Dearest wild one,
I am so glad you're here.
You're right on time.
Though there may be a part of you that wishes you'd made it here sooner,
Or feels rushed,
Or chides you for being late somehow.
And to those parts of you,
I'd like to take their hands and say,
The wild one,
You're here now and your timing is perfect.
So let's start by taking a slow deep breath.
Allow yourself to inhale goodness and exhale all the stuff that no longer serves you.
Allow yourself to find a comfortable seated position.
Plant your feet on the floor.
Notice your spine like a plumb line holding you up.
Place your hands over your heart space.
Keep breathing and notice how your heartbeat pulses through you in waves.
Now other thoughts may come to mind and it's natural for your brain to start distracting you when you finally come to a stillness within yourself.
But this short practice today is about returning to self-compassion.
So instead of getting mad or frustrated that our minds wander,
Let's gently return to our breath.
Find our heartbeat once more.
Dr.
Sharon Salzberg explains it like this,
That when we find that we've lost track or wandered away in our meditation,
We should notice our breath like we've noticed a friend across a crowded room.
I love the picture this gives me because when we see a friend,
We smile.
Maybe we wave,
Maybe we laugh,
But we probably lean in.
And this is a great self-compassion practice if we can treat ourselves with the same gentleness.
This is probably the opposite reaction we usually have toward ourselves,
Right?
We tend to list all the things we feel we are terrible at rather than extend ourselves the grace we so freely give to others.
What would change for you if you began to be that loving toward yourself?
Just breathe that in for a minute.
Just now that we're comfortable and we know how to handle this stillness with gentleness,
I want you to begin to relax your forehead and your jaw and your neck.
I want you to exhale any of the tension you find there.
And if your hands are still at your heart and you're comfortable here,
Stay here.
And if you'd rather,
You can place your hands on your legs,
Either palms up as if to receive or palms down as though to connect and ground to yourself.
Your body knows what it needs.
You can trust this about yourself,
Wild one.
Trust it.
So let's take a few more deep breaths together and then I'd like to speak some wild words to tuck deep inside your heart.
So let's inhale all the way and relax your belly,
Spill all the way up and hold it at this full place for three,
Two,
One,
And exhale through your mouth all the way.
We'll do this two more times.
So we inhale,
Relax your belly and hold it at the top for three,
Two,
One,
And exhale through your mouth all the way.
Really let it go.
One last time.
Inhale and relax your belly,
In through your nose and hold it at that fullest place for three,
Two,
One,
And exhale through your mouth all the way to fully depleted.
And now you can find your more normal breath again.
Great work,
Wild one.
I want to point out that you've been busy for far too long and it's all right to breathe and rest right here with me for just a moment.
In fact,
Your only job is to sit and breathe and listen.
That's all.
And you were right here on purpose.
And you may smile and not really believe me when I call you wild.
Maybe you're secretly wishing you were more wild and I'd like to dispel the rumors.
You my dear are a wild one.
You are strong and your heart is large and warm.
Didn't you feel it as you had your hand on your heart a moment ago?
You are a wild one exactly because your love is so fierce.
Let yourself breathe in those words.
Your love is fierce,
Wild one.
Your love is fierce and wild.
Your love is strong and gentle.
No matter what you've been told in the past,
Who you are is exactly enough.
There's this lavender growing in my little flower bed near my front door.
I realized the other day while my hands were in the soil that these lavender plants never worry about being too big or too small,
Too much or not enough.
They just get busy growing the only way they know how.
They trust their bodies to show them the way.
And the truth is the weeds never ask either.
They just spring up and say,
Look out world,
Here I come.
I mean,
What if you,
What if you treated yourself like some kind of houseplant,
Maybe with a few more complicated feelings?
We take care of.
We tend to the things that we love.
Giving the same respect to ourselves is the heart of self-compassion.
Who you are,
Wild one,
Is exactly enough.
No more playing small to make sure others feel okay about themselves or shrinking back to not draw attention to yourself.
You are allowed to grow.
You're allowed to take up space here.
Take up all the space you need.
It's a beautiful thing.
What small thing can you do for yourself today to help yourself really bloom right where you are rooted?
So it's love fiercely and grow wildly and bloom where you are rooted.
And finally for today,
It's okay to live simply.
It's okay to live quietly.
I think our culture,
Social media,
The news,
Whatever,
It all gets a bit loud and intense at times.
And I'm usually looking for the volume knob on my life.
Maybe you are as well.
We tend to praise this busyness.
It gets a lot of attention.
It's pretty much a status symbol these days,
Right?
But what if we opted for less?
What if we opted for a quieter home life?
What if we opted to treat ourselves,
Our home,
Our loved ones with the gentleness we've been craving rather than always buying into the noise?
I mean,
The fact that you're here listening to a meditation tells me you're looking for a few moments of quiet in your life,
Right?
And that's perfectly all right.
Listen to the voice that tells you maybe you need to slow things down and breathe in and out all the way.
So it's love fiercely and grow wildly and bloom where you're rooted and live gently.
And maybe this sounds like a tall order,
But it's a practice,
Wild one.
We are practicing together.
So let's take another deep breath together.
And as we end our time together,
Begin to wiggle your fingers and toes.
You can blink your eyes open and come back to your room.
I hope you're able to breathe easier today,
Wild one.
I hope you're able to show yourself some extra compassion today too.
I hope you can do this again very soon.
I'll see you in the rest of the video.
You you you you you you
