Meditation And Emotion

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

“Real liberation comes not from embellishing or suppressing painful feelings, but only from experiencing them to the fullest.” - Carl Jung to penetrate as and wherever he pleases, while remaining open to the perfection of the universe.”- Jack Kornfield In a nutshell: meditation helps to work with various emotional states and experience them much more fully and brighter. But to begin with, as in any endeavor, some effort should be made.

Modern theory of emotions views emotions as adaptive in the sense that they provide the body with information through rapid and automatic assessment of difficult situations. Emotions produce physiological changes that are conducive to survival and lead to actions that fulfill important needs and increase well-being. Current theories of emotion have arisen from models of psychotherapy and research on the emotional processes that emerge during Emotional Oriented Therapy (EFT). While EFT is a theory of psychotherapy, the underlying theory of emotion is well articulated and draws on early theories of emotion, including theories of change. In accordance with this model, emotions also serve as signals of informing the body about the emergence of unmet needs or a discrepancy between the body's internal urges and external reality.

Modern theories suggest that emotion involves the coordination of experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses called coherence in order to help the body respond appropriately to environmental problems. Some theorists have suggested that the self has a predisposition to be internally coherent, so negative emotional reactions or maladaptive emotions require “permission” from the self in order to achieve coherence.

Aspects of experience, which may be unformulated or out of awareness, require integration to create a coherent sense of self. Therefore, healthy and adaptive functioning involves the awareness of experiences and the synthesis of various aspects of those experiences.

Different emotions have different functions and can be organized into basic types. Quite popular typology these are primary and secondary (meta-emotions). Primary emotions are the "pure" emotions of the present moment, a reaction to the immediate present. Meta-emotions are, for example, anxiety about anxiety (the sphere of panic attacks), fear of our anger and irritation, and similar states that take up quite a lot of space in our daily life. Adaptability is an important characteristic of every emotion. Adaptability is the property of an emotion to constructively or destructively influence itself and the environment in the short or long term.

Meditation and emotion … The purpose of mindfulness meditation is to expand awareness and attention to thoughts, feelings and sensations with an attitude of non-value, openness and curiosity. From this point of view, it is very important to cultivate a deep respect for all emotions in order to understand their qualities and hidden meaning. Any emotion or state of mind is considered an object of consciousness in such a way that anger or sadness or shame is equally acceptable and useful to explore, as well as joy, excitement or calmness. The natural tendency of striving for pleasant emotions and avoiding unpleasant emotions is transformed into a state of more stable, accepting stream of equal experiences.

Modern research has examined the levels of emotion regulation during meditation practice when exposed to various emotional stimuli. Scientists found that novice and experienced meditators showed a decrease in the appreciation of strong emotions. Practitioners could accept and experience emotions without participating in the unfolding thoughts about their content. Similarly, another study found that experienced meditation practitioners reported less distress when faced with painful stimuli. During meditation (compared with the control group), the practitioners were aware of pain intensity with a decrease in cognitive processing of sensory experience. The decline in these cognitive processes was thought to be associated with greater interoceptive and somatic awareness. Scientists argue that by switching attention to sensory experience through a non-judgmental stance, people can detach themselves from negative thinking, repetitive thinking, or ruminations that can lead to mood disturbances.

It is very important to cultivate a deep respect for all emotions in order to understand their qualities and hidden meaning.

Meditation itself should be seen as emotion regulation strategydistinct from other cognitive strategies such as overestimation, distraction and suppression. Meditation appears to reduce reactivity and has long-term effects as a result of changes in attitudes toward thoughts, inner experiences, and interpretations, rather than attempts to change such experiences.

Another mechanism by which mindfulness improves emotion regulation is emotion differentiation, which refers to the ability to distinguish emotions (sadness, fear, anger, shame, etc.) as separate objects.

Somatic feedback theorists have suggested that bodily responses may be unique to each emotion and that emotions can be differentiated by characteristic patterns of somatic activity. Hence, there may be a certain set of bodily changes for sadness, a different set for anger, a different set for fear, and so on.