Hello and welcome to this meditation.
This is Rosie Elizabeth here with My Life is Rosie and it's time to meditate.
Go ahead and find a comfortable position whether that's lying down or seated.
Find a slight gaze or close your eyes completely.
And begin to breathe long deep breaths.
Connecting in with your body.
I've been reading an amazing book by Brene Brown called The Gifts of Imperfection.
And this book is all about releasing shame and societal pressures.
And so this meditation is inspired by the work that I have been doing while reading her book and by diving deeper into societal pressures,
Perfection,
Shame and guilt.
And so this meditation is created for you so you can also look inwardly and begin to see what you're doing because of other people,
Because of societal pressures.
And begin to let go of that.
So allow something to come to mind to you.
What is the societal pressure that you feel?
Maybe this is something about body image or weight.
Maybe this is something about eating or how you should be a parent or what job you should have.
And all the shoulds come up when we look at societal pressure.
And begin to identify with one or two things that you feel pressured to be or conform into because somebody in society thinks you should.
This could be a parent.
This could be the news.
This could be ads or magazines.
Just begin to identify with that one thing.
In Brene Brown's book,
She talks so much about normalizing shame.
And you know,
We all have shame.
We all feel it to some sort of degree.
We all feel we should be different,
Dress different,
Act different,
Talk different,
Look different to some sort of degree.
And knowing and realizing that everybody else is going through the same thing that you're going through can be very helpful.
So take a moment to let that sink in,
Knowing that everybody experiences shame.
It is a universal experience.
And it is okay.
Nothing is wrong with you because you're experiencing it.
Nothing is wrong with you because sometimes you conform to it.
It is absolutely an experience that we all go through at one point or another.
One of the ways that we can really deal with shame is through mindfulness.
And a part of mindfulness is sitting with the uncomfortable,
Awkward,
Stressful feeling of shame.
So I welcome you to do that now.
Bringing up that one or two things that you feel shameful for and allowing yourself to sit with it.
Not sit in it,
Not become it,
Not dwell in it,
Right?
But sit next to it and look at it.
Allow it to be seen for what it is.
Continue to breathe.
And just observe this feeling.
Observe any thoughts or images that come into mind.
Not judging or blaming or getting angry at the shame.
But just noticing it.
Just saying hi to it.
And really starting to accept that it exists.
Once we start to accept that something exists,
We give it permission to fade away.
Remembering that shame is a universal experience.
And by sitting with shame,
Not jumping into it or becoming it,
But just sitting with it,
We can start to see that it's an experience.
It's not us.
It's not who we are.
It's something that we've tried on.
And it's something that you may be ready to release.
You are absolutely not your shame.
You're just experiencing shame.
And allowing there to be some distance between you and the shame.
Invite breath in.
Breathing into your heart center.
And breathing out with a nice release.
Continuing to approach the shame mindfully.
Just noticing it and accepting it.
Accepting yourself for experiencing this.
Something that's completely normal.
If you would like to learn about your shame or societal pressure of perfectionism,
You can ask the shame where it came from.
And this will give you a good idea of the root of it,
Which can be very helpful when we're working with shame and guilt.
You know,
Where did you come from?
Let's see what comes up.
Maybe a certain experience that happened to you a long time ago will come into your mind.
Or a certain person or a certain place.
And allow whatever comes up to be seen and be present with it.
You don't have to start to analyze it or think about it or fix it.
But just notice what comes up.
Understanding where our shame comes from can help us see that we are not our shame.
That we existed before the shame.
And that we're just experiencing the shame.
Now we'll begin to show self-compassion to ourself for the shame.
We've looked at it.
We've been mindful with it.
And now we need to just love ourselves anyways.
Without needing to change.
Without needing to dress differently.
Without needing to weigh differently.
Whatever it is,
Just love ourselves now.
Because when we do this,
We teach ourselves that we are worthy of love unconditionally.
So start to send yourself love.
You can do this just by feeling into yourself,
Feeling into your heart center.
Making an affirmation of I love you.
Another option is going back to the time or the place or the circumstance when that shame first came up.
And sending yourself love in that moment.
This allows us to heal the past.
Thank you God for loving us.
To send yourself love here,
Completely filling up with love.
Being an overwhelming body,
Mind,
And spirit of just love,
Love,
Love.
Knowing that you deserve to love yourself as you are right now.
Knowing that the societal pressures out there,
They cannot take love away from you and they cannot make you love and it's really inside of you.
Your love is inside of you.
Your right to be loved and be loved is inside of you,
It was born with you and it cannot be taken away.
So know that you're worthy and deserving of loving yourself right here,
Right now.
No matter what you've been told you need to look like or speak like or look like.
Filling up and taking in as much love as you possibly can here for the last few moments of this meditation.
Beginning to slowly come back into your space.
Slowly waking up the body.
Remembering that you are good enough right now.
You're really perfect right now and remembering this throughout your day.
That societal pressures are out there and they're probably not going to go anywhere anytime soon but you have the tools and you have the resources to feel good enough about yourself right now.
You know you can always return back to that love inside of you to that self-acceptance into your breath.
If this meditation resonated with you I encourage you to seek out the Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown to help you dive even deeper into releasing shame.
I love you guys so much.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Many blessings to you.
