Okay,
Welcome back.
Today we're gonna do a shorter version of the how good can it get meditation.
I've had such a positive round of feedback from the longer version I figured I'd make something a little bit quicker for people who are busy and need something in the middle of the day or in the morning,
Something like that.
Why don't we begin with arriving all at once.
You're here,
You've made the decision to set aside some time for meditation and reflection,
So let's just arrive all at once,
Being here right now.
We'll begin with bringing awareness,
A sense of presence to the breath,
Gently focusing your consciousness on the rising and the falling of the breath.
Notice sensations accompanying the breath.
You might notice this in your chest,
Your abdomen,
The breath on your nostrils,
And just bringing a sweet,
Tender awareness to your present experience.
With the next couple of breaths,
Intentionally making that inhale a little deeper and a little bit fuller than it might otherwise be.
Relaxing into the breath,
Just a little deeper and a little bit fuller until you feel you've really arrived.
Now I want you to bring a curious,
Non-judgmental awareness to whatever thoughts are running through the head right now,
Whatever emotions you might be feeling in your body.
What's the weather like today in here?
Just being mindful of your psychological weather.
Whatever you're noticing,
I invite you to embody a sense of warmth,
Sweetness.
If you're feeling pretty good,
Maybe just feeling some gratitude around that.
On the other hand,
If you're not feeling good,
If you're feeling stressed or anxious or tired,
Bringing a sense of sweetness and patience to your own internal experience.
We don't have to be at war with ourselves right now.
Now I invite you to think about a salient memory from before you entered into recovery.
This could be immediately before entering recovery,
It could just be some other salient memory of the difficulty,
The strife that you experienced in your personal life or just your own internal life prior to making the decision to move towards recovery.
We all have these memories that are difficult and painful.
Now I don't want you to think that the goal here is to dig into an open wound.
That's not the goal.
The goal is to bring into your mind the person that you were at that time and again bring to that person a sense of sweet forgiveness,
An acknowledgment that that person too was in pain,
That that person was doing the best that they could with the tools that they had,
Remembering we can't see until we can see.
Just holding an image of that person who you were in your mind,
Perhaps bringing a hand to your heart can be helpful.
Sending that person that you were again,
Sweet forgiveness as you might forgive a dear friend and they've made a mistake,
But you know that their heart is pure,
That they deserve forgiveness.
Just being with that for a moment as you breathe into this sweetness and patience and forgiveness.
Now in the final couple minutes here,
I invite you to take your consciousness forward in time and imagining who you might be in six months time or one year time or in five years time.
If you adhere to your recovery principles and your spiritual growth,
If you adhere to listening to the quiet intuition,
Listening to your ideal self,
The man or woman that you'd like to be someday,
Who might you be?
A question that I love to ask people in early recovery is,
How good could it get?
How sweet could this life get?
If you take care of yourself,
If you lean into the growing pains of recovery,
How might your family look?
How might your relationships heal?
How might your personal and professional life grow?
Breathing into the sweetness of that possibility.
There is hope there.
There is sweet possibility there.
Being with that for a minute.
And ending the session,
Hands on our hearts with a sense of gratitude for a second chance.
For some of us it's a third chance,
Fourth chance,
Fifth chance.
Just for another chance at becoming who you might be.
Thanks for stopping by.
I'm proud of you.
I'll see you next time.
