Attachment Repair Meditation

Guided meditation beginning with relaxation (up to 08:01), followed by visualisation of your inner child to repattern negative schemas (deeply rooted beliefs about the world) with the help of an inner parent. Promotes healing of attachment trauma and emotional regulation.

Transcript

Sitting up straight.

Pushing the crown of the head up towards the ceiling.

So we'll go over a little bit of posture guidance.

So it's helpful to have the hips tilted forward and the thighs pointed down just slightly,

Slightly below 90 degrees.

Now,

The abdomen can rise and fall freely due to the slight forward tilt of the abdomen.

The shoulders are back and down just a bit.

The chest is up and out just a bit.

The spine is straight and the neck is straight.

The neck is elongated.

The chin is slightly tucked.

You can have the tongue,

The tip of the tongue touching the back of the upper front teeth,

Kind of resting on the palate of the mouth.

Okay,

Good.

Now we're going to take three deep breaths and hold each one of them for basically as long as is comfortable.

So go ahead and inhale very,

Very deeply and retain the breath below the navel.

Okay,

Now inhale very deeply.

Retain below the navel.

Exhale,

Extend the exhale.

Now inhale very deeply and retain below the navel.

Exhale.

Okay,

Good.

Now we'll do a brief body scan.

This helps us stay embodied and emotionally connected during the meditation,

Which is important.

So feeling the feet,

Legs,

And hips.

And now feeling the abdomen rise and fall.

And now feeling the chest expand and contract.

And now feel the shoulders,

Upper back,

Arms,

And hands.

Okay,

And now feel the head,

Neck,

And face.

Okay,

Now take a deep,

Deep breath and feel the whole body all at once.

Now exhale,

Feeling the whole body exhale all at once.

And now feeling into this sense of dissolution and relaxation.

Okay,

Good.

So now we'll start with proper meditation.

So now identify the negative schema that you want to work on,

The negative felt belief about the world.

If you're struggling to find one,

Good candidates are fear,

Mistrust,

Expectation of abandonment,

Expectation that you won't be kind of understood,

Attended to,

Empathized with,

A sense of social isolation,

A sense of shame and effectiveness.

Also a sense of maybe incompetence or inability to function in the world,

An inability to kind of distinguish yourself from others or,

You know,

A sense of enmeshment or underdeveloped self.

Those are all good potential schemas.

You can pick one of those or another one.

Okay,

Now I'm going to give you some sentence stems and I want you to fill them in.

So I expect from the world that,

Or I expect about myself that,

And now answer this from the schema,

You know,

From the negative belief.

And given this expectation,

Given this knowledge about the world,

I need to respond in this way,

Like,

You know,

Not leaving the house,

Not getting into relationships,

Avoiding this,

Or maybe being perfect,

Or we're just accepting it,

Not fighting it.

So figure out what your response needs to be from the place of the schema.

Okay,

Good.

Now keep kind of triggering this,

Really coming into it strongly.

And don't try to counteract this in any way.

Really come into it and believe it.

Believe the schema.

And now imagine yourself floating up and now floating back to childhood on a timeline.

And now a scene will present itself where this kind of conditioning took place that you would have developed this negative worldview.

This can be a real event from memory,

Or it can be a composite kind of recreated scene.

And then if it's an actual real traumatic memory of abuse,

Don't go into that,

Simply go into the feelings afterwards.

Where are you?

Who are you with?

What does it feel like?

And now once again,

See how this conditioning that you've received brought about this emotional learning.

It's all very clear.

It's just cause and effect.

See that clearly now.

And now have the imaginal parents come into the scene,

And they can either stay there with you in the scene and protect you,

Or they can remove you from the scene.

But what's really,

Really clear is that you're safe,

Totally safe.

And they want to know the details.

They want to know what's going on.

They want to understand what's going on for you.

And they're just perfectly responsive and receptive to you.

They really get it.

And they're going to see you through this.

They're going to help you move through this,

And they know that you're going to be just fine.

It's so obvious.

But they don't let you feel rushed at all.

You can take all the time you want.

And of course,

This is upsetting seeing all this,

And that they get that.

And there's so much space and permission to have your experience.

Of course,

You react just this way.

This makes perfect sense.

There's nothing wrong with you.

And they also let you know this shouldn't have happened.

It's not right that this happened.

They're totally on your side.

And also,

Let yourself be a child here with the mind of a child.

Don't worry about taking a larger perspective.

We'll do that later.

Just take in the care and support of the imaginal parents.

And they really get it.

Let's keep developing the same and really getting your needs met perfectly.

Also,

These imaginal parents guarantee you that this will never happen again.

You're with them now.

This old situation that happened,

That's in the past.

You won't have to worry about this anymore.

However,

There might still be a little bit of emotional fallout from that.

And there's lots of space for that.

Just keep developing the same.

That's right.

Keep going.

And you really can see that there's a new possibility here.

It doesn't have to be this repetition of this old kind of crappy way that things played out.

You've got so much support.

And also,

You know better.

You know how to stand up for yourself.

You have the support of the imaginal parents.

You have a lot of other supports and resources in your life.

And now notice this complete confidence that these parents have in you.

It's so obvious you're going to move through this beautifully.

That life will unfold just beautifully for you.

That you'll have control and agency in your life.

That you'll be able to get the outcomes that you desire.

Keep developing that scene.

And now this may or may not be right for you.

You kind of use your own instincts and intuition here.

But if this would be corrective for you,

You and these imaginal parents go back to the scene and you take a corrective action.

Maybe if you were mistreated,

That person that mistreated you is confronted.

Either you confront them and or the imaginal parents confront the person that treated you poorly.

Or if some sort of kind of more impersonal negative thing happened,

Like someone died or there was an accident,

That's prevented.

Also the person that did the bad thing to you can apologize and recognize what they did.

So go ahead and develop that scene now.

And really get this sense of taking back power and agency.

And it's so clear you're never going to have to experience this again.

Like you're in charge now.

You're empowered.

And have that be very clear in the scene.

That's right.

Keep developing the scene in such a way that you really feel kind of in control.

That you feel kind of assertive.

That you're the master of your destiny.

That you're supported.

Really get a sense for that.

And it's so clear that your feelings matter.

That you matter.

Okay,

Good.

And now likely you're possibly done with that.

And now having processed this,

There might be some emotions coming up.

So have the imaginal parents attune to you and console you in just the right way.

Dealing with this conditioning is difficult.

It's over now,

But still there might be some upset around this.

And now see yourself with the parents on a timeline,

Floating back to the present moment.

And see this old scene kind of disappearing,

Getting very small.

It's also somehow another unimportant,

Kind of hard to understand.

It's like,

What was that even about?

You can just see how it's no longer relevant.

How now what's relevant is this sense of strength,

This confidence,

The support,

The sense of agency.

And now,

So what we're going to do is do a juxtapositioning exercise.

So bring up the old schema,

Bring up the old belief,

The old negative belief.

And now bring up the new positive belief that's going to hinge on the sense of that you have support,

You have agency,

You're competent,

You're confident,

You know others will respond to you well.

And see if you can hold those in the mind at the same time.

And now feel into very strongly the positive schema,

The positive belief.

Oh,

I'm going to be fine.

I have agency.

I have control.

I'm valued.

I'll get the responses from others and from the world that I want.

Really feel into that.

And now list out a few reasons why this is so true.

This is,

This is true and obvious to you.

So really support the positive schema.

And now one more time,

Bring up the negative schema.

See how you can't really even understand it anymore.

It's so distant and irrelevant.

And now feel into the new schema.

Yeah,

You're going to be fine.

This is all going to unfold beautifully.

Okay,

Good.

And now imagine the details of your life going forward,

Seeing that this new positive coherent model of the world is your baseline.

See how it's so easy to get the things that you want.

Making plans is easy.

Executing plans is easy.

Being with others is easy.

Go ahead and see that and see how much just like there is this levity and bounciness to life.

See that now in the scene.

Good.

And now let that seem dissolved.

And now we'll just do a moment of compassion practice.

So now look back at this old schema.

You are either completely or partially liberated from it now,

But there are so many others that are not.

Reflect on their suffering.

This is so common to so many people.

So on the in-breath reflecting on their suffering.

And on the out-breath sending peace and well-wishing to all those beings that still struggle.

And feel into this sense of camaraderie.

We're all in it together in a certain way.

And also notice this quality of wisdom.

It's like you understand your own mind.

You understand your own suffering.

And then to limited and imperfect extent,

You also understand the minds of others and you understand their suffering.

And now feel into that.

See how this helps you.

This will help you manage your life.

Manage it in a skillful way such to be of value to yourself and others.

You really understand.

Okay,

Good.

Now releasing that.

And now for the next minute,

Reflect back.

What was this like for you?

What did you learn?

And now notice how whatever you learned,

It necessarily gives you a sense of competence and self-mastery.

You see how you're better equipped now to deal with life.

And now also,

You know how to work through your problems.

You just do more of the same type meditation.

So see that clearly now.

You have so many resources.

Feel into that.

Okay,

Good.

So now let's bring the attention to the abdomen,

The rising and falling of the abdomen.

Now open the eyes halfway,

But keep following the rising and falling of the abdomen.

And now let that go,

Opening the eyes completely.

Okay,

Good.

Reviews

This was powerful and a new way for me to understand and process beliefs. No music in the background. It’s slow and allows for time to visualize. I did this while on a walk and that was incredible.

Very helpful and supportive meditation, friendly as well

Very moving and powerful meditation for anyone who wants to work on childhood wounds. Thank you for your wisdom and support.

Excellent. Very impactful. I will definitely use this again.

So powerful. This tore me to pieces and helped me to put them back together again. Wow.

absolutely amazing.