MEDITATION

Meditation, especially active meditation, is the pillar of the Essential therapy process.
„As the mind becomes completely empty, your whole energy becomes aflame of awakening. This flame is the result of meditation. So you can say meditation is another name of watching, witnessing, observing – without any judgment, without any evaluation. Just by watching, you immediately get out of the mind.”
Meditation supports us in the path of reconnecting with our true Self. As we meditate, we take a step back and observe all what is happening in our inner world. In the meditation, in a safe and contained atmosphere, we embark on a discovery, an exploration into our inner world, in order to feel the truth of our Self. We cultivate the ability to stay present, to stay with whatever we are experiencing whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. This helps us to become “bigger” than our fears, our grief, our anger, our pain, meaning that we can tolerate them, and contain them. As we bring these skills that we learn from our meditation into the rest of our life, we have more choice in how we respond to situations in our life. The ability to stay present with our experience becomes an important part of emotional regulation and maturity.
Nevertheless, for most of us, sitting quietly, is at first very difficult. Our pent up feelings, stress, intense thoughts take over, crowding our inner space. We are restless, we cannot relax. For this reason, we also utilise active forms of meditation that include movement, breathing, emotional expression and more.
Active meditations can help us to feel our aliveness again. They can help us release tension and emotions that have been pent-up inside for a long time. As this inner pressure eases, our body can relax and our mind can become clearer. As a result, we feel less burdened, and more inner space is created. This release softens our system, and makes space for awareness, presence, and inner silence. It helps us to relax and fall into our Center, our Being.

From this place, we can start witnessing all what is happening inside our inner world without being reactive. We become less entangled in the inner turbulence and learn to observe it instead of being carried away by it. This is part of maturation: becoming the healthy adult who can stay with whatever we are experiencing, whether it is pleasant, or unpleasant. This means taking responsibility for ourselves.

Through this process we also learn containment. Containment does not mean repression; it means learning the art of self regulation, holding our emotions with dignity, without suppressing them or reacting from them, or being overwhelmed by them. The structure of the active meditations, itself, holds and supports this process.
The more we practice, the more intimate we become with our inner world.
Meditation becomes a regular moment of meeting yourself, an appointment with your Self.