Welcome to today's mindfulness practice.
Today's exercise is on self forgiveness.
It will be quite deep,
So remembering to be extra gentle with yourself in today's practice.
Finding yourself a comfortable seated position or lying down.
Making any final adjustments.
Getting yourself as comfortable as possible.
And as you close down your eyes or soften your gaze,
Taking a moment to acknowledge yourself for showing up for today's practice.
Let's begin by listening to the sounds that are furthest away.
See if you can stretch your listening and stretch your awareness.
You may hope to ask yourself what are the sounds that are furthest away that you can hear.
Ultimately allowing these sounds to behave as sonar.
Performing your presence in the present moment.
Helping you geolocate yourself in the here and the now.
And from here focusing your listening and your awareness to the sounds in your space.
Gentle sound of the music,
Sound of my voice.
Any sounds occurring in your space.
As you learn to focus your awareness.
So if you can take that another step deeper and focus your awareness to your immediate space.
Your personal space.
As you go from listening to the sounds to listening to the sensations of the body and its breathing.
See if you can feel the breath coming in and out through the rise and the fall of the body.
Breathing in.
And breathing out.
Breathing in.
And breathing out.
As you continue to breathe and remembering to be extra gentle with yourself.
Start to bring to mind yourself as a child.
See if you can bring an image of this younger version of yourself to mind.
It may be easier for you to practice forgiveness of yourself as a child or a baby.
This may be a helpful place to start.
As you imagine or see yourself as a child or a baby.
Begin to offer yourself phrases of forgiveness.
Something such as I forgive you.
Or I forgive you as much as I can.
Or may I forgive you.
Even if you don't quite feel forgiveness try to repeat the phrases anyway.
Knowing that the intention to forgive is perfectly sufficient.
As you continue to imagine yourself and repeating the phrases in your own time.
May I forgive you.
I forgive you as much as I can.
I forgive you.
You may be noticing that the mind is drifting into the story of how much pain there is or you have caused yourself.
And if the mind is wondering simply come back to the phrases.
I forgive you.
I forgive you as much as I can.
I forgive you.
Gently allowing this image of yourself as a child to slowly drift away.
See if now you can picture yourself as you are today.
You might even imagine yourself seated here lying now.
See if you can tap into your intention to forgive yourself.
Or any self perceived shortcomings.
Even if you do not forgive yourself right now you can cultivate the intention to forgive yourself.
Begin by offering yourself the same forgiveness phrases as you did to the younger version of yourself.
You may already have a phrase that you wish to repeat.
You may repeat.
I forgive you.
I forgive you as much as I can.
May I forgive you.
Repeat these phrases to yourself over and over in your own time.
It is okay if you don't feel forgiving.
Sometimes it takes time for forgiveness to sink in.
As you see yourself kindly repeating to yourself the phrases.
I forgive you.
May I forgive you.
I forgive you as much as I can.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you.
I forgive you as much as I can.
May I forgive you.
Throughout your day you can come back to these phrases whenever you need them.
Perhaps whenever you notice any negative self talk or resentment towards yourself arising you can repeat these phrases in your mind.
The practice of forgiveness,
Although not necessarily easy,
Can be extremely profound.
Studies show again and again that athletes sprinting up a hill having undergone a forgiveness exercise such as this one prior to sprinting up the hill can actually race up the hill faster and quicker.
They have energetically let go of what weighs them down through forgiveness.
The same test has been conducted with basketballers and their vertical jumps.
They are tested for their vertical jump and after having undergone their forgiveness exercise their vertical jump increases.
As they give themselves permission to let go and forgive themselves they are freer to jump higher.
Returning to your breath as you breathe in and breathe out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Gently bringing some movement back into your fingers,
Into your toes.
Gently wakening the body,
Maybe even inviting a light stretch.
And here taking a moment to acknowledge yourself for showing up for today's practice.
As you gently start to open your eyes and return to the day,
Energized and revitalized.
Gently bringing some movement back into your fingers,
Into your toes.
Gently bringing some movement back into your fingers,
Into your toes.
Thank you for watching!
