Awaken To Love: Resistance Release

Welcome to this resistance release practice,

Awaken to love.

Start by getting yourself to a comfortable position,

An upright posture with your feet flat on the floor or your legs crossed beneath you,

Your spine supported.

Take a moment or two to adjust any pillows to arrange yourself so that you can be as comfortable as possible.

Starting to deepen and lengthen your breath,

Breathing in to expand your belly and breathing out and down to release any tension that you can.

As you begin to tune into you and how your breath is moving in your body,

Breathing in as you relax and expand your belly and breathing out so that your breath takes with it any tension that you're ready to release.

Again,

Inhale and exhale.

Feeling for your body and the way that it's able to lean into the support that's beneath and behind you.

Inhaling and opening to your breath and exhaling,

Offering it freely out.

Checking in with your body and once again adjusting anything that you need to to be more comfortable.

Calling all of your energy back into you.

Imagine that you are pulling all of your parts,

All of your awareness right into this moment,

Calling yourself back from the busyness of the day,

From what's next on your agenda,

Or from worry of the future,

Pulling all of you here into this moment.

Gathering yourself up into your body.

Bring your awareness down into your belly,

Where you've been allowing your breath to expand.

As you inhale and to relax.

As you exhale,

Become aware of the cord that connects you right to the center of the earth,

Your own personal root system.

And seeing it there strong.

Make sure it's connected all the way into the center of the earth,

And that it's pulsing alive with this two way flow of energy as you release down into it tension,

Shame,

Fear,

Holding.

And as we move more specifically into it,

Resistance.

While simultaneously it's feeding and nourishing you flowing good clean energy being drawn up and filling you.

Always returning to your breath.

And becoming aware now of your connection to your highest self.

Visioning a cord of light,

A beam of light that is connecting all the way from this root system up into the center of the sky.

The pointed point of the universe is connected to your defined self,

Your all knowing,

All seeing wisest version of you.

And providing that energy of inspiration in and seeing it as,

Again,

An active,

Alive connection.

And coming in with an awareness of some kind of resistance that you've been encountering.

And you might know exactly what it is,

Or it might be a vague place you're stuck.

Something that you can't get yourself to do,

Or an out of proportion reaction to a behavior from your child,

Your spouse or a parent,

Something that you just keep resisting.

Something that you just keep resisting in yourself or in your experience or in someone else.

And so it just keeps persisting.

Maybe it's even actually been growing in size.

Uncomfortable feeling of resistance getting larger,

Getting louder.

And every time you think that you've got the best of it.

It's back with a vengeance.

And now today as you start to welcome it in to lean into it.

It can start to dissolve to disintegrate to dissipate.

Taking this time to get to know your resistance.

To start to call up a picture of it.

If you can call to mind a specific situation,

A time you felt the resistance in a conversation or an interaction.

Or as you face some dreaded task.

Or considered,

Perhaps navigating out of your familiar habitual coping strategies.

If you're not able to call up a specific situation,

Then you need to be even more clear on the feeling of that resistance.

Either way,

Start to feel it now in your body.

Continue to welcome in your breath.

To use your breath to help you to explore what is this?

What does resistance feel like?

What does this resistance feel like in your body?

What's the quality of it?

Does it feel heavy or thick?

Or is it nervous and fearful?

What's the quality?

Continue to breathe.

As you feel it in your body,

Is there a texture that you can sense?

Is there even a taste or a smell that would go along with this resistance?

Try to tune into all of your senses.

What do you hear yourself saying about the resistance?

Are there thoughts that you can tune into?

Maybe they're thoughts that you already know about,

That you've identified as well-rehearsed thoughts that have made their way to beliefs,

To this is just the way the world is.

Status.

Listening.

Hearing,

Feeling.

Tuning into this resistance and just melting into it.

Continuing to breathe into your belly,

Expanding with your inhale and relaxing with your exhale.

Consciously releasing all judgment about your experience.

All sense that anything should be any different than it is in any way.

Noticing what your very human tendency to judge your experience,

To judge your resistance,

Noticing what that does or would sound like and releasing it.

Releasing any shame that you have around this situation or circumstance or the feeling of resistance itself.

Any shame that you have around not being able to just be grateful or to accept the way things are.

Any shame you have around making this a big deal or not being satisfied.

Releasing all shame and all judgment.

As soon as you see it,

As soon as you see the shame or the judgment,

Just imagine that you're like touching it with a feather and it's released.

And as you do that,

You can know you are not alone in this resistance.

You're not alone in your shame and your judgment.

You can connect in with the millions of other humans who have also felt the same resistance,

The same quality that your resistance has that have also felt shame and judgment towards themselves.

Connecting back to your breath and as you breathe to expand in your belly,

Feeling really deeply fully completely that you are not alone in this pain and this shame and this resistance.

And letting go as you exhale,

Relaxing into the knowing that there are millions of others you're connected with that have also felt exactly what you're feeling right now.

And let that connect you to love,

To compassion for yourself and for others.

And forgiveness.

The healing quality of forgiveness.

Just giving up the idea that it could or should be any other way than exactly how it is.

Noticing how does this resistance feel in your body?

How have you been carrying this resistance?

And as you breathe,

Allow it to shift and to change and your cells to start to open and to release.

And as you are watching it sort of make its way out of your system,

You can see what is it made up of?

What are the fears or the judgments or what is the shame?

Imagine that there's a little girl inside of you who is feeling all of these things.

A little girl inside of you who's overcome is locked in resistance.

And give her full permission to just feel what she feels.

What is she afraid of?

What does she feel guilty about?

Or feel shame for?

How does she judge herself or others?

Giving her full permission,

Giving yourself full permission to feel exactly what you feel,

Knowing if you're feeling it,

You're healing it,

And it's releasing down your grounding cord,

Making its way back to the earth.

Welcoming in everything that you feel.

And bringing your attention to your heart now and imagining the resistance as a cage or a brick wall,

Some sort of armor that you can visualize around your heart.

And seeing that and feeling that the protective quality of the resistance.

Imagine now that you're just being with that feeling of it.

Being with that little girl part of you who feels what she feels.

And as you do that,

The armor is just beginning to fall away.

It's disintegrating.

It's revealing itself as not so solid.

The fears not so scary.

The judgments not so fixed.

The shame,

Not even yours.

And as it falls away this armor,

What is left behind is just the light of your heart.

The love that's at your core.

Breathing in your heart now so that it expands and gets brighter with each inhale and softens with each exhale.

Imagine that there is a tiny one inside of you that is just glowing with love and light.

If you have memories of seeing your own babies like that,

Picture that version of you.

Just a little glowing ball of light and love.

A little glow bug of love that is at your core.

Know that that is still within you.

And as you shine your attention on that part of yourself,

Your heart just glows brighter and brighter.

And the remains of the armor just continue to fall away.

As you breathe here with this tiny perfect part of you,

Your love,

Pure light.

Your heart just glowing brighter and brighter and the warmth radiating out from there.

Can start to connect you with more images that evoke the feeling of pure love for you.

The feeling of your most precious grandma stroking the back of your hand as a child.

Or your infant wrapping her arms around your neck and squeezing you hard for the first time.

A magical timeless childhood memory with a beloved sibling as a child.

Most adorable thing that one of your children has ever done.

Your images you can see or memories you call up that make this feeling of love brighter and brighter in your body.

Breathing to expand around your heart and exhaling,

Releasing,

Relaxing,

Softening.

Breathing in that love and releasing the resistance that's preventing it from being felt through your whole body.

Focus on yourselves opening to let in this love and this light.

That might mean that you need to focus away from any place of tension or an image that's less than pure light and love and come back to where it feels easy and to bringing that feeling of love into a part of your body.

That you can really feel it just letting the warmth spread out from there.

Keep coming back to the feeling of love and to this tiny part of you that's so perfect and loved and loving.

Breathing in and out.

And then coming back to that feeling in your body and releasing any resistance to welcoming it in more fully.

And then coming back to the feeling of love and releasing resistance to it.

And then coming back into the picture of yourself as you are now sitting in this meditation.

And just see yourself swimming in this love.

The way it is inside of you and outside of you.

And imagining all of yourselves opening to receive it.

Breathing it in from 360 degrees around you and this little girl inside of you feeling it,

Her cells opening to as she remembers that she is also this glowing ball of light and love.

Seeing yourself surrounded until you've just absolutely dissolved in love.

Giving yourself some time to just float in this space.

And then gently knowing that you don't have to feel complete in this process of opening to the feeling of love in your here and now.

And allow this practice to complete.

Giving this process this practice permission to complete for any last resistance to be recycled through your grounding cord.

And to breathe that love into any part of your being that's ready to receive it.

And to thank yourself for taking this time.

And for releasing and opening exactly how much you did.

And coming back into your physical body now by wriggling your fingers and toes and feeling your body in the chair as you move your hips gently roll your shoulders,

Breathing deeply inhaling and exhaling.

Again,

Inhale deeply and exhale fully stretch or move as you're called.

And gently come back into the room and open your eyes.

When you're ready.