Hello and welcome to meditation.
Just find a comfortable position for you to sit.
One that you can have your spine relaxed but at the same time still alert,
Not slouching.
But just make sure you're not rigid,
You're not trying to make anything out of it.
It's just how can you be as relaxed as you can but still be alert in your body.
And I invite you to close your eyes or just find a soft gaze.
Feel your feet on the ground or if you're cross-legged,
Feel your seat bones in the chair or in a cushion wherever you're sitting.
So just start by bringing your awareness,
Your attention to your breath,
To the flow of the breath as it comes in and as it leaves the body.
Just noticing the quality of the breath without judging the quality.
Just noticing,
Becoming aware of it.
Is your breath short?
Is it not?
Are there any areas of constriction in the body for the breath to flow?
Does it flow freely?
Where do you most feel your breath and the body?
Noticing where it comes through and where it travels through around your body.
Where can you most feel the breath?
And sometimes it might be on the belly,
Sometimes it might be on the chest or shoulders,
Sometimes on your nostrils.
And see if you can invite the breath to your heart space.
Maybe just allowing the breath to expand the ribs,
Make more space around the heart area.
And see if you can take deep breaths,
Exhaling at the same length as you inhale.
And as you bring awareness of the breath around the heart area,
Maybe connecting with your heart and becoming aware of what are the protections that you put around it.
What are the ways that you,
Out of your own love,
Your own instinct,
Have protected your heart,
Have created boundaries around it?
Just feeling in the body without giving it to the mind,
Without judging,
Just noticing in the body,
In the heart,
What are the barriers and the protections that you have carried around?
Just let yourself feel fully what's keeping your heart closed,
If you feel it is.
And you might just name whatever it is that comes up for you.
So sometimes for me it is fear of being hurt that makes me protect my heart.
Sometimes it's a desire to to be strong.
So whatever it is,
Just connect with the protection and name it,
Recognizing your own heart.
Sometimes the protection in my heart is to be right,
To have the last word,
Because it's hard to fail.
It's hard to be wrong,
To not know.
And can you be with it just for now?
Still inviting the breath to expand this heart space of yours,
Taking deep breaths.
And so we start with the first direction that we can ask forgiveness,
Which is asking others to forgive us.
Acknowledging the many times that just as humans that we are,
We might have hurt,
Harmed,
Either knowingly or unknowingly another being.
And you might even have in mind a specific situation where you you feel you have harmed someone.
And just bring that into the heart and into the mind.
Just allowing space for that situation,
For that feeling.
And as you feel that fully in your body,
In your heart,
Asking forgiveness.
We're all humans and we in our process of growing,
Of living,
We have those mistakes.
We sometimes hurt others.
So you can say within yourself,
Please forgive me.
Sincerely feel your desire to be forgiven and ask.
You might even say,
I'm sorry,
And I did not mean,
Or I did the best I could at that time.
I didn't know as much as I do now.
Please forgive me.
And as you ask for forgiveness,
Feel that you are forgiven.
Allow yourself to feel that you are forgiven.
As you connect with this energy of forgiveness inside your heart,
Acknowledge as well the times that you have hurt yourself.
Whether willingly or not,
Just acknowledge that sometimes we do hurt ourselves.
We do harm ourselves out of our own ignorance.
And again,
Asking.
Ask yourself for forgiveness.
And you might say,
I forgive myself.
I did the best I could at that time.
I didn't know as much,
Or I didn't know as better as I do now.
I can do different now.
I forgive myself.
Again,
I'm only a human in this body-mind,
And we all make mistakes,
Including to each other and to ourselves.
I forgive myself.
And see if you can feel a sense of releasing whatever it is that you have been carrying around situations in which you've hurt others or yourself.
See if you can take a deep breath into your heart space,
And as you exhale,
Just allow the release to happen.
And you might even say,
I am forgiven,
And I forgive myself,
To the extent that that's available for you at this moment.
And just feeling in the body,
The sense,
The feeling of this release,
Of the forgiveness that you can feel.
In the same way that we have hurt others and ourselves,
Others have also hurt us.
There has been certainly situations with other beings in our lives in which we felt harmed,
Betrayed,
That it didn't feel fair.
I'm just acknowledging that they also are humans.
And even if what they did truly harmed you,
See if you can offer them forgiveness,
Acknowledging that they might have done the best they could at that time,
That they didn't know better,
That they might have been afraid acting out of their own ignorance.
And you might also have a specific situation in mind.
And as you feel your body,
The sensations of the situation that you have in mind,
Allow yourself to feel fully in your body,
And to also understand the limitations of being human,
Noticing how we all make mistakes.
And just offer,
I forgive you.
I still don't agree.
I still don't think it's fair.
But I understand that you might have done the best you could,
That you didn't know better.
I forgive you.
And as you offer forgiveness,
Again,
Feel it in the body.
If you can have a sense of release of the armor that blaming others,
Attacking,
Defending,
Create it up around our hearts.
And as you offer the phrase,
I forgive you,
Bring that sense of release,
Of letting the armor down.
Again,
Inviting the breath to open,
To bring space into the heart.
Connecting with any body sensation that you might be having at this moment.
Offering yourself kindness for showing up to forgiveness.
The best you could at this moment.
And just reflecting if we all could help each other to feel more forgiveness,
To offer and ask others and ourselves for forgiveness.
How would the word look would look like if we all helped each other to be forgiven and to forgive?
