Hey there,
Welcome to a hit of hope.
And just a fair warning that this one contains some salty language.
So if that's not for you,
You might want to find a different meditation to listen to.
For you,
If you are still here,
Hey,
I mean it,
Hey,
Here you are,
Here.
And I don't know in what condition,
Physical,
Emotional,
Spiritual,
You have arrived,
But you are here.
And even in the pain,
Even in the uncertainty,
The fear,
Know this,
You,
I tell you this because it can be so easy to forget.
You are so busy and living your stories,
Trying to live up to expectations,
Trying to do the right thing to clean up the messes when you haven't.
So busy,
Trying to put one foot in front of the other and bear this overwhelming task of being human.
And so you forget.
You forget you are a wonder.
And as soon as I say that,
If you're anything like me,
Your inner lawyer will rise,
Shuffle their papers and begin their prosecution of you and your tender spirit.
Here,
Let me give you evidence,
Proof of all the ways you are not a wonder,
But rather a fuck up of the first order.
And so many of us have lived that way for so long,
So busy and so ready to prove and name all the ways we are wrong that we forget there are other ways to be,
To live,
Like living with tender affection for ourselves.
You might laugh at that.
I know I did when I was meditating on this possibility,
But then do you know what happened?
As I thought about tender affection for myself,
I remembered this picture I have of when I was about five years old.
I have a shit eating grin on my face and it looks like I am ready to head out into the world fully ready to believe I am a wonder.
And I knew the world was going to offer me all kinds of wonders that I could taste and touch,
See and hear.
In that picture,
It was obvious I was ready to begin.
And as my current eyes looked on this young self,
I felt like this young self wanted to take my hand so we could walk again through the world together.
But as soon as I had that thought,
Do you know what I did next?
I thought of all the ways I've failed that little girl.
The things I've done that have crushed her and her bright spirit.
And suddenly,
I imagined the two of us in a dungeon.
The cold walls dripped,
Rats rustled in the straw,
Gruel was getting ready to be slopped into my bowl,
Because that's how life can feel as an adult,
Right?
And suddenly,
Iron bars appeared separating me from my young,
Tender,
Fierce self.
And what was interesting was it was almost impossible for me to tell,
Was it my child self that was trapped,
Or the self I am now.
What was even more interesting,
It didn't matter,
Because the doors of the prison were open.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I am free to leave at any time.
Of course,
There are literal prisons in the world,
But how many of us are in cages of our own making?
And this can be one more thing to beat up ourselves over.
Breathe in,
Breathe out,
I'm talking to me,
I'm talking to you.
All of us need to hear,
You are a wonder.
The hand is there,
The hand of your brave,
Fierce,
Curious self.
It's reaching out to you,
Inviting you to walk out of the dark and into the light.
