Hello,
Welcome to another meditation.
In this one,
If you've been feeling a little bit overwhelmed,
Or you can really feel the weight of life right now,
This is an opportunity to slow down and to recenter,
To reground yourself in your heart space,
And to learn if perhaps there is something that this heaviness might be trying to teach.
So find a place in which you can settle your body,
And for the first little bit of this practice,
Just listen,
And if your mind wanders,
Try to just draw it back to my words.
The jumble of life,
That's what my dear friend called it.
The collection of thoughts that plague your mind while you try to fall asleep at night,
Or the thoughts that spiral when you're feeling a bit lonely.
The jumble of life,
The collection of what each one of us is carrying,
The weight of your unique life circumstances.
I've noticed within myself and the people around me,
It all feels extra heavy right now.
And you can't just point out one thing inside of yourself and say,
This,
This right here is why I hurt.
Instead,
There are a cluster of knots inside.
When you identify one ache,
It leads you to another,
And then another.
It aches in your head,
It feels as though a cloud fills the edges of your skull.
There's a cracking around your heart and the knots deep inside your belly.
Trying to make sense of it all,
Or trying to find peace,
Your mind spins.
The mind likes to turn to reason,
To identify the life circumstance,
The loss,
The loneliness,
The uncertainty that is making you feel the heaviness of what it means to be human.
The mind likes to turn you into a victim of your life circumstances.
And if you continue to let it search,
You can assure its ability to find your frailties is unending.
The solution to your heaviness,
To the weight of existence cannot be found solely in the mind.
So sit here and try to create some space from it all.
Get really comfortable.
If you might benefit from a pillow or the warmth of a blanket,
Take a moment to grab those things and maybe even choose to lay your body down.
Feel where your legs are in space.
And is there anything you could adjust to be even one degree more at rest?
Soften your belly.
And place your palms so that your hands are not grasping and your fingers can relax and curl in.
Completely release the muscles of your jaw,
Around your eyes,
Through your forehead,
And the top of your skull.
Take a deep breath in.
And now as you take this breath in,
Hold it at the top.
Find calm in this short breath hold.
And then exhale it out completely,
Maybe even with a sigh.
And then pause with the breath empty at the bottom.
Ease into your space just a little bit deeper.
Then once again,
Take a deep breath.
Hold it in.
Release your shoulders down.
Stay soft through your face.
And then exhale,
And if you'd like,
Sigh it out.
Pause at the bottom.
Feel into the stillness of your physical form.
Now even deeper,
Take a deep breath in.
Pause at the top.
Release the muscles of your face.
Then exhale it all the way out.
Hold at the bottom.
Remain calm.
Let your mind inform the body that you are safe.
And see,
Can you sense the rhythm of your heartbeat in this emptiness?
Then once more,
Breathe in.
Hold at the top.
See if there's something you can let go.
And then exhale all the breath out of your body.
Pause at the bottom.
See that even in this gap between breath,
You can be at ease.
You can search for the most innate rhythm inside of you,
The rhythm of your heart.
And now on your own,
Continue to breathe in this pattern.
And each time your breath empties,
In the pause,
Search for the center of you,
Your heart.
Notice as you continue to breathe in this way,
If it might become easier to find the heartbeat.
Or if it might feel as though it has grown stronger.
And after your next brief breath hold,
The one after your exhale,
Let that be the last of your breath moving in this way.
And just return to what feels natural.
Now you can imagine.
Often when discomfort arises,
Our minds race and it turns into what looks like a game of chase.
Chase between the two parts of you.
The part of you inside the little mind who is it.
The tagger.
The egoic mind who tries to chase down the higher mind.
The one who tells you to be afraid.
The one who tells the reasons why you are not enough or not doing enough.
The reasons why this life is hard,
Challenging,
Cruel.
The one who is it tries to stifle the other part of you.
The one who listens,
But in a deep way knows the games of the little mind are untrue.
Don't let yourself get caught in the game.
Your role is not to run or hide from this little mind.
To hide would be to turn towards distraction when it tries to stifle you with fear.
But the other part of your mind,
The higher mind,
The one who witnesses,
Who listens to the little mind's stories of trepidation,
It may not speak as loudly,
But it does have a voice.
A moment ago,
When you held your breath at the bottom of your exhale,
You might have felt a bit of unease or panic come into your body.
But with the power of your mind,
You could inform the body you are safe.
The body could then calm and you could be quiet enough to sense your inner rhythms.
The same goes for facing your jumble of life.
When your head begins to feel cloudy or your heart begins to crack or the knots wrap around your insides,
What if instead of playing the game of your little mind,
You slowed down and fell into your body?
And just as with the breath holds,
The greater part of you could tell the body to relax and you could create the space for it to speak.
Yes,
Sometimes the discomfort feels unbearable.
But feel into the heaviness,
Feel the weights that have been pulling you and see that these aches are pangs of love.
Just like a muscle building strength aches after exertion,
These aches are here to show you the other ways in which your growth or healing may be occurring.
See that it is love that has many different phases and manifestations.
Sometimes it makes anything seem possible and other times it hurts so much you want to recoil from the world entirely.
Although these experiences seem to be the antithesis of one another,
They are one in the same.
Manifestations of love.
Listen to the ache of these feelings and let them tell you their unique connection to life.
Each one of these knots,
The ache around your heart,
The cloudiness in the mind,
Simply these feelings want your attention.
They want to be felt so that they can show you how every piece of the story is trying to bring you back to your whole and loving nature.
There is no greater place than this to uncover direction,
Purpose,
Clarity.
Do not turn from this ache that seems to be born of your jumble of life.
Instead,
Form a relationship with it to see the way in which life is always bringing you back to wholeness and back to a greater foundation of love.
One that is stronger,
Clearer.
Can you grab this feeling?
Can you hold its hand and see where it may guide you?
Who likes to blame?
The higher mind listens.
Let it hear the lessons that live inside of your body.
Know that this relationship,
Like any,
Takes time.
And if it is hard to hear right now,
That is okay.
Just keep coming back to this place.
Never stop returning to your heart.
Never stop feeling your feelings.
For although the little mind may think that these feelings originate in fear,
Uncertainty,
Discomfort,
They really just are love in its different phases.
To listen to these stories of love.
And to send gratitude to the unique ways in which they show their face.
And now you may continue to sit here for longer.
If it feels there is still more to unearth or to listen to today,
Be gentle with yourself in coming back into your body fully.
And before you open your eyes and come back into your space,
Recognize that when you open your eyes,
What you see will be a reflection of love looking back at you.
Just like inside of you,
It may be in its different phases.
But as you open your eyes and come back into this day,
This life,
Let it be with the lens of love.
Thank you for taking this time for yourself and for spending this time with me.
Peace and love always.
