Exploring Anger Through Active Imagination (reflections and guided meditation)

[00:00:02] Welcome to Dose of Depth Podcast. I'm your host, Deborah Lukovich, and I invite you to explore

[00:00:10] what's beneath the surface of all sorts of things, including your own life. Through conversation,

[00:00:17] stories, and education, you'll see what you couldn't see before, find new meaning in

[00:00:22] old events, and even discover a new sense of purpose out there in the world. Let's

[00:00:34] start with meditation with active imagination for anger. As always, I get these ideas for

[00:00:43] new meditations through my work with clients. And something came up this week with one of

[00:00:51] my clients. And it was about anger, and how anger, if not explored in process might result

[00:01:07] in defensiveness when you're really trying to move forward in a relationship, for example.

[00:01:14] I also have an accompanying blog post about this issue that you might want to check out as well.

[00:01:23] And before I start, I want to remind you that your emotions are one way your unconscious is speaking

[00:01:33] to you is trying to get your attention to explore something. Your emotion wants something from

[00:01:40] you. And anger in particular is a juicy emotion. It's fiery, it's intense, and it wants to move.

[00:01:53] And it actually wants to create. So if you can hold the tension of exploring the different aspects

[00:02:03] of your anger, a new insight will definitely emerge a new perspective about your life, maybe

[00:02:13] seeing something you couldn't see before. And there's going to be an unleashing of some kind

[00:02:19] of creative expression. So I love anger. I love exploring it with my clients. So what's

[00:02:27] going to happen in the next few minutes is we'll start with some breathing to allow you to

[00:02:33] drop down into a lower level of consciousness where you're more receptive to your unconscious

[00:02:41] and the images that will present. Then we're going to check in with the body and see where anger

[00:02:49] might be hanging out. And by the way, even if you're not feeling angry right now, for me,

[00:02:59] I hide from anger. So I've got a lot of old anger that ends up getting expressed by accident.

[00:03:06] It'll be Hermes Hermes will put me in a situation where three things go wrong in the same day.

[00:03:12] And eventually, I just have to surrender and yell, Yes, I'm angry. Fine. Okay, what is this

[00:03:18] about? And then something ends up working itself out. So also, I wanted to remind you of that.

[00:03:28] And chapter 11 from my soul book talks about emotions, and you can actually listen to it for

[00:03:36] free on my podcast dose of depth. It's season one episode 30. So are you ready to wonder and reflect

[00:03:47] about the meaning of anger in your life? So find a comfortable position. You can lay down if you want,

[00:04:01] or you could sit or like Michael Bernard Beckwith wants to sit with a spine erect on your feet

[00:04:09] on the floor and your palms up facing upward as a gesture of being receptive to what your

[00:04:16] unconscious has to say. So it doesn't matter. And then just notice what you notice when you close

[00:04:28] your eyes. I just want to take a breath right away. So you might notice that you feel comfortable

[00:04:40] or uncomfortable. You might notice the temperature around you. You might notice the stillness

[00:04:47] or maybe some sounds. Just notice and then notice yourself noticing. You're becoming more of an

[00:04:57] observer than of your experience, then confusing your experiences, your emotions, your thoughts with

[00:05:06] who you really are. You're not that. And then as you notice your breathing, we're going to be

[00:05:15] more intentional about the inhale and the exhale. And I'm encouraging you to exhale with your mouth

[00:05:27] open and also to maybe sigh or make a noise. It just feels so much more fulfilling. And as you

[00:05:46] deepen your inhale down to the root chakra to your tailbone or even your toes, hold it at the top.

[00:05:56] And then each exhale try to make it longer and expand where eventually your exhale is twice

[00:06:04] as long as your inhale. The image of a chalice is useful here. The chalice is a symbol of

[00:06:13] receptivity. And there's lots of stories about how in order to receive something new,

[00:06:21] something old has to be dumped out. So the exhale is your cleansing. So you might breathe in for four,

[00:06:29] hold and try to breathe out for eight. As if you're down at the bottom of the pool

[00:06:38] and you're wondering, do I have enough inhale? Have I inhaled enough to reach the top?

[00:06:47] So it might sound like this. And if your stomach is sucking in at the end of your exhale,

[00:07:18] you're doing it right. So just take a few of those. And it is the exhale, my yoga teacher said,

[00:07:27] that is what resets your parasympathetic nervous system, which can relieve you of anxiety

[00:07:36] or lessen whatever the intense emotion is. So after you've taken a couple of those breaths,

[00:07:46] we'll quickly check in with the mind. Meditation isn't about stopping thoughts.

[00:07:53] That's silly. That's impossible. But it is about not being confused that the thoughts are who we are.

[00:08:01] So you might quickly just check in and see if your mind is active. And don't judge the thoughts,

[00:08:10] just maybe try to attach them to a falling leaf over there in the distance from a tree

[00:08:17] or a cloud passing by. Yep, there's that thought. Yep, I have that one 25 million times a day.

[00:08:25] Okay, I'm just going to put it over there for now. Now we'll circle to your body.

[00:08:32] So as you breathe and you're present, we're going to slip into anger. It might be anger that

[00:08:41] you just experienced now through a conflict or through Hermes the trickster making you, I don't

[00:08:51] know, lose your keys or your technology isn't working. Or it's just suddenly you had this anger

[00:09:00] because you couldn't get what you wanted in the moment couldn't get your job done,

[00:09:05] some work done or task, whatever it is. Or you can just be curious or you can think about when is the

[00:09:13] last time I felt anger and resentment that didn't really get resolved but I just tucked it away.

[00:09:24] If you can think about a specific incident, it could be old way back something you're still

[00:09:32] angry about that happened a long time ago. Or yesterday, try to slip back into that and then

[00:09:42] notice where is it hiding out in your body? I'm always looking up the psychospiritual meaning

[00:09:51] of certain issues with our body and it really is turning out that even cancer, the spiritual

[00:09:59] meaning is repressing emotions and we're so good at that. So that's why your anger could actually

[00:10:09] be hiding from you. So we want to bring it out in a safe space. So where in your body can you sense

[00:10:21] anger? And finding it in your body is going to be really helpful when we get to the active

[00:10:30] imagination part. So as you remember that incident, re-feel the anger and where is it in your body?

[00:10:51] It could be in your chest, your heart area. It could be at the top of your head.

[00:11:04] It could be in your belly, the sacral chakra, the place of emotions and relationship and creativity

[00:11:14] or the anger could be in the form of where you get migraines on one side of your head with that

[00:11:23] blood vessel too constricted to allow the flow of blood or it could be between your eyebrows,

[00:11:33] your third eye chakra, the place of intuition. It could be showing up on one side of your body

[00:11:45] and that matters. It could be your shoulder, it could be your knee, it could be lots of

[00:11:52] aches and pains where the anger is hiding out. So focus on that area and really focus on the sensation.

[00:12:08] So if anger is in your chest, does your chest feel tight or does it feel stretched? Is there a

[00:12:21] flutter or a vibration? Is there a temperature? It feels hot. So wherever

[00:12:30] you're focusing in your body, wonder more about what is the sensation and then allow an image

[00:12:44] to come up. And if it doesn't that's okay just keep focusing on that area.

[00:12:51] So for example if it's in the belly you might feel heat, you might feel bloated,

[00:13:01] it might feel heavy or stretched or for me the belly is often more difficult emotions hide out.

[00:13:12] And I start to feel like this isn't me like I'm carrying around this part of

[00:13:20] my body but it's actually it's not mine. It's like I've strapped something around my belly and I'm

[00:13:26] carrying it but it's not me. So just continue to focus and allow images. There could be a color.

[00:13:40] Is there a color? Is there a shape? Or you might be really good at this and you get a really

[00:13:47] complex image right away. It's a person, it's an object and as you allow an image don't try to figure

[00:14:01] out what it is just look at it as the observer. And now we're going to in our imagination move

[00:14:14] the image ask the image if we can move it out of our body so we can take a closer look and understand

[00:14:25] what is it trying to communicate. So in your imagination you can ask,

[00:14:32] you could go through the motion and take your hands and maybe maybe it's a bowling ball in your

[00:14:37] belly. That was one of my clients and she was able to grab it and move it out of her body.

[00:14:46] For another client it was a balloon that was interesting. She was able to move it out and

[00:14:51] just hold it in her hand and have a conversation with it. I know that sounds silly but our

[00:14:58] unconscious speaks to us in images so that we get around the mind's need to interpret it

[00:15:06] in a way that only affirms and confirms the assumptions we already made about our lives

[00:15:12] and we're trying to find a new insight so it's creative in this way on purpose.

[00:15:20] So as you move the image out of your body just see what happens. Is it often the distance?

[00:15:31] Are you holding it in your hands? Is it moving?

[00:15:37] And watch it shape shift. Some of my clients their images shape shift very quickly.

[00:15:45] That's even hard to keep up and then at the end we explore sort of the meaning of all

[00:15:51] potential meaning and symbolism of all those different images. For other clients

[00:15:56] there's an image and it just hangs there and it doesn't change.

[00:16:03] So there's no way to know what you're seeing right now

[00:16:07] but the purpose of the image is to communicate something to you.

[00:16:12] So the image could be, you could get the sense that you're supposed to follow

[00:16:19] or touch it or walk around it. The image could be a person that you know or that you don't know

[00:16:29] or a celebrity or someone who's died or it can be anything, it can be a scene.

[00:16:35] The image can be another emotion. There could be sadness, disappointment

[00:16:44] and we just keep allowing our imagination to have its way with us.

[00:16:52] Your image may actually just talk to you. You might want to ask it a question like

[00:17:01] why are you here? Why are you bothering me? What is it you're trying to get me to see

[00:17:07] that I'm not seeing right now? It might communicate telepathically. You can feel

[00:17:14] free to ask questions. The image there is to help you, to be of your benefit. So even if you don't

[00:17:23] like the image, you are speaking to another part of you and so no matter what you want to be respectful

[00:17:32] of the image, even if you can't understand, we might not be ready to hear what it has to say

[00:17:42] or often like the image of a phone might show up, a cell phone where you're looking at the text

[00:17:48] and you can't understand the language. So we want to be patient with our images. They are there for

[00:17:56] our benefit. So I'm just creating space for you right now to explore sometimes a younger

[00:18:07] version of ourselves will come up and say, Hey, let's go play. And there's a reminder of something

[00:18:16] for you that when you bring back to conscious awareness, you're like, Oh, that's what that is

[00:18:24] all about. So we're focusing on anger. I had a couple of clients in the same week

[00:18:34] focusing on anger and the images that came up were like cartoon characters like emojis.

[00:18:44] And they were fiery. One was the character from Guardians of the Galaxy. And his hair was like

[00:18:55] on fire. And he wanted to sit on a park bunch with my client. So we did that. And this little

[00:19:03] fiery character that was filled with anger started kicking his legs, and then he wanted to play.

[00:19:10] It was quite amazing actually. So if you need more time because your imagination is very active,

[00:19:21] you can stop this recording and keep having an adventure. Otherwise, when it seems like a good

[00:19:32] place to leave, we never want to leave abruptly. So just look at your image and say thank you

[00:19:43] for whatever wisdom it shared today. If you want to come back and explore more, say,

[00:19:49] Hey, I'd like to come back. Is that okay? And then you can come back and open your eyes

[00:19:58] and wonder about your experience. Now notice the part of your body where anger was hiding out

[00:20:10] and notice if it's different 100% of the time. If there was some sort of acre pain or

[00:20:19] anger, anxiety, whatever in the body before active imagination, helping that image move out of the

[00:20:26] body and explore it always results in that relief in that part of the body. So notice that. Now

[00:20:39] you want to explore your adventure and the images. Chapter 16 from my book is about using

[00:20:46] the associations method to find the meaning. What is it that you're supposed to be seeing and knowing

[00:20:56] that you didn't before? You can listen to that chapter on dose of depth. It's season one episode 36

[00:21:04] chapter 16, finding associations and journal. And I hope you got relief from processing

[00:21:14] old or current anger. And I hope you do take a minute to journal because the reason your anger comes up

[00:21:24] is and even if it's about something old, is it has to do with moving forward today?

[00:21:30] So there's something that you're supposed to learn and figure out that is needed

[00:21:38] to move forward in life, to be pulled forward by this future version of you.

[00:21:46] So I hope you enjoyed that. It went a little longer than I thought. And I'll keep doing more of these.

[00:21:54] I like I said, I get the ideas from my work with my clients and I'm really thankful

[00:22:00] that I learned so much from them from working with them. So until next time.

[00:22:10] I'm your host Deborah Lukavich and you were listening to dose of depth podcast to get updates on new

[00:22:17] episodes, my writing and how I teach my clients to get to know that deeper part of themselves.

[00:22:22] Go to Deborah Lukavich.com. Oh, and if you're not ready for a coach, learn what my clients

[00:22:28] know in my book. Your soul is talking. Are you listening? Five steps to uncovering

[00:22:33] your hidden purpose. You can check it out on my website or get it on Amazon.