This guided meditation is designed to listen to while you are on a walk so if you have not started walking already I encourage you to pause this audio and get some walking shoes on.
As you start to move one foot in front of the other I encourage you to take a few intentional deep breaths lengthening your inhale and exhale and even allowing an audible sigh to release with a couple of your exhales.
Gently scan your body notice any spaces that you are holding stress or tension and as you move walking forward you can imagine breathing into those spaces and exhaling that stress and that tension.
For some people it's helpful to imagine those things dissolving like mist or little particles leaving the body.
So you continue walking you might take one last deep sigh and moving forward we're going to explore connecting with one specific part of yourself.
As is true for all of my tracks you can substitute the word part for any other language that works better for you as we consider different facets of the soul,
Different pieces of your being and if you're not sure where to start if you don't have an idea of which part you'd like to connect with you can simply think about the last time that you felt an uncomfortable emotion.
This might be the last time that you felt disappointed,
The last time that you felt sad,
The last time that you felt shame,
The last time that you felt something that doesn't quite have a word to put around it but you just know it did not feel good.
And you have one of two choices here you can either focus on that uncomfortable emotion which would be a more vulnerable emotion or vulnerable part of self that we would explore or you can focus on any protective instincts or reactions that you notice trying to guard against feeling the full weight of that discomfort or the full weight of that vulnerability.
If parts work is new to you I encourage you to explore protective reactions or instincts and sometimes create issues if we go straight to the vulnerable parts of us without first building trust and relationship with the protective parts of us.
The reason for this is that protective parts of us have generally loyally tried to help us across our lifespan and to just ignore them and go straight to the vulnerable parts of self can reasonably feel a bit insulting or offensive.
It rocks the boat with that internal homeostasis that our internal system is used to and in the viewpoint or the perspective of a protective part of us they know how to keep us safe and if we try to get in there and bypass them that could feel like a threat,
A risk,
Simply not safe.
Taking a few nice deep breaths whatever emotion or protective instinct or reaction you'd like to focus on let your mind be curious about other times you've maybe seen this come up.
So you're both thinking about the most recent time that you notice this and then any other times in life whether it's in the last year,
The last five years,
The last ten years that you've seen this come up.
Just let your mind gently string together how you have seen this emotion or this protective instinct or reaction play itself out.
What are the similarities across different situations when this comes up?
Taking a nice deep breath you can notice if you feel anything in your body while you're thinking about this right now.
God created all of us in such a beautifully complex way like this interwoven tapestry and so being connected to our bodies can really help us to get to know different parts of us and especially as we're walking and moving and processing it can sometimes feel less threatening to connect with the body or have insight into what's happening in the body.
Taking a nice deep inhale and exhale as you continue moving forward you can consider what is the function of this part.
Whatever you see replay across these different scenarios in your life,
What might be the purpose or the function that that serves?
Another way to ask this is if you were in the mindset of that part,
If you were seeing through the eyes of that part,
How would the actions and reactions of that part of you seem to somehow be helpful?
Now I encourage you taking a nice deep breath if there's any criticisms or judgments that are coming up you can gently ask those things to step aside.
If you imagine that as being like an inner critic or a judgmental part of you,
You can ask that part of you if they would be willing to just take a step back allowing you some breathing room for this exercise.
They can still be present,
You can just ask them to give you a little bit of space and amazingly oftentimes parts of us will give us this space if we simply ask them.
It can feel strange the first time,
I encourage you to give it a try if anything critical or judgmental is coming to mind.
As you continue your nice deep breaths and your movement on your walk,
One of the helpful ways to understand the function or the purpose of how parts of us engage in life is to consider previous experiences that have shaped a certain perspective.
So you can let your mind be curious and float back across your life seeing when was the first time I felt something like this or when was the first time that I reacted in this way.
As you keep moving and keep breathing let your mind to be curious,
Just following that train of thought as far back as it might go.
Even if it doesn't make total logical sense to you,
If there are earlier experiences popping to mind,
You can simply notice them giving yourself space to consider might this be connected.
And from here you might consider how you would identify this part of you.
So for a lot of people it can be helpful to not only get a visual and kind of a backstory for a part or where we feel that part in our body,
But to even have a name or a title for a part of us.
This might be something like the part of me that fill-in-the-blank or the part of me that tries to help by fill-in-the-blank.
The part of me that feels blank.
Maybe it's the part of me that remembers blank.
And before I close us with a prayer I'm going to encourage you to spend just as much time as you've spent listening to this audio,
Continuing your walk,
Giving yourself space to breathe and move and process what you've just encountered in getting to know this part of you.
And in any ways that you would want to go deeper with this part or that you feel stuck with this part,
You can find additional tracks in this series.
You could even continue those on your walk right now if that would feel most helpful.
Lord God,
I thank you that every time we process,
We think,
We reflect,
And we might feel like we have a new insight.
It's not new to you.
It's already known by you,
And not in a way that's disconnected or just cognitive knowledge,
In a deeply personal and intimate way that's really beyond what we can comprehend.
I ask that whatever parts of self,
Whatever memories,
Whatever depths of the soul that have been stirred up from this audio,
I pray that you would hold those parts of us in your hands with your tender care.
I pray that you would give us insight into how that part of us views you and what that part of us might need to be able to cultivate a closeness with you,
To feel safe and comfortable in a closeness with you.
I pray that you would protect us from shaming ourselves,
Shaming any part of us that seems to have incorrect theology or doesn't seem to know you.
I pray that we could borrow on your infinite mercy and grace,
That your compassion would dwell in us and would be so deeply extended to these depths of our soul in a way that only you can orchestrate.
Amen.
