I know that you don't feel good in your body right now and what you need to do is to find the way to be that is the most comfortable.
And once you find that space,
Just recognizing how hard it is to be uncomfortable and as much as you can,
Just giving gentleness to yourself about how uncomfortable it is right now and looking at yourself in that discomfort.
As hard as it might be to be there,
Just like find your way to that uncomfortable spot and be there with yourself in it.
As you recognize what's uncomfortable and you sit with it,
You give yourself permission to be uncomfortable.
As you recognize that it's okay to be uncomfortable,
You give your body permission to not be a machine.
You give your body permission to be separate from the corporate and market-driven productive world that we live in.
In this space where you're recognizing,
In this space where you recognize your suffering,
Bring to mind somebody who has taught you a lot.
Hold this person in your mind strong enough that you can see and feel,
Maybe even smell,
What it's like to be with them.
Very vividly in front of you,
To be there with your teacher.
Sometimes a teacher isn't a person,
Sometimes a teacher is an animal.
So open yourself to whatever being that is right now and bring them in.
Being with your teacher,
Let them see you right now,
Feeling sick,
Feeling bad in your body,
Feeling hurt.
Allow their gentleness or their kindness or love or even just their silent presence to be there with you right now.
They're not asking you to do anything or be anything.
They're just witnessing you right now with a kind of love and gentleness.
Try to feel the love and gentleness that you would feel towards them if they were feeling sick or unwell in any way.
That's very good.
And now I want to encourage you to see what you can do for your body right now to give yourself even more comfort.
If you feel too cold,
Can you give yourself warmth?
You need a hug,
Can you get a hug?
If you're too hot,
Maybe an ice pack or something cool to drink.
If you feel nostalgic,
Maybe you could look at pictures.
If you need just to zone out,
Maybe looking at your phone.
Take a minute to do whatever that thing is and if it takes a little longer,
You can pause meditation and come back later.
I know you've heard before that you're doing your best.
Good job.
I hope you've heard that before.
If you haven't,
You're hearing it now,
I know that you're doing your best.
I know you're trying your best and your best is good enough right now.
You don't always have to be at our very most peak performance.
At some point we do less and if we're able to,
We're able to appreciate more what we've done in the past and what we're still able to do because doing more is not necessarily better than doing less.
In fact,
Doing less can give us more enjoyment and more understanding about what it is we're doing at all so we can hold on to it better.
As we wrap up this final part of our meditation,
When we're not feeling our best,
We recognize that it's okay to relax and rest.
It's okay to be with the hard feeling,
With the difficult sensation in our body.
We can feel the love that we would have for other people that we care about and that care about us if they are experiencing that,
People or beings or animal creatures.
We shine that love on ourselves and we find one or two things to do to make ourselves feel more comfortable.
If we can't do it ourselves,
We ask for help.
And finally we wrap up with the thought that it's okay not to be productive and it's okay to just be a person for a while,
Doing less,
Resting.
Thanks for your meditation today.
