In The Midst Of Challenge And Despair

This guided meditation offers a way to resource yourself deeply so that you can be present with what is. This practice can be very helpful as we all navigate the challenges and despair we see around the world, and the intensity of our lives. The practice can help you resource by tuning into the flow of your life force in and around you.

Transcript

Let's practice resourcing ourself.

Let's practice building up the resilience and the capacity to be with what is,

To surrender to what is,

And above all the courage to open up and trust that it's not just happening to us,

That it's happening for us,

And that our liberation,

Our well-being is being served up in the midst of this big plate of life that we feel and we see all around us.

We'll drop in and ground,

Bringing all of yourself in present time,

Taking a moment to celebrate this incredible gift you're giving yourself right now of just being here with yourself,

Practicing,

Resourcing.

It's such a powerful gift and it's hard to do in our full lives,

In chaotic world,

To take this time to come inside your breath,

Inside your body,

To turn toward your experience,

And to lean into resource.

And it can also be helpful to celebrate for a moment the gift of actually knowing how to open to resource in whatever ways you do know how,

Whether you've practiced enough grounding,

Practiced enough coming into your body and your breath to remember to do it when things are hard,

You've practiced enough self-compassion that you actually trust yourself that you're going to be here for yourself no matter what,

That it's safe to come inside your own experience and your own life,

And take the time to feel and to be with and to plug in.

We're just going to take a few moments and breathe,

Feel your body,

And when things feel heavy and hard,

I always think of my favorite quote from Mr.

Rogers,

The true Bodhisattva in this world,

Where he said,

When I despair,

I look for the helpers,

And if you look for the helpers,

You will see them everywhere.

And right now,

I invite you to look for the helpers that are right here,

That are your breath,

That is gravity lovingly holding your body,

That you're alive in this moment,

That you're safe in this moment,

That we're here together,

Each devoted to practice,

To showing up,

To loving as much as we can and carrying our light as far and as high as we can.

It helps so much to remember that.

And as your body starts to settle,

As you practice,

As you breathe,

I invite you to start noticing the life force that's in and around you.

There's so much life moving all the time.

Feeling the life in your body,

The beating of your heart,

You might feel the flow of lymph and blood and life force under your skin,

The rise and fall of your breath that just happens all on its own.

You are vibrantly alive right now,

No matter how you're feeling.

And you can also sense and feel the life force around you.

There's so much aliveness around you.

There's the sounds.

There's the temperature.

Perhaps you have plants in your room or other beings in your room.

Taking some time to just really open into awareness of all of the life force inside of you and around you.

And let it hold you.

Let it nourish you.

Let it invoke flow and vibrant wellness where there is stagnation or holding or tension.

John Aston said,

Listen to the ceaseless hum of being.

You can't help but hear it,

For it is the sound of everything.

So see if you can feel that hum of being,

Of life.

It's inside of you.

It's also all around you all the time.

And when we're exploring our question of whether life is happening to us or for us,

And we have our feelings about what's happening and how it's going and what direction things are moving,

One helpful gateway is to just feel the aliveness of it all,

That life is happening.

And can we find the courage and the resource to just keep opening up to life and to what is?

And perhaps have the courage and faith to lean into knowing that it is here for us.

Feeling the aliveness of the earth coming up into your body is always available.

Mother Earth is always nourishing us and nourishing every plant,

Every tree,

Every creature,

Offering this boundless life force that we're just abiding inside of.

See if you can feel that.

See if you can let it resource you on such a fundamental level.

And life is always moving and changing,

And sometimes that feels really hard and scary to metabolize,

To let in.

So much change all the time.

Especially right now,

Where it seems so in our face,

There's so much change all the time.

But there's also a flow to change.

There's a flow to life that's just always in motion,

And there's a gift in that,

That nothing stays the same.

Everything is impermanent.

And there's so much possibility in remembering that.

So no matter how you're feeling,

What's happening in you,

Can you lean into life force,

Resource,

Whether it's in you or around you,

To fill you up and keep you in flow.

Let your awareness rest in this hum of being.

I'm going to read you a poem from Wendell Berry.

When despair for the world grows in me,

And I wake in the night at the least sound,

In fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water,

And the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of the wild things,

Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

I come into the presence of still water,

And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light.

For a time I rest in the grace of the world,

And I am free.

So let's take a moment and rest in the grace of the world,

The grace of this hum of life force in and around you that just keeps going,

That you are a part of.

And let it change you,

Let it alchemize you,

Let it soothe you.

Let the resource of this life force nourish you in whatever ways you can right now.

No matter what's happening in your life right now,

You can just feel how alive you are in this moment.

And let that life force and that change flow through you and guide you and support you.

And right now,

Even though it's daytime,

There's so many stars out there that are still shining down on us.

And there's this vibrant,

Alive,

Very loving earth underneath us.

And our willingness to receive that resource is actually a gift to the whole world,

Because we might have the courage to just keep showing up because of it.

And our light could be brighter,

More kinder,

Or more present on a day when it's needed.

And if this is a day you don't have that resource,

Then it's so helpful to remember you have these connections,

This grace,

This support that you can just fall into and let it hold you right in the midst of it all.

It's unconditional.

See if you can feel that.

Try to open up even more to the resource,

Whatever you're connecting with right now.

We tend to close ourselves off and tighten and manage as humans.

See what it feels like to let it in even more,

In whatever way feels true for you right now.

Feel this hum of being and let it guide you.

Let it help you let go.

The one constant in your life is change.

And how can we befriend that phenomenon,

That experience,

And trust that it's for us,

It's not just happening to us?

Serving up exactly what we need to grow,

To serve,

To love,

To heal,

Even if it's confusing or uncomfortable sometimes.

Serving yourself enough so that you can show up for it no matter what.

And that resource isn't always strong and rigid and upright.

Sometimes it's soft and tender and it's just this flow that we surrender into.

As Marianne Radmecher said,

Courage doesn't always roar.

Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,

I will try again tomorrow.

To the parts of you that might have been trying really hard,

Feeling overwhelmed with despair or confusion or wondering,

In this safe space right now,

See what it feels like to just let them soften into the resource.

The courage to just keep showing up in whatever way you can and trust that it's enough.

And those things you thought you were holding all by yourself or figuring out all by yourself,

Perhaps now you can feel that there's something much larger holding all of it,

Including you.

And if you're having a particular feeling,

Whatever it is,

See if you can just let that hum of being or the resource you're connecting to,

Whether it's in the earth or the stars or the life force in your body,

Let that hold your feeling or flow right through the middle of it.

Or that belief that you're reckoning with.

See what happens.

Hand it over.

Hand it all over to life.

And as you let go,

Just feel all the more resource fill you up,

All the more life force take up all that space.

Just noticing how you are now,

How you are after this practice.

And we open up our brain-body connection and our cellular memory into the possibility that we can make a relationship with this resource on a daily basis.

We can remember that it's there,

That it can become familiar and second nature to connect with it.

It's unconditionally there for you.

And you can live your life bathing in it.

Taking a few breaths.

And then you can open your eyes,

Come out of this practice when you're ready.

Reviews

I actually have a practice of not *rating*. There is something that I stumble over when I think about judging or rating a teaching. But I have so appreciated your sharing of your wisdom. Thank you.