Welcome to the growing compassion meditation.
Taking a moment just to settle in.
Getting into a position either seated or lying down.
Just some position where your spine is straight that helps with an ease of breathing.
Beginning to check in with your body.
If there are any areas that are tense or feel a sense of holding,
See if you can just allow those to soften or adjust your body as we begin.
And now considering if there is any part of your experience in this moment that's asking for a healing sense of attention.
Maybe a place where there's a stuckness.
Bringing to mind a situation.
Maybe it was a conflict with another person.
Something that feels unacceptable about yourself.
Maybe a certain negative thought or the mind's worries.
As you're sensing into this,
Noticing what it's like to live with this.
And connecting with whatever place feels most vulnerable.
And even allowing your face to take on the expression of what this feeling feels like to help you connect with it.
Breathing in,
Contacting this sense of vulnerability or stuckness.
The breath in says,
I'm willing to notice this.
Breathing out,
Knowing the stuckness but also sensing into the space that's here.
The space inside and out.
If you're having a hard time sensing into that space,
It's okay just to imagine that for now.
Feeling this spaciousness that lives inside and outside this vulnerability or stuckness.
And so breathing in,
Contacting the hurt,
The shame,
The vulnerability,
The stuckness.
Breathing out,
Sensing it floating within a space of kindness and tenderness.
And so breathing out,
Sensing it floating within a space of kindness and tenderness.
Now,
Widening this to others.
Consider the universal reality of the difficulty of life.
Of the suffering that happens physically and emotionally.
Breathing in for all of us with the longing that we all be free of that suffering.
With this inhalation,
There's the longing to remove that suffering.
Breathing out,
Sending out tenderness,
Maybe a sense of warmth,
Healing.
Sending loving presence into every cell that exists in all of us.
And if at any point,
The awareness is difficult for you,
Allowing the in-breath to be a longing to remove your own resistance,
Stuckness,
Or suffering that's there.
And the out-breath to be a way of holding this with a more tender awareness.
And so breathing out,
Sensing it floating within a space of kindness and tenderness.
And so breathing out,
Sending out tenderness,
Maybe a sense of warmth,
Healing.
Now,
You can release any intentional focus on suffering and spend this final time resting in the loving presence,
The loving awareness that's innate to your being.
Feeling whatever arises to be touched with warmth,
Tenderness,
And love.
Breathing in and breathing out and letting be.
And so breathing out,
Sensing it floating within a space of kindness and tenderness.
And as we bring this practice to a close,
Considering that this loving awareness that is in each of us is large enough to hold any suffering that's there.
Maybe learn to live from this space of loving awareness in each moment of our lives.
And taking a moment to acknowledge yourself for taking this time.
This is an act of self-love.
