Welcome to this meditation practice,
Pain as our teacher.
In today's meditation we will practice looking at pain as a teacher,
See what lessons it has to reveal within our lives,
And the compassion,
Open-heartedness and courage that it can lend to us.
So to begin this practice now,
I just invite you to come into a comfortable,
Seated or lying position,
One where your spine can be upright.
Just relaxing into your first few breaths.
Seeing if you can bring a nice calm and contemplative state to your breathing,
And let that inspire the rest of your body and being.
Just maintaining the focus on the sensation of the breath as it happens in this moment.
And as you do this,
Just noticing any thoughts,
Any repetitive patterns in the mind,
In the body that kind of come up.
Just using your breath,
Using your exhale,
Surrendering it all to this moment.
And as you find your breath and presence here,
Just orientating your consciousness into your heart,
Softening the chest,
Being here with an open heart.
Just feeling how the heart feels.
This is a very sensitive area.
There's no right or wrong of how to feel here,
Of what emotion to perceive,
But just see how you feel.
Check in with yourself now.
Feeling that you can let go to be soft,
To be open,
To surrender.
Taking a slightly deeper inhalation through the nose,
In through the nose,
And out through the mouth,
Let it all go.
And so now we're going to start to perceive,
Sense pain.
And we're going to start to think about or contemplate any pain we may have faced in the past when it comes to physical accidents,
Physical traumas and injuries.
So just allow your consciousness to narrow in on a single thing,
A single event,
A single injury or pain.
And once your heart's guided you towards that,
Just feel you can be aware of it,
Even recollect it in the body in this moment.
See how there may even be a subtle throbbing sensation,
Vibration in this place.
And feel that you can send it this same openness you cultivated earlier,
This same softness and soothing breath.
Just letting yourself go to your innate healing ability.
Bathing that trauma with fresh breath.
And leaving no stone unturned,
So really being aware of it,
Letting yourself experience it fully if it bubbles up to the surface now.
Feeling that you can let it go.
Feeling that you can fully acknowledge and exhale,
Detach.
Beautiful,
Taking a slightly deeper inhalation through the nose and exhale everything through the mouth.
And now we will progress to contemplate an emotional pain.
So I invite you to let any frustrations,
Painful breaks,
Whether it's with family,
Partners,
Loved ones and friends.
Just allow one,
We're just going to work with one today,
Allow one to come up to the surface into your contemplative safe space.
And once you've identified that moment or memory or flashback,
Allow yourself to feel into the emotion that's there.
Is there anger?
Is there resentment?
Is there sorrow?
Is there a certain helplessness?
Just allow yourself to be open and authentic to everything that lies within this past pain.
Being here very compassionately with your breath very gently.
Just allow it to begin purging,
Allow it to begin moving through you.
Letting yourself go to the openness of your heart,
The tenderness of compassion and the love in your breath.
Asking yourself again,
Is there any unresolved pain in this circumstance?
Is there anything here that my body wishes to open to right now today?
Just allow that to just surge through,
If anything.
Your breath is here,
Your presence is here,
Guiding you through each moment.
Taking a slightly deeper inhalation in through the nose and let it all go out through the mouth.
And so now as a final exercise,
I just invite you to scan upon all that texture that we've explored today.
Allowing yourself to see those accidents and traumas,
Those breaks and painful emotional ties.
Allow them to just kind of exist in front of you.
You don't need to define them,
You can just feel the energy,
The intensity of them.
And you might even want to visualize here that you're sitting in this center and surrounding you kind of floating around you are all these textures and pains.
And just feel now that you can really ground yourself in the position of the observer.
You can see them there with compassion in your heart,
Outside the grip of them.
In the freedom of perspective.
And in the love of your heart.
I invite you to acknowledge that pain will always be a feature of life.
Present in our interaction.
Guiding us back towards home.
Back into embodying the timeless values of compassion and the recognition of true self.
Back into being able to live,
Undertake an action with life.
With all its challenges.
With all its pains.
From this deeper layer.
And so in your final breaths now.
I invite you to take the essence of that the essence of your home with you.
To know that you can always return to this place.
Thank you very much for listening and practicing today.
Namaste.
