And this is a practice for belonging to ourselves.
Belonging to ourselves is pretty challenging when you think of all the ways in which work,
And your friends,
Family,
The future,
The past,
All these things pull at you and demand your attention,
Your energy,
And it can leave you feeling like,
How much of myself is here with me?
How much of me belongs to me?
This is something that I have struggled with,
And something that I personally am working on,
Even as I'm teaching on this.
So what I'm trying to say,
I suppose,
Is that I am not an expert on claiming all of myself for myself,
On belonging to myself,
But I certainly have a lot of experience gathering what I can gather of myself back home to myself,
And then enjoying that process.
So here is some of my personal practice in belonging to ourself.
For this practice,
I recommend that you're alone,
And you're in a place where you're not disturbed and you feel safe.
This is especially important as it sends a physical message to ourself when we're contained,
Alone,
In a room.
It tells us,
This time,
This space,
Is for me.
What I'm doing right now,
For me.
And in that way,
We gently begin that process of welcoming more of ourselves back home.
To begin,
As always,
As always,
Welcome a slower,
Deeper breath.
This is a breath that tells your body we're safe.
This is a breath that tells your thoughts it doesn't need to do much right now.
This is a breath that allows any emotions that we've pushed away to surface in their own time.
And if any emotions,
Any thoughts,
Start to come up,
As always,
Welcome them.
Be tender with what comes up now and during this practice.
And I suggest,
Or I encourage,
You to experiment with allowing that need to know where things are coming from,
Where thoughts,
Where emotions are coming from,
And what and how should I do,
What should I do next,
What,
How do I fix it?
I welcome you to play with letting that fall away during our time together here.
And we'll begin to deepen our exploration by letting your body,
Your being relax and fall and melt into the chair and the ground beneath you.
And then starting to welcome a sense of being supported by the ground,
The earth,
Feeling held by a force greater beyond yourself.
The earth,
Or as I like to call her,
The great mother,
Is always here,
Literally.
It's the ground beneath our feet,
Beneath our seat,
Is undeniable.
She is always here,
Holding and supporting you.
And let yourself receive this support,
The great mother,
To give you a sense of strength,
Of groundedness,
And even of companionship.
A sense of,
I don't have to do this alone.
How much of yourself is here with you now?
You'll intuitively know,
Whether it's a little bit,
Whether it's something you feel or even see.
You'll have a general idea for the parts of you that aren't here.
Where are they?
In what situations?
In what projects?
What fears and what hopes are those parts of yourself?
It might not be things,
It might be people.
Who?
Whether it's someone you know or don't know.
Who has these parts of yourself?
These parts of yourself that,
Whether through thought,
Whether through feeling,
You've allowed yourself to be tied to,
To interact with,
But then stay there.
A really easy,
Concrete example could be a project at work that's not done yet.
Maybe there's a deadline.
And yes,
You need to work with it and be with it.
But even when you're not working on it,
You feel parts of yourself still sitting there,
Still there,
Still thinking about it,
Still emotionally there,
Still worried about it.
That's a really easy example of a situation where not all of yourself is with you in present time.
Just welcoming awareness.
Awareness of,
Here's how much of me is here right now doing this practice.
And then,
That's that over there.
All those strands of myself over there,
Not here,
Are parts of me are parts of me that don't belong to me right now.
Now,
What would it feel like to start to gently call back those parts of yourself?
And there really isn't a right way to do this.
You can,
By intention,
Start to call those parts of yourself back.
You can see those parts of yourself returning to yourself in your mind's eye.
If you're more kinesthetic,
If you like to be more in your body,
You can play with using your hands to gather those parts of yourself back.
Needing to perfectly get every part of yourself out there back to you.
Knowing that it's okay if for some situations it feels a little sticky or a little difficult.
Knowing that with time,
With practice,
It'll get easier and more of yourself will naturally want to return home to you.
This is your energy.
You have the final say on where it gets to go.
How does it feel how does it feel to sit with and be with more of yourself now?
Letting yourself relax,
Whether through the breath or through touch or intention.
Relaxing your system so that all of these parts of yourself that are back home have a place to be,
Have a place to stretch out.
If it feels good,
You can hold yourself and give yourself a little hug as if you're giving yourself a warm welcome.
Feel the power of your energy back in your being.
Feel the potency of its potentiality.
Allowing yourself grace,
Patience for all of these parts of yourself to reintegrate and update to you as you are right now.
Your life force energy,
That which powers your very being,
Is yours first and foremost by birthright.
What does it feel like to give yourself a little more permission to fully embody and hold your life force energy?
This is what belonging to yourself is beginning now,
To transition from this practice by running this question through your system.
What would I like to do?
Or more aptly,
What would all of me,
All of this life force energy,
Life force energy,
What does it,
What do we,
What do I want to do with it?
And from this much clearer,
Much more resourced,
Much more grounded point,
Channeling ourselves into whatever we want in life,
Project,
Family,
Relationship,
Etc.
Feeling how much cleaner and much better it is.
There's less of a drain,
There's less exhaustion,
Or less risk of exhaustion.
Allowing this new flow of energy to go forth into your outer world as you open your eyes.
