Welcome to this guided meditation led by me,
Alisha Lee.
As a somatic psychologist,
I work from the understanding that the body is not simply a vessel we live inside,
But instead that the body is a keeper of stories,
A faithful witness,
A living archive of everything we've felt,
Survived,
And inherited,
Including the things we were never given words for.
Some of what lives in our body belongs to us,
From moments we've survived,
From grief that had no witness,
From rage that had nowhere to go,
From longings too deep to name.
But some of it's older,
Passed through the bodies of those who came before us,
Through what they could and could not say,
Through what they held so we wouldn't have to,
And what they held because no one offered them any place to be held themselves.
This practice is for those whose body speaks in a language that they were never taught to understand,
For the aches that have no explanation,
The tension that won't leave,
The weight that arrived before you had words for it.
Today we won't be fixing anything,
And we won't be pushing through or releasing,
Instead we'll be simply turning toward what has been waiting,
Quietly,
Faithfully,
For someone to listen.
If that feels like something your body has been longing for,
You're in exactly the right place.
When you're ready,
I'll invite you to find the right position for your very own body,
And only you know if that looks like sitting or lying down,
Leaning,
But taking this time to settle yourself in a position that will allow your awareness to settle into your one and only body.
Before we begin,
I want you to know that you do not have to be anywhere other than exactly where you are right now.
You don't have to be ready or calm,
You don't have to have done this before.
You only have to be here.
You only have to be willing to settle your awareness in your one and only body.
It doesn't matter what state you've arrived in,
Or what state your body is carrying today.
So I'll invite you now to maybe gently guide the eyes closed,
And let yourself land,
Feeling the weight of your body settling into whatever is holding you,
The chair,
The bed,
The floor,
Offering more and more of your weight into the support that is below you,
Or behind you,
Letting yourself be held by something that's not you.
And if this type of settling into support feels hard today,
I want you to know that's perfectly okay.
Some bodies have learned that settling is not safe,
That stillness invites what we've been running from.
If that's you,
I'll invite you to go extra slow,
And with extra gentleness.
There's no urgency here,
Only invitation.
Letting more and more of your weight be held,
Allowing more and more of yourself to soften into the support that is below you,
Or behind you.
And taking a moment here to take a really full inhale,
And an even longer exhale.
This doesn't have to be a perfect breath,
It doesn't have to be the breath you think you should be taking.
Just allowing your body to breathe as it always is for you,
Without trying to change it.
I want you to know that there is something living in your body that has never been given words.
And this something isn't a secret exactly,
It's not something you're hiding on purpose.
It's something that happened before language arrived,
Or something language could never reach,
Or something the world maybe made very clear was not allowed to be spoken.
We all have stories inside our bodies that haven't been spoken,
Or things that have had to be tucked away to maintain our connections,
Or relationships,
Or sense of safety in the world we all share.
Our bodies hold these things,
Because bodies are faithful,
Because bodies do not abandon what needs to be carried,
Even when carrying costs them everything.
I'll invite you to take a moment here to feel into your body,
And to engage your mind with curiosity around what might be contained in your one and only body today.
Maybe it was grief that had no witness,
Loss that no one acknowledged,
A leaving,
A slow disappearance that everyone pretended wasn't happening,
Or maybe it was a rage,
The kind that rises in your chest like a wildfire and yet has nowhere to go,
The kind you learned to swallow before it reached your mouth because you understood,
Maybe even at a very young age,
That your anger wasn't welcome.
Maybe it was a longing,
Wanting so deep it has no name,
For something you lost,
For something you never had,
For a version of your life that almost happened,
But maybe didn't.
Whatever it is your body has held onto it,
Not because you have asked your body to do this,
But because unexpressed emotions don't disappear,
They convert,
They change,
They can become the tension in the jaw that maybe you feel right now or notice at night,
They can become the soreness in your neck when you wake,
They can become the shallowness of your breath,
They can be the reason why your chest never quite expands enough,
Because it feels too risky,
Too dangerous,
Too scary,
They can become the pelvis that never softens,
A belly that churns without explanation,
A back that aches in the same place year after year,
Despite everything you've tried.
If any of these resonate with you,
I want you to know that this isn't a failure on your part.
The body stores what we don't yet have support to integrate and to metabolize and to make meaning from.
Not only do we have our unexpressed emotions living inside our very own bodies in ways that maybe we don't understand,
But we also have things from the bodies that came before us.
Some of what lives in our bodies is ours,
And some of it is older,
Inherited,
Passed you through the bodies of those who came before you.
Maybe that's your grandmother's unspoken grief,
The losses she buried in silence because no one asked her how she felt,
Because her generation didn't name things.
Maybe it's your mother's unmourned losses,
The dreams she set aside,
The needs she folded up and put away so she could take care of everyone else.
Or maybe it's the rage of the woman who had no container for their fury in your ancestry.
The ones who lived in marriages they couldn't leave,
In bodies they were told did not belong to them,
In a world that offered no witness to their wanting.
All of this has traveled through womb,
Through breast milk,
Through the way they held you,
Through what they could and could not say.
You are carrying in your body the weight of those who had no witness.
You are carrying this is lineage,
This is the body's loyalty to what must not be forgotten.
You are carrying this in your body,
Because your body belongs to a long line of bodies that have been faithful beyond measure.
You are holding what could not be spoken,
Waiting for someone to finally listen.
I want you to know that this can be tough and challenging to not only feel into what's inside our bodies that may be unexpressed or hidden away,
It can even be even more difficult to acknowledge and have space for curiosity and compassion for the things that came before us that reside in our bodies today.
Our practice here today is just to notice what gets stirred up inside of us.
When we settle our awareness into our body,
We allow ourselves to be curious about what is there,
To notice the sensations and emotions and stories that the mind wants to bring in,
And come back to this compassionately curious place of witnessing.
The more we witness our own inner world,
The more we let the wisdom of the body unfold through sensation and feeling and emotion,
Without letting the mind jump in with a story.
This is how we build a relationship with our one and only body.
So I will invite you now to settle your awareness into your body,
And to notice the sensations that are truly there for you today,
To build this relationship to not only your body,
But the history your body holds to.
Maybe there's one place in your body that aches,
That has tightness,
That keeps asking for your attention through our practice today,
And I'll invite you just for a moment to place your hands on this part of your body to let your attention be curious,
And to let whatever lives there know it's no longer alone.
You're here.
Your attention is here.
Your curiosity is here.
You are in your body,
And it is not alone.
Coming back to your compassionate curiosity,
Letting your awareness now soften and move through the rest of your body,
And taking a moment to thank yourself for showing up to this practice,
This practice of building a relationship with the body,
Of honoring all that it holds.
And again,
Thanking your body for being here,
And thanking your mind for being here.
Pausing the story so you could be more present,
And taking a moment here to just be in communion with your body one last time before you move into the rest of your day.
