It’s not uncommon for people to get emotional during meditation. And it’s in no way a bad thing to experience. In fact, acknowledging your emotions, and appropriately processing them, is very beneficial for your overall well-being.
For some people, meditating is the only time they gift themselves to ‘wind down.’ If you are feeling safe while meditating, you may gradually lower the mental and emotional protective walls that have built up around you throughout your stressful days.
And this means that once relaxed, you may find all the emotional energy that you have been stuffing down instead of appropriately processing, may begin seeping to the surface of your awareness.
Why Do I Get Emotional During Meditation?
Often, meditation practice is focused on experiencing the present moment as it arises. This can mean getting in touch with how you are feeling on a deeper level than what you normally experience during our busy days. As you allow this process to unfold naturally, you will become connected with ‘emotional baggage’ that you have not yet consciously processed. And while it may be uncomfortable, it is necessary for your overall well-being and spiritual evolution.
Meditation Is Often The First Time You Become Aware Of Your ‘True-Self.’
Meditation is a process of coming to know ourselves on a deeper level than what is afforded by ‘normal’ everyday living. It’s a practice that allows us to better understand who we are.
Who we are is composed of mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects. And all these aspects are intimately related to each other.
By this, I mean that our emotions are related to our thoughts which can be dependent on what we are doing. Or is it that our thoughts are generated because of what we are doing, and therefore determine how we are feeling…..
Either way, it doesn’t matter, because you cannot separate one aspect of ‘Your-Self’ from the others and say anything absolute about it…. everything IS connected to all other parts and together they make our whole being.
So, by now, you may be wondering ‘What the hell am I talking about?’ What’s this got to do with me feeling emotional during meditation? Well, the answer is….. everything of course!
Meditation develops greater self-awareness! When you quiet your mind and body, you become more aware of your feelings.
For many people, meditating is the first time they have stopped looking outside of themselves and actually spend some time to become aware of ‘Themselves,’ body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
Instead of being constantly distracted by your external environment, (looking at others and judging what they are saying and doing,) you are tuning your senses inwards so that you get to experience more of your ‘True-Self.’
Meditation Stirs The Pot To Bring New Stuff To The Surface
Often, our first experiences of meditation are pleasant. We get to experience a sense of calm and peacefulness that we have rarely felt before. So, we think this is great and we set up a regular practice hoping to experience these good feelings more often.
Great idea, and I would never discourage anyone from meditating, however….. for some people, anyone who is not good at processing their mental and emotional baggage, they may find that they can become quite emotional during meditation. Why?
Before we began to meditate, our systems were ‘stable.’ By stable, I mean they were a certain way because of our habitual thoughts and actions. We all have our issues, and may not like some stuff about ourselves, but at least we have been able to create a stable sense of ourselves.
The thing about meditation is that with consistent practice, you will chip away at the protective walls you have built up over time that protect you from the aspects of life and yourself that you don’t like!
For example, we may not like the fact that we are short-tempered and therefore sometimes react in an overly harsh manner. We may have been dumped by our ex and now fear other relationships because of the previous hurt we experienced.
And what about the time you were trying to help your dad when he was overly tired after a hard day’s work….. and he said NO, he will do it better and faster by himself!
We all carry varying degrees of emotional wounds with us… and when our minds are not distracted by everyday survival stuff, these wounds slowly make their way to the surface from where we have buried them, deep within our subconscious minds.
So, when we meditate we may weep, cry, laugh, become sad, frustrated, angry, or experience any other emotions relative to the emotional energy that is bubbling up within us….. and it’s all ok… in fact, it’s great!
Should I Stop Meditating If It Makes Me Emotional?
Hell No! Look, you may cry a bit (or a lot) or experience other unpleasant emotions, but so what! I guarantee that afterward if you don’t get mentally caught up in trying to figure out what is happening, You Will Experience A Feeling Of Tremendous Relief!
This is what your soul self, the higher aspects of your being are desiring for you at this time…. they want you to process your baggage so you can become more self-aware, and closer to your True nature.
So just go with the process and allow yourself to be present with what arises at the moment. Don’t judge any of it as right or wrong, good or bad… Just experience it as it is and allow it to pass through you and from you.
None of what occurs during your meditations is wrong or abnormal, instead, it is what you need to be experiencing at this time so that you can grow.
If You Are Emotional During Meditation, 2 Important Things Are Going On
1) You are processing your emotional baggage.
This means you are clearing out your old, stale, and blocked energies. And there is nothing negative about this.
As the old unwanted crap is swept away, it makes way for new and better energies to take their place. This then makes room for you to come closer to your authentic self… the self that your soul came here to be…. the one who is unconfined by all of your ego’s rules, conditions, neediness, and pretension.
Meditation will help you see and understand the role you have been playing in creating the life you are currently living. And regular meditation will help you become aware that you have options to change your path or change aspects of yourself… but this can only happen after you have processed the blocked ‘undesirable aspects of yourself.
2) You are growing.
By showing up to meditate, even when you are not having the wonderful experience you want, you are building character, strength, and resilience.
And these characteristics are just some of the benefits of meditating.
It’s easy to do something when it goes well all the time and you get to experience immediate benefits. However, it’s not so easy to come back again and again if the results are not what you wanted or expected. In fact, it would be very easy to just stop practicing.
If you don’t work on your mind to improve it, you will remain stuck with the current mindset we have. However, if you stick with your regular practice, you will begin to cultivate a state of mind that is conducive to living a wonderful life.
So, continue to practice! And when you become comfortable with observing your emotions as they occur, without attachment and judgment, your life will begin to transform and everything will begin effortlessly falling into place for you.
Remember… It’s in the struggle (the releasing of unpleasant emotions, etc.) where the real transformation is taking place.
Because… If you just experience pleasantness all the time, there is no incentive for you to grow beyond it. And therefore, you should learn to enjoy your emotions, even the unpleasant ones… because they are all enabling you to grow and evolve.
Final Thoughts
To sum up: You get emotional during meditation because you have been suppressing emotional ‘stuff’ instead of allowing it to come to the surface to be appropriately processed.
Feeling your suppressed emotional baggage is a good thing. And you should view it as a beneficial progress on your meditation journey.
The best practice is to experience your emotions without judgment and just let them work their way through you in their own good time.
After your session, take a moment to thank yourself for practicing and appreciate the release of any unwanted energy/emotion that has happened.
By doing this, you will set up a new pattern of thinking and behavior that will inspire you to keep returning to your practice again and again.
So, your meditation practice, which you may have begun just so you could feel better has now become a beneficial life-changing tool. Therefore…
… Practice with peace and love in your heart and mind and your future self will forever thank you for it.
