Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting

a little better at life.

I'm your host, Cory Muscara.

Before we go into the episode, I just want to let you know that I have a cool announcement

of a new thing, a new thing that I am doing, and I'll tell you at the end of this episode

after the last spell, so make sure you stay for that.

In today's episode, we're going to talk about having a warm up routine for your meditation

practice, especially if sitting still or meditating in general brings up difficult

emotions.

So we'll talk more about that in a moment.

First, let's settle in together with the sound of the bells.

So I'll be one of the first people to say that it's not always the right time to practice

meditation, and that could be the right time of day for you based on what you're experiencing

or the right time in your life.

Sometimes when we go into the meditation, if we're experiencing very deep grief, very

deep loneliness or severe depression, the meditation can sometimes make things worse because

we're coming more intimately into our experience, and it can just be hard to create enough distance

to be able to observe it, and we end up getting sucked into it in an unhelpful way.

So during those periods of time, it's okay to just let the practice go entirely or find

other ways to practice, like walking meditation or yoga or anything that just helps you feel

better and grounded.

But if you're in a place where you want to engage in a meditation, even though it's

...