Find The Good To Help With The Bad

I find real comfort in this practice of finding the good (or the OK, or the not-bad...). It was genuinely a game changer for me to find that when things were dark, painful, or difficult, we could find some glimmers of hope and good. And this doesn't mean blocking out, denying, or pretending the bad stuff isn't there.

In this practice, we settle the body and the breath before honestly acknowledging and including the negative and then broadening our field of awareness to find the good and bring more agency and clarity to what we decide to do next.

Hopefully, it will help ease the load for you too, offering you a boost to help tackle whatever you're facing.

Thanks for listening and see you next time.

Transcript

Hello there,

Bridget here.

When I've had a rubbish day I find real comfort in this practice of finding the good or the okay or even the not bad.

It was a real shift for me when I found that when things were really dark or painful or difficult we can find some glimmers of hope and good and that this doesn't mean blocking out or pretending that the bad stuff isn't there.

We can maybe instead,

And we do in this practice,

To acknowledge really honestly and include the negative stuff but broaden out our field of awareness to find the good and in doing that maybe bring more agency and clarity to whatever it is that we decide to do next.

I hope that it will help ease the load for you too,

Offering you a bit of a boost or a leg up to tackle whatever it is that you're facing.

Thanks ever so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

Finding your comfortable meditation position for this meditation.

Sitting,

Lying,

Wherever you can let everything settle and rest.

Really gently settling,

Allowing the body to be drawn down towards the bed,

The mat,

The floor.

Allowing whatever you're resting on to really support you.

And you feel that the sensations of letting go,

The sensations of resting towards the ground,

The floor,

Feeling that sense of letting go,

Feeling it over and over again,

Keep coming back to it.

Finding the weight of the body,

Finding connection between you and whatever you're resting on,

So noticing areas that feel heavier,

Areas that feel lighter,

And allowing the heavy and the light just to yield a little bit more to whatever you're resting on.

And then gradually,

Gradually,

Can you gather your awareness,

Gather it around the movement of the breath in the body and the sensations that brings with it.

So not focusing on the breath itself,

But how the body is moving with the breath.

If it's comfortable to allow that to be your focus,

Then let that rest there.

If not,

Come back to sensations on the skin,

In a part of the body,

But once you've established that awareness,

That focus on the breath or whatever,

Whatever you want your home base to be,

Whatever you want to bring you back,

Your anchor to bring you back,

Maybe noticing that as you rest down,

Noticing any,

Any particular resistance,

Maybe in a particular part of the body,

Maybe holding on,

What might be more in the emotional,

Mental,

Energetic sort of layers of the body,

Just seeing if there is any resistance or contracting away from just being here.

And we'll just take a scan through the body from the toes today.

So starting at the toes and finding any sensations in the toes,

Maybe numbness,

Maybe tingling,

Maybe warmth,

Maybe coolness.

And then including the feet as well.

So the feet and the toes and noticing if you can find not just a focus on discomfort,

But focusing on comfort as well.

So finding,

Finding what feels comfortable,

Finding what feels okay.

Kind of hard to imagine anything,

Any feelings in your feet are particularly great,

But just finding what feels comfortable.

And then let's let that travel up through the heels and into the ankles and into the feet.

And then let's let that travel up through the heels and into the ankles and the lower legs.

Can you let the legs really let go?

You don't have to hold the legs on as we rest.

And finding again,

Any sensations,

Noticing any,

Any that may feel uncomfortable and acknowledging them.

We're not trying to get rid of or pretend that everything's great,

But we're just noticing and then trying to broaden out to include any feeling of warmth,

Of comfort or interest or curiosity,

Just finding something that feels good.

And if it's not good,

Maybe just as far as not bad.

Moving up through the knees,

Into the thighs,

So the whole of the legs,

Letting go,

And coming back to the breath and maybe imagining sending the breath all the way down into the legs and the feet to help with this inquiry,

To help with this sense of finding the good.

It may be difficult.

And if your focus keeps going and you keep going off into things,

That's absolutely fine.

Just inviting it back again,

Maybe first to the breath and then to the sensations in the legs.

As we travel on up into the whole of the pelvis,

The front,

The sides,

The back,

Letting the buttocks be soft and relaxed.

No need to hold on.

Releasing any tension as much as you can.

And again,

Noticing the pleasant.

As we then travel all the way up the back,

So across the lower back,

The middle back,

The back of the ribs,

The back of the shoulder blades and the shoulders.

So the whole of the back now in your awareness.

And again,

This is an area where we may well find holding,

Discomfort,

Pain.

And seeing if you can take that on and find whatever's there and then see if you can find and then see if you can find some comfort.

It might be just a case of the happiness of just resting,

The ease.

So the whole of your back just resting here with this little spotlight of attention,

Of awareness to find some comfort,

Find some good.

Let that awareness,

That attention,

That focus flow over the shoulders,

Including the shoulders.

Let the shoulders be bathed in this spotlight of attention.

And with it,

Noticing,

In the noticing,

Can you release a little bit?

Can you let go a little bit?

Finding the space before you,

That awareness then flows all the way down the whole of the front of the body,

Softening with the breath,

Softening as you rest.

And finding again,

Finding any sensations,

Noticing anything a bit challenging,

Acknowledging it,

Sending a kind of message of care to yourself about it.

And then seeing if you can find some comfort.

And if it all gets a bit too thinky,

Focusedy,

Too much like hard work,

You can always just come to the sensations without trying to do anything with them.

Come to the breath,

Come to the just resting here.

If you're still moving around the body,

Let's let that awareness pour up,

Back up to the shoulders and all the way down the arms and into the hands.

What sensations can you find?

What,

What can you bring just to make,

Just to make everything a bit more comfortable?

Kind of imaginatively,

Really,

It's not,

You're not actually doing anything,

But just by bringing this accepting,

Compassionate focus,

Can you just allow everything to just flow?

Accepting,

Compassionate focus,

Can you just allow everything to be a bit more relaxed?

Finding sensations in the backs of the hands,

The palms of the hands,

The fingers and the thumbs.

Maybe the hands feel warm or just a bit soft and relaxed.

Finding space,

Finding any sense of ease that you can.

Including everything in your field of awareness,

Not cutting off the bad,

But just broadening out to include the good.

And then let's slide that awareness all the way back up the arms again,

Through the shoulders and into the neck,

The front of the neck,

The sides and the back.

Allow the head to be heavy,

Relaxed.

If you're holding in the front of the shoulders or the throat,

Can you just let that unravel a little bit more to allow the breath to move really freely?

To include the head,

The back of the head,

The top and the sides of the head,

The ears,

And then the whole of the face.

Allow the awareness to fill the whole of your face.

Allow the awareness to fill the whole of your face.

Can you find that a little bit more softness as you bring your awareness there?

So soft brow,

Soft eyes,

Relaxed in the cheeks and the jaw and the mouth,

The lips,

The tongue,

The chin.

So this light focus of awareness on the whole face and seeking out again,

Any of the kind of subtle,

The small,

The common or garden,

Dull,

But okay feelings.

And again,

It might just be a sense of being here,

Resting for a few minutes as we now broaden the awareness out to include the whole of the body.

So coming back to include the head,

The neck,

Shoulders and arms and hands,

The whole of the front body,

Whole of the back of the body,

All the way down the legs and the feet and the toes,

All the way down the legs and the feet and the toes where we began.

So the whole body now resting here,

A sense of the whole body,

The whole of you,

All of those different layers.

And there are difficulties and discomforts,

Whether that's physical,

Mental,

Emotional,

But in amongst that,

There's also,

There's also the good.

So just dwelling for a moment on the ease and the rest and the comfort,

And letting go of any focus at all.

So coming back to being aware of the weight and the shape of the body,

The body moving with the breath,

Beginning to switch that awareness from inside and this kind of internal inquiry,

Beginning to turn the camera around to facing outwards so that you have a sense of the edges of the body,

Feelings of clothes,

Blankets,

Furniture on your skin,

Temperature of the air on any bits that are exposed,

Awareness of people near,

Awareness of space around you,

Even without looking,

Probably in a very familiar space that you can conjure up in your mind's eye,

Letting any sounds that are there come into your awareness.

And if it's very quiet,

Letting the quiet come into your awareness.

And then only when you feel ready,

Starting to make those small,

Tiny movements,

Just to start to bring a bit of,

A bit more energy into the body.

Maybe with the breath,

Maybe it's a rock of the head,

A twiddle of the toes or a gentle furling and unfurling of the fingers,

Whatever it is that helps you make that transition as gently and as carefully as you can,

Taking your time,

Maybe rolling over onto the side,

Taking your time to come up,

To come up to sitting if you're lying down and really gradually,

Gradually thinking about taking that sense of finding the good as you finish the meditation.