Meditation For Moral Injury

This meditation seeks to support those experiencing moral injury, the distress one may experience from perpetrating, failing to prevent, or witnessing events that violate moral beliefs and values. This meditation includes supportive breath, body, and compassion guidance as well as ample space for being with what is.

Recommended for meditators noticing the weight of cumulative distress in viewing, reading, hearing, or participating in high-stakes or emotionally charged situations.

Transcript

Welcome to a mindful meditation for those that experience moral injury.

Recognizing you've selected this meditation and perhaps the intensity it can bring,

Inviting you to select a location and a posture for your body that feels most supportive.

And once there,

Let's begin.

Closing your eyes or gently unfocusing your gaze,

Coming within,

Dropping in at a time of distress.

It can be challenging or welcomed.

No wrong way to feel here.

Just noticing as you move inward,

Feeling the sensation of the breath in the body,

Feeling the breath move through the body on inhale,

Perhaps sensing a slight pause,

And the movement of the breath out of the body on exhale.

No need to change the breath here,

Just noticing.

And if the breath is strained or rapid,

Perhaps catching in parts of the body with emotion or strain,

Seeing if you can allow it to be just as it is.

Knowing this breath has been nurturing you through all without any involvement from you.

Allow it to nurture you now.

This breath in the body flowing at its own pace,

Maybe as it flows through your body,

It brings out,

Up,

Or around ideas,

Images,

Emotions,

Seeing if you can allow whatever the breath is stirring to arrive and move forward and release.

Like leaves stirred up on the wind,

Some things that are stirred will stay longer or maybe never pass through entirely,

Allowing the stirring to occur.

Maybe as the breath passes through the body,

There are things that have been pushed down here.

Images,

Sights,

Maybe even times in which you yourself are in these images,

Allowing them to rise,

Watching as the breath passes them through.

And if some are sticky or remaining,

Allowing that as well.

There may be a lot here,

Allowing and opening to the breath.

If you feel ready,

Focusing on the heart center,

Recognizing here the quality of the heart,

Seeing if it's available to you to do that without judgment.

Has this heart space experienced some damage?

Are there areas of the heart that feel closed,

Unwelcoming,

Unavailable?

Maybe even areas of the heart that feel heavy like stone.

There may also be areas of bitterness,

Openness,

Maybe areas of the heart available.

Taking a moment here with your heart,

This space,

Recognizing what is,

And maybe experiencing some gratitude for all that your heart has faced.

Some gentleness here,

Some compassion for a weary heart.

Maybe this heart space brings to you some emotion,

Some thoughts.

Speaking to you in its own language,

This heart space may have some things to say.

And so seeing if it's available to you to just listen.

If you would like supportive touch here,

A hand on the heart.

Moving now from the heart space,

If you feel ready.

If not,

You can stay right here.

I'll go silent here for some time in this space.

Taking some final breaths here with this heart space.

And moving the attention now into the gut.

This area that may seem fraught with sensation,

An area of nourishment and elimination.

A space also the center of our body.

Taking some breaths to notice here,

What is it?

Recognizing any flows or limits to flow that you might sense in this area.

Maybe a sense of tightness or stuck points.

Here in this gut area,

Maybe emotions,

Thoughts,

Stories are stirred up as you focus your attention here.

If that's true for you,

Allowing those to come forward and recognizing those that pass away.

Maybe some gratitude here for all that this area of your body does in sustaining and removing.

Keeping what is needed and releasing the rest.

Noticing how this happens without any efforting from you.

This area of the gut is where often we sense,

Where often we experience and hold those experiences.

If that's true for you,

And this area is heavy with the weight of all that it's held.

Inviting you to use supportive touch,

A hand here,

Or maybe two.

Sensing the warmth of this comfort.

As things rise up for you from this area of the body,

Being with what is here.

I'll go silent for some time to allow for a deeper listening.

When you feel ready,

Taking last few breaths here with the center of the body and moving the attention into the hands.

Sensing into the hands and recognizing as you place attention here,

Emotions,

Thoughts,

Stories that might co-arise here as you focus on the hands.

Maybe arising present and then moving forward or some of these thoughts or emotions staying.

Maybe some gratitude for all that these hands have done in service,

In support.

Recognizing all that is.

Maybe struggling with thoughts of all these hands could do or should do.

And as this arises,

If that is true for you,

Taking a moment to notice and maybe using the phrase,

Thank you,

Not now.

And returning to these hands in this moment.

There's no need here to project into the future.

Here now,

These hands,

This breath.

Moving now from the hands.

When you feel ready,

Up into the head and face.

As you move your attention here,

Sensing in the hands,

Into the face,

Head,

And noticing where you may experience the attention calling for you.

Maybe it's in the mouth or the jaw,

An intensity around the jaw hinge.

Maybe it's in the eyes,

The ears receiving what they have.

Maybe it's in the forehead or the back of the head,

Sensing into an intensity about all that's present here.

Noticing if gratitude arises,

The receiving and the communicating,

Translating and the functioning that happens here.

The ways in which this area of the face and head make us available and connected to what is around us.

Maybe as we focus here,

There's a heaviness or a stirring of thoughts or emotions,

Maybe stories.

Noticing these two as leaves stirred and settling,

Stirred and settling with no need to be involved or engaged here,

Just noticing.

And then at your pace,

Bringing attention to the top or the crown of the head.

And if you'd like,

You can engage in body breathing here,

Pulling the air on the inhale through the top of the head all the way down the body to the soles of the feet and then exhaling from the soles of the feet all the way up the body and out through the crown of the head.

Inhaling through the body,

Every cell,

Every muscle,

Every bone,

And then exhaling from the soles of the feet out to the top of the head.

Inhaling compassion to the heart space,

The gut,

The hands,

All the way to the toes and exhaling any unneeded thing from the hands,

From the gut,

From the heart out of the top of the head.

Continuing this body breathing,

Maybe focusing that breath on the inhale to spots that feel tight,

Intense,

Weighted,

And then exhaling from areas needing release.

Inhaling this life-affirming air into all the spaces that carry all that they do,

Exhaling what is no longer useful here.

If this doesn't feel right to you,

Simply supportive touch to the face,

Holding your hand to the gut or to the heart,

Focusing this breath,

And then the next.

When we experience situations that are beyond our control or that we are urged to do more toward or that call for our humanity over and over again,

They rest in our body.

Part of this being very important for us to recognize ways in which we can support others as that weight increases,

As our viewing,

Receiving,

And participating increases.

The weight gets heavier,

Allowing this space for our breath to restore,

Allowing this space for our breath to release.

And if that's not possible for you here,

Now,

Cultivating being with the breath for a sense of readiness for when it is.

These feelings of failing to prevent,

Or witnessing,

Or perpetuating,

Feeling at the mercy of things around us that violate our humanity.

Our beliefs and values are real.

This body and this breath are with us here too.

In these spaces where we feel not enough,

Not doing enough,

Not saying enough,

Not being enough for our fellow humans or ourselves.

Being with this,

Being here now,

Recognizing,

Listening,

Breathing,

Providing compassion to a world-weary body.

Compassion to our world-weary mind.

This breathing,

This recognizing.

If you are body breathing here,

Taking some time to now focus the breath in the area needing the most attention.

Maybe that's the heart or the gut.

Maybe that's the hands,

The face,

Or maybe some other area that shows up for you.

Bring the breath here.

Ease.

Comfort.

Then when breathing into this area,

Most calling you,

Maybe there isn't relief.

That's not the goal.

It's to be with what is.

What is hurting.

What is scarred.

What is tender.

What is feeling not enough.

What is open and painful.

I'll go quiet here for you to spend some time breathing with this.

Now as we come to the end of our meditation together,

Taking a moment to recognize all that you have done here in these moments to be with what is,

To honor,

And to fully cultivate a space for your humanity.

Be gentle with yourself in the coming moments.

See if it's available to you to give yourself what you need in this next hour,

This next day,

To truly listen.

And now,

The sound of the bell.

Thank you.