Good morning and welcome to The Artist's Morning.
Today's practice is particularly effective on days and weeks when there's a lot going on,
It's easy to get distracted.
It's easy to push away our feelings,
Our longings,
Ourselves.
It's a simple practice intended to bring you back to yourself.
I know from connecting with many of you that our community is full of big,
Giant,
Generous hearts and that's a great thing.
And before we give more to the world,
Before we attempt to do more things and keep ourselves busy,
My intention with this practice is just to hold a little space,
Create a little space for us to feel safe enough to feel what's here,
To accept what's here,
To integrate,
And if we're ready,
To let go.
I've said a lot already,
Maybe you're in your head.
It's okay,
Let's take this next song to really come back to ourselves,
Back to our breath,
Back to our bodies,
Allowing yourself just to settle into your seat here as we slow everything down,
As we gently go inwards,
Using our breath to take us deeper and deeper into our hearts.
Let's slowly and intentionally take deep breaths,
Falling into the rhythm of our body,
Noticing the rising and falling of the air inside your chest and belly.
And I want to invite you to make some noise on your exhales,
Signaling to yourself that your voice matters,
There's safety and space for your voice.
Breathing in and letting it go with some noise.
And I want to challenge you to take up even more space with your voice,
Just letting whatever noise is in there just to come out,
No judgment,
No trying to get it right.
Big deep breath now,
Breathing in and letting some noise out,
Dropping your shoulders,
Letting a softness fall upon your forehead,
Your chin,
Your eyes,
Your neck.
Allowing yourself to be soft here,
Even 1% softer,
1% more open is progress.
You are allowed to let go.
You are allowed to let go.
You are allowed to let go.
Is there a part of your body that is responding to that prompt?
Is there a part of your heart that is ready to just let something go?
You don't need to understand it intellectually,
Just take a moment to feel it.
There's something your body wants to let go of.
Before we let go,
We need to make some room to actually feel it.
You feel safe enough to go deeper,
Creating a protective bubble around us before we give to our family and friends,
Before we give to our community,
Before we do more,
We're going to create this bubble around us,
Allow ourselves just to feel.
All your feelings are welcome here.
Before we let go,
We need to feel it.
Is there a feeling you've been ignoring or pushing aside?
All your feelings are welcome here.
There is no rush.
You can't skip steps.
You're allowed to go slow.
All your feelings are welcome here.
And if we're going too fast for you,
If it's too many feelings,
You're allowed to go slow.
There's no way this is supposed to look or sound or feel.
And your feelings don't need to be sad or angry.
Your feelings can be joyful and excited.
Feelings are infinite.
Feelings are superpowers.
You are not your feeling.
You don't need to take false ownership.
They're all just colors,
And you are the cosmic painter.
You get to paint with whatever color you want.
Before you let go,
You've got to feel your feelings,
And if your heart needs a little extra support here,
You can place one or two hands on your heart and just hold yourself.
And if your head needs a little extra support,
Your mind needs a little extra support,
You can gently hold your head,
Hold your forehead,
Hold your face,
And remind your beautiful head and mind that it's welcome here.
All of you is welcome here.
All your feelings are welcome here.
You can hold them.
All your thoughts are welcome here.
You don't need to fight them.
You make space to feel them,
To hear them.
We are not attached or beholden to any of them.
It's the human experience our souls chose to come here at this time and these humans to feel,
To explore,
To experience.
This is our last song.
I'd like to invite the energy of compassion,
Of grace,
Of love and support,
And allow you and your feelings and your thoughts and your beautiful,
Brilliant human just to have a little time together.
Bravo,
Dear artist.
You made it to the end of another meditation and that's a big deal in my books.
Most people start things but don't finish.
Take a moment to just celebrate that you did something.
You did it all the way,
All the way through.
My hope is that you were able to be kind and compassionate with yourself,
That you didn't force yourself to be a certain way or feel a certain thing.
Feelings are a spectrum and they can be a lot.
Just remember you can come back to this meditation at any time and I promise you it will feel different because our feelings shift and change and that's the point.
Those that are joining us live at the artist morning,
I'm going to put 20 minutes on the clock,
Share a journaling prompt and invite us to continue the exploration.
Of course,
If you're catching us on a replay,
Perhaps on insight timer,
You can do the same.
Put some time on your clock and see what's here and ready to be expressed through you.
Thank you for meditating with me.
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
