Complex Relationships

Establish the space you need for simply being with the complexities of relationships as they are. This meditation is designed to help you bear witness to whatever is true beneath the twists and turns in your relationships.

The track starts with a short Body Scan for grounding and establishing proper boundaries internally. It then moves into Loving-kindness instructions.

Transcript

It can be helpful to start with a physical sensation that feels neutral.

So it could just be the feeling of your hands resting wherever they're resting,

Maybe on your lap,

Maybe beside you.

Simply feeling.

Paying attention to the feeling of your hands might be very specific,

And it doesn't work for everyone every time.

So you might want a wider experience of the physical sensations in your body,

Whatever they are.

For example,

A breeze might go by.

There might be a tension in your shoulders.

There might be a pleasant sensation of relaxation in your shoulders or anywhere else.

Simply being with what's true in your body right now.

You might want to experiment with me in this meditation,

In awakening a sense of loving kindness.

It's always optional.

So feel free to stay with sensation in the body or the breath,

If that's what's working best for you.

But if you'd like to experiment with loving kindness,

Thinking of somebody who's easy to love.

It could be a cat or a dog.

It could be someone in your family who you've had a really pleasant experience with lately.

It doesn't matter much exactly who or what you think of,

But just that the feeling of love comes quite naturally.

Perhaps imagining this person visually,

Or maybe you have some other sense of their presence in your life.

Of their presence in your life.

And awakening the feeling of loving kindness for this beloved being.

Feeling that.

Cultivating the felt sense of love and kindness.

And being kind of specific with it at first.

At the beginning of this meditation,

I mentioned being very specific about the hands.

Starting that way.

Being very specific with a beloved being.

Narrowing the focus.

As an assist for truly feeling the loving kindness that's accessible with this person or animal.

If you have been able to awaken the sensations around love for this specific beloved being,

Noticing,

Is there a certain place in the body that shows up?

Is there some subtle shift anywhere else?

Maybe a shift in the breathing,

Perhaps.

If there had been a tension in one place,

Was there a shift?

If there had been a relaxation in a different place,

Did that shift?

Simply being present.

The phrase bearing witness is sometimes used.

Bearing witness without changing something,

Seeing what's truly here.

Bearing witness to what it feels like to awaken thoughts of a beloved being.

And it's all welcome.

There could be a color that arises.

There could be a smell.

It's all welcome.

Simply noticing.

If it's here,

It's here.

And one thing I've noticed is that the human experience is complex.

And even with a beloved being,

There might be multiple layers of what you're feeling.

It's perfectly fine to remain very focused on simple loving kindness.

Like we did when we focused in on just the feeling in the hands.

But if it works for you,

You might experiment with opening a little bit more to the more complex experiences underneath.

If this is an animal that you care for,

Sometimes the animal does something,

Some kind of behavior that is not quite in alignment with what we'd like.

And if it's a human that you're thinking of,

That happens on an even deeper level.

So you might experiment with bearing witness to the more complex parts underneath.

There's definitely the love.

There's definitely the compassion.

There's definitely the love.

There's definitely the love and the kindness.

And perhaps also seeing the poignancy within the relationship.

And if you get lost in replaying a video of a scene like,

Oh,

This happened and blah,

Blah,

Blah.

Noticing,

Oh,

I got lost in a video.

I'm replaying something.

Noticing is excellent mindfulness practice.

And once you notice,

That gives you a little more breathing room to bring your awareness back to some kind of sensation in your body.

If that helps to feel grounded.

Or you might focus in on the feeling of love and kindness again.

So there's flexibility with this type of meditation.

If you had a camera,

One of those older forms of cameras that has a lens that you can focus,

Focus.

You could focus in on your hand,

Or you could zoom out to have a wider landscape view of your whole body.

And it's true with thoughts and emotions.

There are ways to focus in and focus out.

During a formal practice such as this one,

You're playing with that.

What is it like to focus in on loving kindness?

And then zoom out a little bit more to see the more complex parts of the relationship.

The minute you feel lost or as if you're kicking something that shouldn't be kicked.

Zooming back in,

High focus on just a sensation in the body.

Grounding yourself in this time and place of practice.

Strengthening your ability to be aware.

And noting that my voice and the community of people who are practicing with you are helping you,

Giving you a line,

A lifeline to being present and strong in your ability to be grounded.

Bringing your awareness back to your body and maybe being formal with a body scan.

Feeling the feet,

Feeling the ankles,

Feeling the calves and shins,

Feeling the knees,

Feeling the thighs,

Feeling the hips,

Feeling the ankles,

Feeling the hips,

Feeling the ankles,

Feeling the knees,

Feeling the thighs,

Feeling the hips and buttocks,

Feeling the trunk of the body,

The waist,

The belly,

The back,

The chest,

The shoulders,

The neck.

Going out to the hands,

Feeling the hands,

Feeling the forearms,

The elbows,

The upper arms,

The shoulders,

Feeling the neck,

Face and head.

And then feeling the whole body and taking the next 30 seconds to a minute to simply be with your body.

Grounding yourself in physical experience.

Taking maybe 10 breaths to really feel.

We had the idea of the beloved being.

We had the idea of complexities.

And we had the idea of zooming in,

Zooming out with the lens of our awareness.

You could continue with that one being.

You could continue with simply feeling your body if that's helping you to feel grounded.

Or if you'd like to,

You might bring up an image of yourself somehow.

Self-care,

Self-kindness,

Proper boundaries.

These are things that are part of this kind of meditation.

So some people do have an image of themselves that's visual,

Or you might have a different felt sense of who and what you are.

However it works for you.

Perhaps imagining yourself right next to the beloved being.

And in the way that you were able to awaken loving kindness for the beloved being,

Having a little experiment with this.

Is it possible to awaken some kind of love for the beloved being?

Is it possible to awaken some kind of positive feeling for yourself along those lines?

Love,

Kindness,

Loving kindness,

Also known as metta,

Compassion.

Seeing what's possible right now.

And I am aware that some days are better than others.

If this is a day where loving kindness for yourself isn't going to help in,

Take care of yourself and your meditation in your own way.

Maybe doing a body scan,

Maybe staying with the beloved being.

This is just an experiment.

Seeing what's possible.

Can each of us here awaken compassion,

Love,

And or kindness for ourselves?

And then the final experiment for this meditation,

This time around,

Is to zoom out into landscape mode,

A little bit wider even,

To the world.

That world that we worry about.

It includes our beloved being.

It includes ourself.

And it includes us as a whole.

It includes our beloved being.

It includes ourself.

And in any other way that you'd like to experiment right now,

You might just visualize the globe.

You might think of large groups of people that you know,

However it works for you.

Bearing witness to the care you have for the world.

And if some kind of complexity arises,

That's welcome.

That's a part of this experimentation.

As before,

You can open the lens of your awareness wider.

You can open the lens of your awareness wider to feel it.

Or if it gets to be too much,

You can focus the lens of your awareness down into your own body or even your own hands for a sense of grounding.

And if caring and compassion and empathy have been things that have overwhelmed you,

Noting that.

And as the person leading this meditation,

I'd also,

I guess,

Request a moment of also congratulating yourself for not shutting down.

It is tempting in times like this to shut down.

And those of us who are doing what we can to remain open-hearted,

We're doing something that takes quite a lot of courage.

So bearing witness to that as well.