May this meditation soften and heal the aching heart.
For this meditation,
We're going to imagine immersing ourselves in a love-filled bath.
So,
Call to mind first a beautiful bathtub,
Or maybe a spa or hot tub,
Or hot spring.
Imagining some kind of warm pool of water that will feel inviting to you for this meditation and safe.
If the ocean also feels like a healing kind of pool and body of water for you,
That also works.
But the warmth of water in this imagery is going to help conjure and remind us of the warmth of our heart.
So I encourage you to picture some kind of warm body of water that feels comforting and safe and calming for you.
So take a moment to kind of call that imagery into your mind.
If it's helpful to add detail to the imagery,
Like the quality of the sunlight that's coming in the room or is present if you're outside.
Or what the reflection of the water looks like.
How still the water is.
Maybe there's steam slowly rising off the surface of the water.
Now let's imagine that those that we feel most cared for by,
Whether that's caregivers or partners or best friends or pets,
Grandparents,
Aunties.
All of those that we feel just that unconditional love and acceptance when we're in their presence.
That they have come to this bath or this pool before you arrived to place their love and their acceptance and their tenderness and their care for you into every drop of water in this bath.
They kneeled by this bath and they said,
May this bath,
May this water infuse you with love,
Infuse you with compassion for yourself and tenderness.
May you feel peace in this water.
Now I'd like you to imagine with all this imagery that you have of this love filled pool.
Imagine walking towards it.
And then as we begin to enter the pool,
We're going to kind of shift from picturing the pool to just imagining the physical sensations of what it is like to immerse ourselves in this love filled pool.
So shift from thinking about the concept of it to what it feels like to be in it.
The bodily experience of it.
And I'll provide some guidance for that,
But I just wanted to set that framework.
So as we approach the pool,
We're going to dip our toes in and put both feet in.
And immediately we can feel this warmth infusing not only our toes and our ankles and our bottom of our legs,
But just deep inside.
We feel this warmth in our bones and that invites us to relax our whole body down into the pool.
And as we immerse all of our body,
Leaving our head out of the water,
We just feel just immediate relaxation of our bones and of our muscles,
This deep softening as if it's pulling something out of us,
As if we're melting.
If there's any obvious areas of tension or tightness,
Place your attention there.
And just kind of let the warmth and the love in this bath just kind of bring softness and tenderness to that.
Sometimes we kind of hunch our shoulders up towards our ears when we're stressed or if we work at a computer.
See if it feels good to soften there.
Or maybe we hold tension in our belly or maybe our hands are tight frequently.
Let the bath just massage those areas.
Notice what the brow is like and the jaw.
Do they want to get softer?
Do they want to soften and loosen?
The ones that love us most and are best at giving us love and acceptance no matter what we're going through have made this,
Blessed this pool,
This bath,
For us to be able to bring that same love and acceptance to whatever we're going through right now.
So whatever it is that brings you to this bath and this meditation today,
Let's gently call that to mind.
It's helpful to kind of place a light noting of a word or an emotion for what this feeling is that you're feeling.
Not a lot of words.
I don't want to get into describing it in a very heady way.
Just what's immediately present.
Maybe you're feeling immense grief from the loss of someone or something that you cherish deeply.
Maybe you're feeling guilt or shame for an unskillful action or words or knowing that somehow you hurt someone when you did not intend to.
Or maybe you're feeling anticipation,
Anxiety,
Fear of something that's coming up in your future.
Maybe there's a deep loneliness that many of us experience in this very separated society.
A feeling of separation from others,
From the intimacy with our planet,
With all of it.
Whatever that brings you here today,
We're going to welcome it for now.
We're going to see it.
We're going to ask,
Can I be with this right now for a little while?
If the answer ever is or becomes no,
I can't be with this at any time during this meditation,
Please,
Please feel free to stop,
Open your eyes,
Ground in a sound that you hear or a sight or something,
Or a neutral physical sensation in your body to distract yourself from going down a negative thought pattern or being overwhelmed by a difficult emotion.
Can I be with this right now?
And when we say that,
What we're doing is we're allowing ourselves to be present with what is right now.
We're not placing any judgment on the contents of how we got here.
We're just allowing the emotional experience.
A good way to do that is to touch into how the emotion feels in the body.
Sometimes it can feel very abstract to feel emotions,
But the body always shows evidence of what we're feeling going through.
See if there's an obvious place that kind of calls attention that seems to reflect this emotion.
See if it's somewhere present in the chest,
The belly,
In the throat,
The shoulders,
The arms,
And the hands.
Is there evidence of what you're feeling right now?
Sometimes you may be able to go to a part of the body that doesn't call out to you.
Sometimes that might be your feet and say,
What are my feet like right now?
And then kind of work in the direction,
Work,
Kind of move through the body and just notice the differences.
That may show you where the emotion is strongest in your body if it's not calling out to you immediately.
Just being with it,
Exploring with curiosity the fullness of this experience that you're in right now.
Now let's call to mind that feeling that we feel with those ones that are sweetest with us.
When we tell them we're having a hard time,
They hold us with their whole being.
That feeling they give us,
That warmth is infused in this water.
It's all around us.
It's like a shimmering,
Tingly warmth that's just completely holding all of us and holding all that we're going through.
Whatever it is that you're suffering with right now,
The difficulty that life has presented you,
Can you hold yourself with that acceptance for what is right now?
Maybe it's helpful to say some kind words to yourself.
And when you do,
Search for how they feel in your body rather than focusing too much on the content of the words themselves.
So it may be something like,
This is really hard.
This is a lot to deal with.
May I be kind with myself.
May I be patient in knowing that I may feel like this for a bit.
May I touch peace.
May I feel love.
May I feel loved.
May I be patient with my learning.
I think there's now something like 8 billion people in the world.
Let's expand our awareness to imagine all the other people in the world who are going through exactly what we're going through right now.
Who are also suffering like we are.
Who have anger,
Regret,
Sorrow,
Grief,
Embarrassment.
Imagine them,
Sending them love and tenderness.
May you feel peace.
May you feel loved.
May you feel warmth and happiness.
May you feel the sun on your face.
Now imagine them,
All those people that they know what you're feeling.
May not have gotten there in the exact same way.
Human beings know sorrow.
They know grief.
They know,
Human beings know these feelings.
They know what you're going through.
And so they are sending you back that same love now.
You can sit in this warmth and receive it.
Feel that genuine wish coming from all these people all over the world.
Feel your heart swell up with the love you're getting from all these people.
They know what you're going through.
They see you.
And they just want you to be happy.
Even if it's not right now.
They want you to feel peace.
They want you to know that you are loved and you are love.
You can pause this meditation and stay in your bath,
Your pool,
As long as you like.
And when you're ready,
You can feel the feeling of bringing your shoulders up out of the water,
Your torso,
Your legs and knees,
Ankles,
And finally your toes come out of the water.
Feel that radiant warmth that you are now filled with.
And let that warmth carry you into your day,
Into the immediate moments,
Into sleep.
And know that it's here for you to touch to any time that you need.
May you be well.
