’re pain and struggle that I accept and move forward with, but not that I attach to part of a story or a narrative.

I sincerely hope that this guide is useful and helpful to you and that you also find meditation for emotional healing is a beneficial and restorative part of your journey as well.

Now that you’ve read this article about meditation for emotional healing, check out our article about guided meditations for insomnia.