Insight meditation (Vipassanā) teacher JoAnna Hardy shares a toolkit for working with our emotions and thoughts.
JoAnna Hardy has received her training in the Theravada insight tradition through the Spirit Rock/IMS program led by Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and others. She brings the Dharma to communities and individuals who don’t typically have access to traditional settings. JoAnna is a co-founder of the Meditation Coalition, learn more at meditationcoalition.org.
Sitting with Ourselves
Joanna looks at the way we can work with our thoughts and emotions through insight and awareness. When we begin to sit with and understand the qualities of our unsettling thoughts and emotions, we start to understand our true selves. With this knowledge, we are able to be with this phenomenon of experience without pushing it away or getting carried away with it.
“Working with thoughts and emotions in our practice can truly be transformative. Especially when we get into territories that are difficult. The conversations in our own minds, experiences in the world. To have a wise relationship to this mind, this heart.” – JoAnna Hardy
Trusting Loneliness (6:15)
What does it mean to trust difficult emotions like loneliness? JoAnna reflects on the quality of trust in ourselves which recognizes that we can be with these emotions. She speaks to the difficulties that we all experience early on in our mindfulness practice, trying to work with all of our stuff all at once.
“Emotions and thoughts are completely normal – completely human.” – JoAnna Hardy
Toolkit for Being with Thoughts and Emotions (14:35)
Joanna shares a 15-minute guided meditation that gives us the toolkit we need for being with our thoughts and emotions as they arise.