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Areas › Your body › Feeling from the inside
The useful part is the distance. You are the field, not the storm. And every kind of weather in the picture is on its way somewhere, which quietly contradicts what distress keeps insisting on, that this is now permanent. Give your current state a name from the sky and see how it sits.
Then their skins and their hearts soften at the mention of God (Quran 39:23). Inner states are described as moving and softening, not as fixed things you are stuck with.
الزمر
ٱللَّهُ نَزَّلَ أَحۡسَنَ ٱلۡحَدِيثِ كِتَٰبࣰ ا مُّتَشَٰبِهࣰ ا مَّثَانِيَ تَقۡشَعِرُّ مِنۡهُ جُلُودُ ٱلَّذِينَ يَخۡشَوۡنَ رَبَّهُمۡ ثُمَّ تَلِينُ جُلُودُهُمۡ وَقُلُوبُهُمۡ إِلَىٰ ذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِۚ ذَٰلِكَ هُدَى ٱللَّهِ يَهۡدِي بِهِۦ مَن يَشَآءُۚ وَمَن يُضۡلِلِ ٱللَّهُ فَمَا لَهُۥ مِنۡ هَادٍ
God has sent down the most beautiful of all teachings: a Scripture that is consistent and draws comparisons; that causes the skins of those in awe of their Lord to shiver. Then their skins and their hearts soften at the mention of God: such is God’s guidance. He guides with it whoever He will; no one can guide those God leaves to stray
Qur’an 39:23read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a randomised trial with 75 women who had irritable bowel syndrome, mindfulness training reduced symptoms by changing how gut sensations were appraised rather than by reducing the sensations themselves. The mechanism is the interesting part: the sensing did not have to change for the suffering to. A metaphor that shifts how you hold a feeling is pulling on that same lever.
Garland EL, Gaylord SA, Palsson O, Faurot K, Douglas Mann J, Whitehead WE. (2012). Therapeutic mechanisms of a mindfulness-based treatment for IBS: effects on visceral sensitivity, catastrophizing, and affective processing of pain sensations.. Journal of behavioral medicine doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Picturing a state as weather gives you room to watch it and reminds you it is passing.
A long body practice is a teaching version. In real life, take one small piece: just the feet, just the hands, just a minute of noticing.
Stand on one leg for a few breaths. Your body has to work to keep you upright, and that work is loud enough to feel on a day when nothing else registers.
If you keep falling asleep whenever you sit quietly, take it as news rather than as a failed attempt. Your body is telling you how tired it is.