Hello and welcome.
I'm going to spare you the usual meditation preamble and invite you to trust yourself to begin this meditation.
The practice here is just to be yourself and even let go of trying to meditate.
This is a little opportunity to sit and notice and be and maybe find a little bit of peace in this bonkers world we're living in.
So to begin doing whatever you need to do to settle.
That might be connecting with your breath,
Just feeling your whole body rising and falling as you breathe in and out.
Or maybe you can try something different like just sitting with your eyes closed and not trying to do anything.
Or you can just sit there and think of kittens and flowers or the wonder of a freshly cut lawn.
So let's sit together quietly making no effort to be anything but what we are here right now.
With all the emotions and feelings and thoughts that come and go and if your mind jumps in and wanders off let's not worry about that too much.
You can just respond with a smile.
That's pretty much all that's needed.
Okay let's sit.
Now I invite you to check in with how you are right now.
Noticing what your mind is doing,
How your body feels right now,
Where your emotions are and let there be kindness in this noticing.
We often notice the pains and the aches,
The underlying anxiety.
We notice our wild mind and our usual response is to try to get rid of it.
So let's try something a little different.
With all that you are right now,
All that you feel,
All that troubles you and feels too much in this life,
I invite you to do nothing.
To lay low,
To be at the same level that they are.
Letting go of trying to fix,
To make right,
To soothe,
To heal.
Surrendering to all that is,
Letting things unfold as they will and so continuing to sit and making this the laziest meditation you could ever do.
By doing nothing,
Leaving it to play out.
And this is an act of kindness to yourself,
Being brave with what you find.
Your body is how it is.
Your thoughts are where they are.
How you feel right now is how you feel and the events of your life this far have unfolded in this way or that way.
There's so much we hold in life,
So much we feel we need to get right in our relationships,
In the many roles we have,
In the people we have to try and please.
So carving out a space now to be just as you are,
With all that comes and goes,
Going lightly,
Going gently,
With kindness in your heart for all that visits.
This is true alchemy.
Know that everything is changing.
It's the nature of the universe and as the atoms shift around,
There we are again,
Navigating it as best we can.
And this impermanence is a blessing,
It's a wonder.
It gives us opportunities to change ourselves and be free.
And the wonders that we have now will fade,
The new ones will arise and the problems that we have right now will likely be replaced by new ones.
But we can settle with all that is.
We can be low with the low times and high with the high times.
And if you can,
Smile into life.
Never a fake smile,
But one that holds all the aches and pains,
The grief,
The sadness,
The joy,
The elation,
The confusion.
Because let's be honest,
Nobody really has a clue what they're doing in this life.
And I'll leave you with a quote from Marcus Aurelius.
No matter what anyone says or does,
My task is to be good,
Like gold or emerald or purple,
Repeating itself.
No matter what anyone says or does,
My task is to be emerald,
My color undiminished.
And now gently opening your eyes as we end this meditation.
So you can go out there and shine your light or leave it dim.
If you're really not feeling in the mood,
There are no real rules other than to be kind and to try to be of service when you can.
Thank you for sitting with me and I wish you a lovely day as an emerald or just a big old chunk of rock.
