As you're tuning into your own body,
Your own experience right now,
Notice what comes up for you around those words.
I'm giving myself comfort.
I'm offering myself a hug.
There are so many levels to this,
One of which is that unfamiliarity of it perhaps.
Some of us are very familiar and have gotten into quite a habit of comforting ourselves.
Probably isn't something most of us have done our whole lives.
As we do these practices and we put our hand on our heart and feel that warmth,
Or we catch ourselves being unkind and then we stop.
As we come to these practices day after day,
And not in a perfect way,
We come sometimes,
We don't sometimes,
Sometimes we're very present,
Sometimes we're not.
There's such a powerful message when we tune into our own experience.
And then we might drift away and think about other things and then we'll come back.
We're really getting to know ourselves through the practices that we do here and in other places.
And when we go for a walk at the ocean or in the forest or in a park,
Wherever it might be,
Or we go into our backyard and feel the grass.
Take a moment and bring that into your awareness,
Whatever it is that you do,
That you open to,
That you maybe don't give yourselves credit for.
Let's take a moment to acknowledge all the ways that we are getting to know ourselves,
That we are offering ourselves comfort.
During this very moment,
Of course.
Notice what's happening in this space of your body.
Is there a way that you could settle yourself a different way or relax more,
Perhaps?
Let yourself be supported by a chair or the floor.
How could you create more ease in your body?
And soften your forehead and eyebrows.
Your mouth and jaw.
Soften your neck,
Shoulders.
We could notice and acknowledge all of these systems in our body that always work in the background to try to keep us safe.
And we know now from experience that actually having our shoulders up around our ears doesn't really keep us safer.
And we can still understand.
It's a reflexive response in the body,
Maybe embracing.
We learned when we were very young and that comes back when we're upset or disturbed.
Take some deeper breaths and notice what that feels like.
Notice your chest,
Your stomach,
The lower rib cage as you breathe in deeply.
And notice how we support ourselves with our breath.
With this movement of the breath,
We don't have to actually breathe our bodies.
It breathes itself.
There's this early warning mechanism of danger.
We hold our breath.
Our breath gets kind of tight,
Perhaps.
We might go into freeze.
That's a message from the body that there's something that we could attend to.
And perhaps let it ease a bit.
We can feel a lot of ease in our body when we relax our breath.
Take a few deeper inhales and longer exhales.
Let your body support your relaxation.
Notice the energy or sensations in your body.
Sometimes we might feel a bit antsy.
You could move your body.
You could shake it out.
Just move a little bit.
We don't have to hold ourselves in position.
That's another way that we could support ourselves,
Allow our body to feel whatever it's feeling.
Let's really notice your whole body and the energy in your body.
Let yourself settle back into the support of the floor,
The chair.
And when we're looking at how we comfort ourselves,
How we support ourselves,
Moment to moment,
Day by day,
Of course the mind comes into play as well as the body and the breath.
I think that is a clarity when we're really paying attention to our experience.
We notice all of the habitual patterns in our body,
Our breath,
Our mind,
Our thoughts.
We could just have a look and see is what's going on in my mind right now supportive?
Is it helping me to relax and settle?
And when we're noticing this,
It's not in a sense of I have a bad mind or I'm a bad person or anything like that.
It's more just to see what it is that's happening in the mind.
And how could I support and nourish myself with thoughts?
We're going to do visualizations in a moment.
So before we even get into that,
There's these habits of judgment or criticism perhaps in the mind.
If we see them coming in,
We could let them settle and go recognize them for what they are.
And that's a pattern that's not going to change in just a few minutes of looking,
Of course.
And over time it does change.
We start to notice that our thoughts are more kindly and that we notice self-critical thoughts and we see through them more or we see through them sooner.
Let's take a moment as you're resting and watching to notice what's happening in the thought stream right at this moment.
Bring your attention to your thoughts.
When we first do that,
There's usually a few seconds at least of quiet.
And we're trying to maintain this position of a witness or observer when we're doing a practice.
And as we're watching thoughts,
We're looking to see how it is that they come in,
What kind of an energy they have.
Some thoughts are quite intense.
They really grab our attention.
Other thoughts are kind of floating through in the background and we don't really get distracted by them.
At the beginning,
We spoke about hugging ourselves,
Comforting ourselves.
What might that look like in the mind,
In the thoughts in the mind?
How could we support ourselves through this process of watching the mind,
Noticing what kind of thoughts are there?
And for a little bit,
Let's use the power of our mind to visualize,
To support ourselves,
To help ourselves be more relaxed,
Less stressed perhaps.
So there's a lot of ways that we could do this.
One would be to visualize our self as it is right now,
The age that we are,
The wisdom and experience that we have,
To visualize that present self comforting the self that's in there from another time,
Could be from childhood.
Many of us have done this.
See as you're looking if there's any sense of a younger self that needs some comfort.
Sometimes I've actually visualized myself at 12 or 13.
And so I'm standing hugging myself at that age.
So however that might work for you,
Stay connected with your body and your breath.
Use all of your senses to support yourself in this way.
The feeling,
The smell,
The touch,
Sounds,
The sight.
Let yourself really absorb and pay attention to how that feels.
Or perhaps another way would be to remember a time when you were hugged by someone who you felt really safe and connected with.
Because this is just a visualization,
We could let go of all of the complicated parts of the relationship.
Why it didn't work,
If it didn't,
If it's over.
Or maybe the sadness that they're gone,
Whatever it might be.
But if you have had someone in your life you felt very safe and connected to,
Remember what it felt like to be hugged by them.
Or maybe it wasn't a hug,
Maybe it was the look on their face as they really saw you.
And then let's take a few minutes to really bring that to life.
Look out of your own eyes,
Feel it in your own skin,
In your own body.
You could wrap your own arms around yourself if you'd like.
Really feel the warmth in your hands,
Your arms.
You could stay with one of these,
Really developing that,
Really experiencing it.
Or if you wanted you could bring your awareness to a time in nature when you felt really warm and comforted.
Maybe it's on a beach,
You can feel the warmth of the sun.
Maybe it's sitting under a tree in a forest.
In your own backyard,
Let yourself really absorb the comfort of that.
Notice it in your whole body.
Notice it in your breath,
The energy in your body.
And notice the feeling of connection,
The feeling of safety.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
Just notice how it feels to really pay attention to the connection,
The warmth,
Whatever it is that you're working with in your mind.
Notice your breath.
Notice if it feels like your whole body wants to support you.
There might be things going on in the body that are tight or painful,
Thoughts in the mind perhaps.
Let's see if you could sense into a larger goodwill.
And if there's any sense of that at all,
Just really focus in on that,
Let that expand.
This willingness to support ourselves,
To be kind.
Notice what it feels like if you put a hand on your heart,
Or you wrap your arms around yourself.
Let yourself accept that warmth,
That comfort.
Allow yourself to take some of this into your day.
And then when you're ready,
Open your eyes.
And just leave all of your thoughts about yourself.
Approved.
