Finding gratitude for your pain is a really special practice because it can help you to navigate some of the more difficult areas of your life knowing that whatever is that you're experiencing in the moment is only temporary.
And if you're really honest with yourself and you reflect back,
You can see how you've actually learned and grown so much from other painful and difficult situations.
So in many ways,
This current suffering or the pain that you're experiencing in this moment,
You know will also translate to wisdom at some point down the line,
If you are open to receiving it and really allow the lessons of the pain to reveal themselves.
So for this meditation,
I invite you to sit with your pain.
And I invite you to sit with it as though you were sitting before a forlorn friend,
Someone who makes you uncomfortable,
But who you know has a great deal of wisdom.
You might even grab a comfy pillow and place it in front of you and invite your friend,
This pain to sit there.
Fully recognize and acknowledge this pain.
Call it by its name.
Breathe with it.
See all the places where maybe you didn't want the pain to visit,
Didn't want the pain to take up space where you've tried to ignore it,
Where it just wasn't welcome.
And humble yourself before this pain,
Recognizing that you have done the best that you could to manage life and haven't wanted to acknowledge the depth,
The depth of the suffering,
The depth of the pain,
What it has cost you,
Or what you have perceived as the cost to you.
Just breathe with it.
And allow yourself to be soft enough to cry or to tear up if that's what wants to happen.
And try not to push away any of those emotions.
There's many different emotions that are often stirred up when this forlorn friend comes to visit.
So you've made some time in your schedule.
And you're sitting now with this friend.
Give your friend this attention,
Your full attention.
Be present with it.
What have you come to share with me?
What have you come to teach me?
I'm not sure if I'm ready for your lessons.
I'm not sure if I will ever be ready,
Not fully anyways.
But I am here.
I am humbled before you.
And I am willing to receive all that I'm able to in this moment.
What is it that you have come to teach me?
Your gift feels so heavy.
I'm tired.
My shoulders are tired.
My energy is low.
And yet here I am,
Humbled before you.
I am ready to learn.
I am ready to learn.
Breathe with your old friend.
Breathe with your pain.
And you've carved out this time to allow yourself to feel the grief,
The heaviness of this pain.
So let yourself be with it now.
Continue to ask.
What have you come to teach me?
Why have you come and taken up so much space in my life?
Help me to understand why you're here.
What do you have to teach me?
I am humbled here before you and it's difficult.
But I'm here.
So teach me.
Teach me.
Teach me what I cannot understand on my own.
Teach me so that I understand the purpose,
The necessity,
The reason for your presence in my life at this time.
Help me to know how to be with you,
How to have more tolerance for you and more patience.
Sometimes I grow weary with the weight of you.
And I don't know how to hold myself up.
Help me to be able to see more clearly how to be with you,
How to love and accept you more.
So that I can better understand,
Better understand your presence in my life.
I am humbled here before you.
Teachable.
Humble.
Yet a bit weary.
So help me to understand your presence in my life.
Help me to know how to go on living with ease and joy.
When sometimes it feels like your presence is all consuming.
Help me to go on with more ease.
As you continue to be present in my life.
I want to know how to appreciate you.
How to take pleasure in the knowing that I will gain wisdom from this experience.
Even though it is not clear to me at this time.
Allow yourself to be with your pain.
Allow your shoulders to relax.
This friend of yours.
This forlorn friend.
Pain which you have known in many different versions and different times in your life.
Just be with it now.
Be with it fully for this time that you have allocated.
Help me to understand you.
Help me to understand why you continue to show up.
I've tried so many times to move on and yet here you are still taking up space.
I'm turning to you now so I can be with you.
I want to understand and make more space in my heart for you.
So that you can plant within me the special seed of light and wisdom that I know that your intention is to bring.
If I can stay present enough to receive it.
Help me also to learn how to move with you more fluidly.
So that you don't linger longer than necessary.
Help me to let go of you and not cling to you.
To somehow take pleasure in my suffering.
And therefore prolong your stay.
Help me to know how to let go of you.
So that I can move on to other areas and parts of my life that will bring me more joy.
That will bring me more pleasure.
I want to know how to smile more.
I want to know how to find the inward smile that precedes my personality,
My ego,
My need for perfection.
I want to find the sun on the inside of me.
Help me to know how to move with you.
So that I don't hold on to you longer than necessary.
Walk alongside me and show me what I need to see so that I can shift and change situations in my life with more ease.
Help me to know how to meet you,
How to greet you even when you arrive.
I'm coming to you as humble as I can.
I'm coming to you because I'm tired of fighting.
I'm tired of resisting.
I'm ready.
I'm ready to move on in a new way.
Help me to know how to do that.
Help me,
Help me to know how to love you.
Take this time to be fully dropped into your heart.
To the degree that you are able to right now.
And breathe as deeply into your belly as you can.
Feeling the pathway from the heart all the way down into the belly.
Relaxing into more spaciousness and ease.
Collapsing all of the walls that have held you rigid and tight.
Allow yourself to breathe more fully into your life.
Into this moment.
Notice the quality of your presence now.
Allow yourself to come down into a lying down position if you're not there already.
And fully relax your body.
Remain here for another five minutes or so.
To let yourself come back into a restful and easeful state of being.
Trusting that your energy field will come back into a restored state.
Feeling re-energized,
Restored,
And renewed.
Just let yourself fully,
Fully relax.
Allowing your entire body weight to drop into the ground and feel held up,
Totally supported.
As you move into this next phase of regeneration,
Restoration,
And ease.
There's nothing else for you to do except simply be.
Let your mind fall away.
Let yourself be breathed and let go.
