Energetic Reset & A Compassionate Heart

Compassion is a surprisingly tricky heart-state to cultivate. When I connect into the suffering of others, I often find myself feeling grief and sorrow. Sharon Salzberg in her book, Loving Kindness, describes sorrow and grief as similar to compassion but quite different. True compassion emerges with a quality of equanimity—there is no good and bad, right and wrong, right and evil—just suffering and the end of suffering. She writes: “To be compassionate is to wish that a being or all beings be free from pain. To be compassionate is to sense from within what it must be like to experience someone else’s experience.”

Transcript

Okay so go ahead and find yourself somewhere comfy without distractions where you can just rest in the present moment. I always like to start with three deep breaths breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth and allow that familiarity of the breath to bring you into your body into your meditation sanctuary and just start to feel the familiar tug of gravity on your arms your neck, Head, Shoulders, Kind of just the weight of your body on this earth Go ahead and set our grounding cord so that's just the visual that connects your body your sits bones into mother earth could be tree roots or waterfall golden beam of light whatever it is make it as wide as your hips and just with a simple visualization see it coming off of your hips and down through your floor through the basement through the foundation deep into the earth you can imagine this is just kind of like a laundry chute for toxicity, Negativity or mental formations, Anything that's not serving you so with each out breath you're just allowing mother earth to receive you're really just accepting her offering you're so much larger and wiser than anything we have to give her any of our petty concerns and just gently wash down and away and as they leave the body it just leaves a space it's like now there's an opening for nourishing energy something that would really support you and your dreams and your ambitions something that would support you with your parenting and your relationships so just allow your body to be cleansed just kind of wiped clean and on your in breath let's start to bring in some earth energy so if there's a place in nature that right now would feel so juicy and delicious and lovely to be in and lovely to be in or maybe it's just calm calming and relaxing there excuse me just go in your mind's eye to that earth spot and on your in breath just allow yourself to breathe in that earth energy and then continue to ground off negativity with your out breath I like to imagine the earth energy coming in through my toes coming up through my shins and my calves into my thighs and just kind of resting in my lower belly there's a color to that earth energy if there's sort of one color that encapsulates that experience or that place just allow that color to come up through your toes into your legs your pelvic bowl your lower belly some ways we're recalibrating or we're calibrating ourselves to the heartbeat of the earth remembering her lessons everything will be accomplished there's no need to rush trust that you're growing that your roots are solid and you're held and supported if you're noticing any mental formations just allow them to come and go you can release them down through your grounding cord you just start to notice your body and space your posture your high heart your shoulders your upper back your neck your head just allow your awareness to rise into your upper body feeling the levity of your spirit your body and space rising up and allowing your body to be fully firmly rooted in the earth energy and just let your awareness come to the top of your head your crown chakra crown is where we hold our seniority our mastery over our gifts over our spirit the sovereignty of our spirit and our body our permission to give ourselves opportunities pathways to be our unique self share our gifts let's just intend that the crown chakra is open the crown chakra is open you can set its aperture from zero to a hundred percent and i invite you since we're in meditation together and we're open and willing to have guidance that you open your crown chakra 70 80 90 percent 100 percent whatever feels right for you and allow that crown chakra then to just be open to receiving cosmic chi or father sky energy it's just information your soul's library of information from the cosmos so perhaps there's a star just allow life force energy cosmic chi to come in through your crown it's kind of the opposite of earth energy it's sparkly and shiny and expansive and ethereal and it's just kind of a recalibration for your spirit there are things you're set here on planet earth to do you have permission to do them to be yourself you can imagine you're kind of having a cosmic shower perhaps there's a certain star with a color that's wanting to connect with you allow that beautiful starlight energy to come in through your crown and just pours over your head and your shoulders and your torso and your heart down into your belly all the way down into your lower body maybe there's a color maybe it starts to mix with the earth energy see if you can have the experience of being grounded and rooted and deeply connected to the earth you have energized by your cosmic chi we're gonna gently move through our chakras we're just kind of noticing there's any discoloration or anything that feels like not ours or not beneficial to hold on to just kind of noticing if there's any discoloration not ours or not beneficial to hold on to just gently send it down the grounding cord to be recycled by mother earth coming into our sixth chakra this is our third eye chakra our intuitive center our knowing of our next steps our ability to see and perceive clearly with this chakra i like to imagine and see if i can see 360 degrees so just in meditation see if you can bring your awareness all the way around the back of your head back to the starting point and if there's areas where you can't see where it's occluded where there's darkness you can just allow that we're not forcing anything to be cleared away we're just acknowledging what is when we're in meditation it's safe to have the sixth chakra open i invite you to breathe into the chakra set the aperture wide and allow yourself clear perception clear knowing of your next steps coming down into our fifth chakra this is our throat chakra our ability to speak our truth express our truth so often if we have blockages here they actually originate in the heart chakra so just would notice what's going on with your throat chakra if there's any colors or imagery that's coming to you accept those as pieces of information gently moving down into the heart chakra it's our ability for love and compassion for ourselves and others and you know what your day is looking like you can open or close your heart just knowing if you open your heart to transmit love and compassion you'll also receive that or you'll receive what's being shared it's a two-way street so if you feel like you're going to be in a really comfortable loving experience today i invite you to open up your heart and just check in with the heart again invitation to ground off any bruising or tenderness negativity moving into our third chakra our diaphragm our solar plexus our will power or drive getting our projects done kind of forcefully moving through the world let's take the force part out of that just relax into our third chakra knowing we'll all be in this together let's take the force part out of that just relax into our third chakra knowing we'll all get done there's enough time and energy to get everything done see if you can give yourself a few belly breaths where you're really allowing your intestines and your stomach and your organs to actually relax we hold so much here especially this month a lot of people are especially this month a lot of people are trying to gather gifts and other things for the holidays there's a lot of pressure coming off the third chakra i'm just grounding off anything that doesn't serve healthy third chakra is just sort of humming along coming down into our second chakra this is our creative womb space this is where our creative power lies our opportunity for play for pleasure where we set up strong emotional healthy boundaries between self and others finally coming into our first chakra the root chakra check your grounding cord it should still be there doing its thing as wide as your hips first chakra governs your connection to tribe and community your sense of belonging your sense of safety and security just feel that rootedness that trust and security in your place in this world allow yourself to feel held by mother earth allow yourself to feel held by mother earth and excited by father sky we're going to sit here in silence together for about 10 minutes so if you feel like you'd like to go back to one of the chakras and give it some more attention feel free if you feel like you want to connect back into your earth and sky energy circuits get those running again or recalibrate feel free or simply rest in this really peaceful place allowing yourself to be settled and energized and if a mental thought arises just simply ground it off if you're noticing any mental formations just simply acknowledge them and let them go plenty of other times to think like gently bring your awareness back into your heart chakra you might want to just do a quick check-in when someone genuinely asks you how you are doing how good that feels to be witnessed and acknowledged just just take a moment to do that for yourself right now how are you doing heart? Today's heart cultivation is compassion and we're going to start by just bringing to mind a real person someone you know in your life who is suffering severely right now with physical pain or discomfort or mental anguish and discomfort just simply bring them into your heart-mind awareness compassion is twofold it's acknowledging the pain and then a sincere tender wish for the pain and the suffering to be gone so as you see your friend or this person you know in your life who's experiencing that pain or that mental anguish just simply share with them from your heart may you be free from this pain just allow that tenderness of your heart and your sincere wish for their suffering and pain to be dissolved just allow that to kind of bubble up through your heart and gently let them go from your awareness just allow that to kind of bubble up through your heart and gently let them go from your awareness and call to mind just yourself so there's no one more deserving of our love and compassion than ourselves just bring yourself into your awareness perhaps there's some tenderness or bruising or suffering it's just human our humanness just acknowledge that experience that you're having or have had this week and like a good sincere loving friend and share with yourself may this may you be released and relieved from this pain in the past we've called in the bodhisattva of compassion kwan yin with her little vial of compassion so if it helps to bring in the big guns to have support outside of yourself just imagine kwan yin one drop of her nectar of compassion just kind of like a balm for the heart allow yourself to feel that love and compassion that you are so deserving of spring to mind a friend or a benefactor a parent a loved one pet child bring them into your heart and share with them that same compassion may you be free from your pain letting them go bring into your awareness someone in your community someone you share space with maybe at the coffee shop or the grocery store you see them on the street just know too that they are human and of course they have pain sorrow loss fear anger greed all the emotions the human sensations being alive just allow your heart to reach out to them in whatever small way you can so may you be released from your pain may you be free from your pain gently release the neutral person from your awareness that will bring in in the sentient beings throughout our world throughout planet earth just allow them to come into your awareness know that we are connected in so many ways ways we don't even know or understand our human family our animal family just acknowledge it acknowledge the suffering and your sincere desire of the release of that suffering may you be free from your pain free from your pain gently let your awareness drop away in the larger community come back to your heart your breath your posture and space your bum your grounding cord in this present moment