We Are Not Our Fault - Self Compassion Meditation

This guided meditation offers an antedote towards the blame and internal negative voice we often hear from ourselves. Turning toward love and compassion for ourself, understanding we are not our fault. Guided by Enrique Collazo

Transcript

Compassion and forgiveness are always on my mind and heart.

And so I wanted to do a meditation practice around compassion and forgiveness.

But I will preface with this.

What this meditation practice is doing,

It's an antidote towards the blame internal negative voice.

So it feels like,

And in my experience,

It's just like the habit that just culturally or biologically you all get into is just being really hard on ourselves.

And there's this belief system that if I can bully myself into being a good person,

If you're newer to meditation practice,

That's what this is doing.

This is teaching us how to learn to care about what's hard,

To care about what's difficult in our life and in other people's lives.

And just to really,

In short,

It's just like understanding that we are not our faults.

We are not our faults.

And so this is going to be a practice where we repeat phrases internally over and over to ourselves.

And this is where the practice is replacing the negative blame voice.

So now just finding a way to sit that feels good,

Whatever meditative posture feels good to you.

And when I say feels good,

I mean if it feels grounded,

Alert.

And then if it feels good as well,

Allow your eyes to gently close.

Maybe taking a couple deep breaths,

Letting go of the past,

Letting go of the future,

Letting go of any expectations,

Any doubts in your capacity to practice or to be compassionate with yourself.

And for right now,

We'll trade that all in for a direct experience of what it feels like to be sitting in your body right now.

What I mean by that is the sensations,

Like the contact,

The direct experience.

Can you feel your feet on the floor?

Can you touch into the sensations of your body being supported by the chair or cushion or floor or couch?

Can you feel the sensations of the breath,

The body breathing,

You noticing any sounds,

Sensations,

Emotions,

Feelings,

Noticing what's present for you right now in this body?

I'm seeing if you can allow it to exist,

Whatever it is,

Pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.

Maybe even really quickly doing a scan of the body,

Just maybe from the crown of your head,

Working your way through the body,

And just noticing all the sensations as you do so.

But specifically looking for any places of holding or tension or tension in your body.

And then,

If you're looking for any kind of sensation that you're noticing,

You can do that.

You can do that for any places of holding or tension or tightness.

And seeing if you can soften in those areas.

Relax,

Let go.

Any muscles around the face,

The jaw,

The tongue,

Allowing gravity to pull your shoulders down,

Seeing if you can soften your belly.

So now I want you to bring,

Seeing if you can bring your attention into your heart space.

So any,

Like,

Any kind of,

Like,

Any kind of,

Like,

Any kind of,

Like,

Any kind of,

Like,

Any kind of,

Like,

Any kind of,

Like,

So any,

Like,

I call it a feeling corridor.

So it's not your cardiac muscle,

But just a place in your body where you feel emotion the most.

For me,

It's behind the belly,

Chest,

My neck,

Behind my eyes.

I want to see if you can imagine yourself breathing in and out of this space.

So now I want you to acknowledge your deepest desire to be happy,

Like,

At your core.

As our human beings,

Our deepest desire is to be happy,

Reflecting on your own desire to be happy,

Content,

At ease.

And I also want you to reflect on how difficult,

How hard it can be to be human sometimes.

Right,

Like,

Having a human body with a nervous system that hurts and a heart that feels like it can break sometimes and a mind that maybe sometimes feels like it's out to get you.

And for me,

In between this deep desire to be happy and this deep understanding and acceptance of how hard it is to be human sometimes lies our capacity and our ability to be compassionate towards ourselves.

One of the ways that compassion is defined is a quivering of the heart.

It's a caring about what's difficult,

Instead of pushing it away,

Hating it,

Needing it to be different.

In this practice,

We turn towards it,

Allow it to exist,

And we learn to care about it,

Whatever it is for you that's hard.

Even doing that,

If you can,

Just kind of reflecting on part of your life or an area of your life which is hard for you right now.

Maybe a place where you're struggling,

Having some difficulty,

Resistance towards.

A mistake you've made.

And looking at these areas or this area with some sense of,

You know,

A sense of,

You know,

A sense of,

You know,

A sense of,

You know,

Looking at these areas or this area with some sense of gentleness and kindness.

And then repeating the words to yourself.

I'm going to use some traditional phrases,

And I'll use some words that I use in my own practice.

But ultimately,

Find the words that work best for you.

Trust yourself,

Like whatever feels,

Whatever resonates,

Whatever words that you feel you need to hear from yourself.

So may I learn to care about this pain.

May I learn to care about what's difficult in my life.

May I be at ease.

May I be at ease even when things aren't so easy.

May I be at ease.

May I be at ease even when things aren't so easy.

May I learn to care about this pain.

May I be at ease.

So repeating the phrases over and over,

Whatever words resonate with you,

Kind of like a mantra.

You're just internally repeating it.

You're focusing on the words.

If your mind starts to wander or get lost in any story or blame,

Just seeing if you can let that go and return your attention back to the phrases.

And even if what comes up for you is the opposite of compassion,

Maybe it's more annoyance or more judgment or more blame.

This is not where we turn our backs,

Seeing if you can even start to care about that too,

That story,

That feeling that comes up when there's resistance.

Because that's what's calling for our attention.

And our care.

Those are the places that just want to be loved.

And when we start to place our attention on them with this type of gentleness,

This is when the healing begins,

The dissolving of those old stories and habits.

Some phrases I use in my own practice are,

May I be filled with compassion.

May I be held in compassion.

May I learn to love all of me.

This body,

This mind,

This heart,

This life.

May I remember my goodness.

May I be filled with compassion.

May I be held in compassion.

May I learn to love all of me,

All the parts of me,

The places where I make mistakes,

The places when I forget.

All of me.

May I remember my intrinsic value.

May I remember my intrinsic value.

Or you could say something like,

I love you.

I will take care of you.

I will provide you with what you need.

I love you.

I will take care of you.

I will provide you with what you need.

And again,

There's no right or wrong feeling when it comes to this practice.

Whether you believe the words or not,

Does it matter right now?

Just being willing to say them,

Giving this the benefit of the doubt.

May I learn to love all of me.

All the ways I make mistakes.

Sometimes I can feel really powerful internally,

As even using the words,

I forgive myself.

I forgive myself for any ways I've let myself down or other people down.

With as much heart as I can,

I forgive myself.

I forgive myself for any ways I've let myself down or other people down.

With as much heart in this moment,

I forgive myself for the different ways that I make mistakes,

Cause harm.

I forgive myself,

Because I don't want to be estranged from my own heart.

I forgive myself for the fake life I spend together.

I forgive myself for the lie ofiosa because I just don't want to'm hurt.

God is the origin to win or lose.

He's the right one for saying,

This,

This,

Or that of the other.

This fate is not right.

Forgive myself for the sake of freedom.

I see the value in forgiveness.

And I'm beginning to understand that I am not my fault.

And I'm always doing the best that I can with what I believe in and the tools I've been given.

Not an excuse,

Just the truth.

For the last minute or so,

I'd like to end with compassion for myself.

With compassion for myself and forgiveness is.

.

.

I love you,

Keep going.

To yourself,

Saying to yourself internally,

I love you,

Keep going.

I love you,

Keep going.

I love you,

Keep going.

I love you,

Keep going.

I love you,

Keep going.

So now seeing if you can let all that go,

Seeing if you can bring your attention back into your body,

Noticing what's present for you internally,

Emotions,

Sensations.

And again,

Whatever it is,

Seeing if you can allow it to exist,

Remembering kind awareness.

And then feeling into the sensation of your body and the connection to contact,

Earth,

Chair,

Wherever you're sitting.

Feeling your breath.

And then another couple of deep breaths.

And then when you're ready,

Allowing your eyes to open gently.

Checking in with the surroundings,

Noticing what changes.

Sight,

Shape,

Form.

And always as an encouragement,

Right?

So our eyes are open,

The quote unquote meditation is done,

But the practice is not over.

So we continue.

So what's helpful is to remember and try to create some continuity from closed eyes practice to open-eyed practice.

And even while we're in this arena together for the next 15 minutes or so,

We can do listening practice.

Remember that,

Right?

So kind of just staying in your body,

Feeling your breath as though people are speaking,

Just knowing that you don't have to do anything.

Sound just arises and you can see just magically,

We just appear when we open your eyes.

So even when you're speaking,

Just kind of speaking from the heart and staying in your body.

So,

Yeah,

That's it.

Reviews

Really powerful, thanks a lot ❤️

I really love your meditations. There is such raw honesty and vulnerability. I learn a lot just by how you approach your practice. I hope I keep finding stuff like yours. Thanks so much. (Also hilarious and totally perfect that this seems to have been recorded in a car. Like us and our lives, perfectly imperfect and good as it is!) :)

It feels so good to allow all of me to be.

It was refreshing to create positive self talk around my unconscious self criticism. Beautiful and effective, i feel optimistic after this meditation

That was incredibly powerful for my negative self talk/being hard on myself and trying to work on it for most of my life. So strong in its simplicity and sentiment💜

I like the customizability of this meditation. I like having to take an active role in my meditation.

Illuminating and profound– Thank you for the insights this revealed.