When Life Gives You a Curve Ball

Has life given you a test in the last couple of weeks? Has something gone ‘wrong’ recently? Did something difficult strike you out of nowhere?

What can you do with that?

Do you patch it up with a ‘positive-thinking’ band aid and tell everyone you are ‘okay’? Do you wallow in your sorrows and play out the role of the victim? Do you pretend it never happened and push it deep down away from your conscious awareness?

I find half of the battle of going through a difficult phase is the resistance to the actual phase. I find myself saying ‘I don’t want this to be happening!’, ‘I don’t want to feel like this’, ‘Why am I struggling so much?’ and the self-criticism starts with ‘You’re being so negative’ or ‘Come on, get your sh*t together!’

A huge lesson I learnt years ago is that life is a roller coaster and it’s normal to have the downs as well as the ups. During those downs, I find that using the One Seat Meditation is particularly powerful.

The One Seat Meditation is an opportunity for you to sit and be with whatever arises. When you use this meditation technique you allow yourself to move into a space of acceptance, acknowledging there are areas of comfort AND discomfort within your being. You give yourself the space to notice joy, frustration, anger, love and anything else that presents itself in the moment.

Often we tend to shy away from those difficult feelings we are experiencing, with a fear that the emotions are just too much to handle. More often than not, when we use the One Seat Meditation technique we realise we CAN manage those feelings and that they are not as daunting as we first thought.

When you allow yourself to surrender and sit face-to-face with whatever emotions arise, you can invite an incredible sense of stillness and peace into your experience, which eventually brings you back home, to your soul. In this space of being, just observing what arises, without reacting to it, you can naturally create an opportunity for insight, clarity and transformation.

So allow yourself to centre with some breathing for five to ten minutes and then sit with whatever arises.

The One Seat Meditation is an advanced technique and I don’t recommend it for beginners. Let me know how you go in the comments below. If you have any questions, post them here too.