Recommend guided 'emotional release' meditations?
November 8, 2017 12:32 PM   Subscribe

As a fan and regular user of guided meditations, I'm struggling to find good/fresh guided meditations toward 'emotional release.' What I'm looking for are guided meditations similar to Derek Turesky's "Connecting With Difficult Emotions" or "Being with Pain," both found on his 'Garden of Now' CD.

I've listened to these meditations from the 'Garden of Now' CD a zillion times and would like to meditate to similar riffs on the same theme, which I think is termed 'emotional release.'

Google of course reveals a ton of emotional release guided meditations, but it's hard to determine which ones are any good without actually listening to them, and the few that I've listened to really don't stack up to the ones on 'Garden of Now.' I do subscribe to 'Headspace' but I don't find any meditations in that app that fit 'emotional release.' Finding such a guided meditation within the headspace app would answer this question.

Mindful denizens of metafilter, what can you recommend?
posted by Doc_Sock to Health & Fitness (6 answers total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I don’t have a specific recommendation, but the Insight Timer app is free and has a huge library of guided meditations, searchable and with reviews. It has led me to many wonderful discoveries, and it might help you find more of your favorites.
posted by third word on a random page at 2:16 PM on November 8, 2017


Best answer: I like this CD by Mark Williams, which has a track about exploring difficult emotions.

It's a slower burn than the examples you gave (24 minutes), with more focus on the breath before exploration, and more silences in between instructions.

I really enjoy the calmness, straightforwardness, and sincerity of Williams's voice and narration. The rest of the tracks are good too, especially the body scan. The whole album is on Spotify , at least in my region.

There's a similar ten minute version on Youtube, called Exploring Difficulty, from his companion book.
posted by rollick at 2:38 PM on November 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


In this world in which there are so many free sources for guided meditations and dharma talks (a great source is Dharmaseed.org -- you can search by keyword, etc.), it may seem like a real leap of faith to buy a cd or digital download. But the guy you want is Steven Levine.

Steven Levine was a meditation teacher. He met Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and she asked him to teach meditation to her patients. He agreed, and only then did he learn that she was working with people who were dying. He went on to do some of the most thoughtful and advanced work with people who were dying and did so until his death at the end of last year. You can see some of his talks on his website, and here is the link to purchase guided meditations. I think you want soft belly meditations, although no doubt all of them would be helpful.
posted by janey47 at 2:49 PM on November 8, 2017


Best answer: I really love Meditation Oasis. Two episodes in particular that might suit your purposes are Episode 7: Emotional Ease and Episode 14: Beyond Pain.
posted by somedaycatlady at 3:43 PM on November 8, 2017


I really like the work of Dharma Ocean/Reggie Ray. They use a body-focused technique that I've found to be very helpful for accessing & dealing with emotions. This is Buddhist meditation, with much of the terminology that comes with that, but I could see the somatic meditation practice being useful whether or not you subscribe to this philosopy. Lots of audio meditations & talks are available on the website, he also has several audiobooks that delve deeper into the process.

Tara Brach also has hundreds of meditations & talks available on her site/podcast, I know she has often addressed dealing w/ emotions and trauma.
posted by gennessee at 8:10 PM on November 8, 2017


Best answer: I really like Dr. Kristin Neff's guided meditations, especially "Soften, soothe, allow: Working with emotions in the body [15 minutes]".
posted by bologna on wry at 12:13 PM on November 9, 2017


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