Let's settle into a comfortable seat and close your eyes and get in touch with your breath.
Just tracking the in-breath through the nostrils and letting a sigh out through the mouth.
Getting back in touch with this wonderful intake of oxygen as it nourishes our blood and circulates throughout our entire body.
Feel your weight against the chair or the cushion or the floor wherever you're sitting.
Do a quick body scan checking in from the very tip of your head scanning all the way down through the body down the arms past the hips the knees the ankles all the way down to the tips of the toes just coming into the present moment which never went anywhere by the way we just lost track of it.
From this place of inner awareness I want you to call to mind the closest relationships in your life and one by one I want you to do this exercise call up a face perhaps a memory of a loved one really inhabit it make it real really experience everything about the energy of this person how you feel when you're with them.
And then I want you to imagine that there is a cord that stretches from your heart to theirs and this cord is going to give you information about your relationship with this person.
In what direction is the energy flowing do you feel like you're giving more do you feel like it's being pulled out of you or does it feel healthy and reciprocal?
What does the energy feel like coming from them?
Does it feel restorative?
Are there colors or sensations emotions coming up?
Just imagining that you are actually connected to this person in this space and really sense into how that connection feels.
Remembering to breathe as you do this and letting yourself feel anything that comes up that might be uncomfortable like grief or anger or frustration just let that be information for you it's not good or bad it just is.
When you look at this cord or imagine this cord or feel this cord what do you want to do to make it better?
Is there a change in direction?
Is there a detaching perhaps?
Is there a reattaching elsewhere?
Do you want to make it larger or smaller?
Do you want to build some sort of boundary or encase it in something?
Whatever your mind comes up with to help you accept this cord for what it is and make it better.
Whatever you need to do to see this relationship working well for you and the other person.
When you feel like you've got a good sense of how you want that connection to look or feel let that loved one step back and bring another one to the forefront and continue the process as you need to.
Checking into the cord that connects you.
Checking into the quality of the relationship.
Asking yourself in which direction is the energy going and how would I want to make it better?
Although we spend a lot of time in the world of words our minds often speak more effectively in metaphors and so what we're doing with this exercise is allowing the brain and the body to give you information that was maybe there all along but you couldn't quite grasp it or see it because it can't be translated into words or because you may have some resistance to acknowledging the reality of what's here.
And in the end meditation is purely a tool for being aware of reality and all its messy glory.
