Coaching practices for Non Avoidance Meditation
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Non Avoidance Meditation, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- The moment a hard feeling rises in me, I instinctively clench away from it or bolt for a distraction
- I sit down to meditate and instead I just stew
- There’s one particular person I can’t even think about without my whole body tightening with resentment
- I keep trying to shove this feeling down or talk myself out of it, and the harder I fight it the worse it gets
- A feeling shows up and I’m instantly grabbing at it or shoving it away
Practices that may help
- Meeting emotion in open presence
When a difficult emotion arises during open monitoring, stay in the witnessing position rather than contracting or escaping.
Open Monitoring Meditation, Made Practical - Working with ill will (byapada)
When aversion, irritation, or resentment enters meditation, meet it with loving-kindness for the person or thing triggering it.
The Five Hindrances: Diagnosing and Working with Meditation Obstacles - Compassion meditation for widening the circle
Extend deliberate well-wishing to people you find difficult, building non-aversion before you encounter them.
Ahimsa: Non-Violence as a Daily Practice - A — Allow the experience to be as it is
Let what is present be here, without pushing it away, numbing it, or elaborating it.
RAIN Meditation: Tara Brach’s Four-Step Practice - Non-grasping awareness: letting arise and pass
Watch thoughts, sensations, and emotions arise and dissolve without grabbing or pushing.
Shikantaza: Just Sitting - Investigate resistance to the practice honestly
The impulse not to breathe in suffering is information about where your self-protective contraction lives.
Tonglen: The Tibetan Practice of Taking and Sending - Weekly hindrance-pattern review
Track which hindrances appear most in your practice to identify life-condition causes, not just in-session antidotes.
The Five Hindrances: Diagnosing and Working with Meditation Obstacles - Unpleasant events calendar: observing difficulty without catastrophizing
Track one unpleasant event per day for a week, noticing how you automatically relate to discomfort.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Made Practical - Releasing the object: sitting without a focal point
Let go of fixing attention on the breath, a mantra, or any other anchor — simply be present.
Shikantaza: Just Sitting - Precise hindrance identification before applying antidotes
Before doing anything about a meditation obstacle, name which of the five hindrances is actually present.
The Five Hindrances: Diagnosing and Working with Meditation Obstacles
Related concerns
- Sitting With Difficult Feelings Meditation
When aversion, irritation, or resentment enters meditation, meet it with loving-kindness for the person or thing triggering it.
Working with ill will (byapada)
- Ahimsa Meditation
Ahimsa — the principle of non-harming held across Jain, Hindu, and Patanjalian traditions — extends far beyond avoiding physical violence. As a daily practice it means bringing deliberate non-aggression to thought, speech, and action toward oneself and others. The practices are grounded in real psychological mechanisms: non-judgement reduces reactivity, compassion training builds prosocial capacity, and self-compassion buffers the shame that drives self-attack.
- No Self Meditation
End each sitting by radiating goodwill outward, softening any self-critical edge the practice surfaces.
Metta at the close — sharing merit and goodwill
- Aversion Meditation
When aversion, irritation, or resentment enters meditation, meet it with loving-kindness for the person or thing triggering it.
- Avoidance In Compassion Practice
The impulse not to breathe in suffering is information about where your self-protective contraction lives.
Investigate resistance to the practice honestly
- How Do I Start Meditating When Facing Tough Times In Life Given I Have Never Practiced Before
Count breaths from one to ten and start over, a traditional on-ramp to a steady mind.
Counting the breath (susokukan)
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