105. Heart Opening Meditation (Depression and Anxiety Coping Skills Podcourse)

January 03, 2024

Get comfortable and settle in for this heart opening meditation with Dr. Henry Emmons. Remember to simply observe, accepting whatever state your heart is in without judgement.

Sources and Notes:

This episode is part of our Podcourse! To get the most of the course, you may want to follow along in order, beginning with episode #78 and you can visit the Podcourse Page to find all the episodes. However, these episodes can be listened to in any order and you can take action with any strategy that you feel connected to.
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Key Moments:

00:26 Introduction to Heart Opening Meditation
01:03 Getting Comfortable and Grounded
02:56 Focusing on the Heart Center
03:38 Observing the Heart's State
05:40 Recalling a Moving Experience
07:51 Returning to the Heart Center
09:20 Feeling Gratitude

Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program.

Please see our terms for more information.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Joy Lab!: Welcome to the Joy Lab podcast, where we help you uncover and foster your most joyful self. Your hosts, Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek, bring you the ideal mix of soulful and scientifically sound tools to spark your joy, even when it feels dark. When you're ready to experiment with more joy, combine this podcast with the full Joy Lab program over at JoyLab.coach

Henry: This is the heart opening meditation. I will guide you through this and it, you really are going to use your awareness and your attention and your imagination to do this meditation. A lot of what we're doing here is just being able to draw your attention to your own heart center and simply noticing what is there.

And remember, it does not have to be any certain way. If your heart is open, if your heart is closed in this moment, either one is fine. All we're going to ask you to do is to notice, and then you can invite yourself to open a little bit further. So go ahead and get into a comfortable meditation position. Whatever you're most comfortable with. Sitting or on a cushion or laying down.

Let yourself get into that nice comfortable but upright position.

Allow yourself just a couple of moments to get grounded. Notice the seat or the cushion. Be aware of how your body is held from below.

And allow yourself to sink a little deeper into this moment by bringing your awareness to your breath. And just see if you can really be present for the next three breaths.

And now draw your attention to the heart center, which is not literally the physical heart, but it's that area right in the center of your chest, right around the breastbone and below the breastbone. It might be helpful for you to place your hand right in the center of your chest so you can use the touch of your hand, the warmth, the feeling of sensation to, to draw your awareness there more deeply.

But whether you place your hand there or not, place your attention right there in the center of your chest. And then, as you're noticing and observing, just notice what is true for you right now.

To what degree at this moment do you feel open?

When the heart is open, there's often a sensation of warmth, or expansion, or movement.

Sometimes there's an emotion residing there.

Again, just notice what is. No judgment, no need for it to be any different.

If the heart is closed, there is often a sense of coolness, or a lack of movement, or or maybe a slight feeling of contraction. Sometimes there's just a feeling of numbness or dullness. And again, no judgment. If this is what you're feeling now, this is just what you're feeling now. There's no need to change it.

We're just noticing without judgment.

And now with part of your mind continuing to observe this heart center, allow another part of your mind, your imagination, your memory, to bring up some recent time when you really felt moved in some way, where you felt opened up.

So this might have been a movie you saw, a book you read, a story you heard. Or it could have been through music or through some act of kindness that you witnessed or experienced.

Whatever comes to mind, allow yourself to really enter back into that experience.

Try to notice everything you can recall about it. The colors, the sights, the sounds, the smells, anything that helps bring it to life.

Allow it to replay in your mind and allow yourself as best you can to feel what you felt in that moment.

Was it an emotion? Was it just feeling moved or opened up? Just allowing that to happen, now in this moment. whenever you're ready, you can allow that memory, that image to go and just bring your awareness fully back to your heart center in this moment.

And notice what is.

Just with curiosity, not with judgment, notice whether there's been any change. Any greater sense of opening or warmth or movement, expansion.

Inviting yourself to open up as much as you feel able.

And when you're ready, you can just take a moment with your awareness still resting on your heart. A moment just to feel as much gratitude as you can. Just feeling gratitude for having this human capacity to open.

And for whatever degree of awareness and aliveness you are able to experience right now.

And then bringing your awareness back to your breath. Let these next three breaths deepen and enliven you even further.

And then bring yourself back to your body, to the way you're sitting or holding yourself, and back to this room.

105. Heart Opening Meditation (Depression and Anxiety Coping Skills Podcourse)

Get comfortable and settle in for this heart opening meditation with Dr. Henry Emmons. Remember to simply observe, accepting whatever state your heart is in without judgement.

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