Hi,
This is Michelle Swern.
I'm a certified meditation teacher and a licensed therapist.
Welcome to day two of the self-compassion meditation challenge.
I was talking to some friends who joined the challenge and they were joking that they felt like they had failed already because they hadn't listened to meditation day one.
And I just wanted to encourage you all that this is a space and a challenge,
Yes,
To try to do something regularly and new to build your self-compassion.
But it is definitely not an expectation or a requirement or an obligation to complete the meditation or the practice every day.
It's something that each meditation or idea that I put out there that explores self-compassion or self-care can be individual.
They don't have to build upon one another.
So,
You know,
If you missed yesterday and you want to go back and listen to that one and do this one another day,
Or if you can do that,
But you also don't have to go back and do that one at any time.
And it wouldn't matter if you did that one in two weeks out of order.
You know,
It's not something that you'll be confused or not be able to follow along if you just take these individually when you're able to.
So I just wanted to share that before we go into our meditation today.
And I invite you to find a comfortable position.
We'll start with a few deep grounding breaths.
Take a deep breath in through your nose,
Breathing in that breath all the way through your core,
Down your legs,
Down to your toes.
As you exhale through your mouth,
Blow that out.
Imagine the air exiting through the top of your head.
If you're comfortable,
I invite you to gently close your eyes.
Take notice of any tension in any corner of your eyelids,
The inner and the outer corners.
And as you continue to take some of those deep breaths as you exhale,
Let a little bit of the tension out that you might be holding in your eyes.
As you're ready,
Return to your normal pace of breathing,
Whatever's comfortable to you.
I invite you to think back to when your inner critic last reared its ugly head or talked back to you.
It may have been 10 seconds ago while you were trying to do your deep grounding breath.
It may have been before you started your meditation or earlier in the day.
We all have this internal dialogue going on.
And oftentimes that internal dialogue can be judgmental,
Harsh,
Or unkind.
I invite you to name and label that voice for what it is,
Which is that inner critic that we all have.
It can be really helpful to separate that voice from just thinking of it as your own voice.
It relates to the negativity bias in our brain that we talked about yesterday,
And it might be trying to protect you.
It might just be a learned habit.
There's a lot of different reasons the voice can come up,
But it is helpful to identify it as something that isn't you.
I invite you to imagine what your inner critic looks like.
Sometimes people might imagine a picture of themselves.
Sometimes they might imagine a color or a monster.
And I know you might think next the natural thing would be to put some duct tape over that inner critic's mouth and silence that voice.
But the more we fight it and resist it doesn't necessarily mean the more it will be silenced.
Sometimes it means the louder those voices can get.
Sometimes it means they're pushed down,
But then they explode.
So instead,
I invite you to think about the last thing that that inner critic and that voice said to you that was negative or harsh,
Unkind.
I invite you to imagine inviting that inner critic to come sit next to you on the couch and invite them to explain to you,
What did you mean?
What purpose did those words have?
How did you want to make me feel?
How did you want to make me react?
Your inner critic might answer you or they might sit there in silence.
But just continue to take a few deep breaths and reflect on that.
Be curious.
And now this is my favorite part.
You can thank your inner critic if you feel like the message was meaningful or protective.
Or if you're not there and you don't want to thank them for that or that message was not helpful,
You have no reason to thank them.
But either way,
Show them to the door,
Let them out and lock the door behind you.
Because we can't silence our inner critic,
But we can set boundaries with them.
And we can say,
You're not welcome to live here.
You're not welcome to stay.
You might come by and send me some messages sometimes.
But I am allowed to say,
No thank you.
It's time for you to go.
So as you see your inner critic out the front door,
I welcome you to come back to the couch or the bed.
Take a few more deep breaths together.
As you exhale,
Blow out your mouth,
Letting go any tension that came up from that visualization.
Roll down your shoulders.
Take a few more deep breaths.
Kill your inner critic with curiosity and then see them out the door.
As you're ready,
Wiggle your toes,
Wiggle your fingers,
Reconnect to your surroundings.
Take a breath and as you're ready,
Open your eyes.
Thank you for meditating with me today.
Thank you for joining this challenge and I look forward to connecting with you tomorrow.
Or not,
Remember,
If it's not tomorrow,
That's okay.
But I look forward to connecting you throughout the challenge.
