Feeling Grief

A guided seated meditation that includes breathing and exploration of the emotion of grief. In Chinese medicine, the time of Autumn asks us to create space to feel into and possibly let go of sadness, loss, loneliness, emptiness, and a feeling of not belonging.

Transcript

Welcome to this meditation that will begin with guided breathing.

And our intention is to explore the space of grief.

In Chinese medicine,

The element of metal symbolizes the season of fall,

Autumn.

And grief is the emotion that arises for us to be expressed.

Fall mirrors this quality of letting go,

Doesn't it?

As the leaves fall from the trees gracefully,

We look at the wise teachers of the trees and ask to embody that grace.

You can choose to lie down in this meditation,

However I will be seated and that's how I'm instructing this practice.

You can also do whatever you need.

So gather what you need.

I'm sitting on the ground,

Bolster under my buns,

Meditation cushion.

You can also sit in a chair,

Just make sure that your spine is long without resting on the back of the chair.

Place the palms down on the knees or thighs.

Move the bottom flesh to the side and feel the sitting bones root to the front of your chair prop.

If you're seated on the ground,

Open the knees as wide as they'll go and feel the front of the shins roll forward into the earth.

If you feel the knees hovering and there's a lot of tension in the hips,

Bring more pillows or cushions under your buns.

If you're in a chair,

Feet hip width apart and soles of feet rooted.

Close your eyes.

Come into the breath.

Inhales rise from soles of feet to crown of head.

Sit tall in the spine with a slight tuck of chin.

Exhales out the mouth.

Watch the breath and attention move down from the top of the head out through the soles of the feet.

Do this a few times.

Smelling the breath.

On the inhale that rises,

Invite a heightened perception,

An expanded quality of awareness.

On the exhale,

Invite in stability,

Ground,

The foundation of letting go into,

Into that support of the earth that also is within you.

As your breath rises,

Stretch your attention to every part of your skin,

Welcoming all of you.

And as you exhale,

Hold on to nothing.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Bring one hand on the lower belly,

One hand on the chest.

Say your right hand's on the lower belly,

Your left hand's on the chest.

Your left hand is on the chest.

Keep your eyes closed soft.

We'll practice wave breathing or a complete breath,

A dhirgah breath.

You can exhale out of the mouth if that feels good.

Letting the navel deflate as if the hand is gently pressing the air out.

Every exhale is an opportunity to soften.

Every inhale is an opportunity to remain awake,

Aware.

Now the inhale fills the right hand,

The lower belly,

Then rib cage,

Side to side,

Front to back.

Exhale,

Watch the breath reverse its movement out of the ribs and navel.

See if you can feel the ribs fill in three dimensions,

Right to left,

Forward and back.

Sometimes it's the hardest to feel the breath in the back body.

Now belly fills ribs and top hand,

Left hand,

Chest.

Get longer through the crown,

Exhale out the mouth and reverse the movement of the breath.

Continue filling those three cavities of the body,

Belly,

Ribs and chest without letting the shoulders raise to the ears.

Exhale.

And resist any force of the breath,

So find a rhythm that feels effortless.

You're not breathing to a capacity that you feel like you're straining in any way.

So let the breath be full,

Yet soft.

And we'll add a piece to this breath,

Which is going to help release any tension,

But I want you to think of it as creating space.

So inhale,

Wave breathe,

Bottom,

Middle,

Top.

Now exhale out of the nose as the breath deflates,

Chest,

Ribs.

And when your breath gets to the bottom out of the nose,

Purse the lips and at the final moment blow through a straw.

So straw breath at the very end,

So you watch the breath come down to the lower hand,

The right hand.

Inhale,

Fill right hand,

Ribs and left hand.

Exhale out the nose,

The breath deflates,

Chest,

Ribs to navel,

Then straw breath.

And feel yourself emptying,

Emptying,

Emptying,

Emptying.

Now if you're a visual person,

Maybe you imagine on that exhale when the straw breath hits that any stagnation,

Like a gray cloud,

Black smoke,

Vapor,

Steam,

Anything is exiting.

It can be any color,

It can be any texture.

And if that doesn't work with you,

That's okay too.

Then just feel it in your body and be with the breath.

.

Remember you're exhaling out of the nose to the bottom,

Then straw breath.

A few more.

Spine is long.

Take your last breath.

And release the control of the breath.

Let the tongue soften.

Eyes are soft.

Feel the breath breathing you.

And acknowledging the vast expanse that you've created within your form through the simple technique.

Now scanning your body and if you can keep your breath soft as possible.

As still as possible like the spine elongates at the crown of the head.

If you feel an intense sensation or a distracting thought,

Take a bigger breath.

Be gentle with yourself.

Drawing your attention back when you're able.

And if you find any discomfort in the body,

See if you can just be with the discomfort and let it react instead of reacting to it and most of the time it shifts.

However,

If you have to move you can,

That's okay.

Be gentle with yourself.

Breath so soft as you've created this space of welcoming,

Examining.

And when we examine,

We release the critical mind,

The judgmental mind,

That place of good and bad,

Black and white.

Rather we become curious,

Curious of the experience,

Whatever arises and unfolds.

Noticing any places of holding in your body,

A place of tension,

Tightness,

Just scanning,

Weakness,

A place that feels tired,

Contracted.

Maybe you find few places,

Maybe you find many and welcoming all the sensations.

Now in the space that you have uncovered through the breathing technique,

Just ask your body,

And when I say body I mean all systems of the body,

Where does grief lie in the body?

Where is it hiding?

Where is it apparent?

And I want you to intuitively just let your mind go to any area that first draws your attention,

Just go there.

And I want you to take that area into your mind's eye without a laser beam of focus,

Rather a wide lens like you're looking at a sunset.

So you encompass,

Yes,

The wide area and notice how that changes,

Instead of laser beam attention,

Your attention is just wide to that area.

And imagine that there's a place that you can set the grief on top of,

Like maybe it's your open hands in that area of your body,

A table,

An altar.

And the grief doesn't have to have any sort of image,

It's almost like you're just holding the space for grief to be seen and breathe into it softly,

Without the need to change it,

Without the desire of something different,

It's just this feeling of grief,

So intense at times.

And it's just a feeling that personally I want to hide or run from and so we just put it in our hands,

Put it on a table,

Put it on an altar,

And we just welcome its presence.

And just be there with that wide lens of perception that a memory arises in association with the grief,

Or maybe a feeling,

A somatic sensation in the body.

And just be there with it.

And just do it tenderly like you would someone or creature,

Right,

A delicate creature,

Baby that you adore.

And maybe for me finally the sensation shifted,

It dissolved a little,

But for you maybe not.

So we'll just expand our lens through the body again and ask is there another place where grief is holding?

And as soon as your mind goes to an area,

Trust it.

You're not trying to do anything.

You're not trying to force,

You're just acknowledging,

Hey,

Feelings of discomfort,

Emotions exist,

And unprocessed past experiences are stored in the body through any system of the body.

And we just witness it with this wide lens.

So it's like a clean slate.

The grief doesn't have to do anything.

It doesn't have to be a certain way.

It doesn't have to be a certain way.

It doesn't have to be a certain way.

Just allow it to be.

And when you do that,

Notice how the sensation changes.

The change can be so subtle and more profound.

The body as a whole and does grief reside in any place in the body you can ask yourself this where it resembles itself as this loneliness or this lack of belonging or an emptiness that seems like it can never be filled and where does that rest if you relate to that where does that rest let the sensations the natural breath the feeling be there ever so gentle just breathe with it be with it and when it dissolves if it dissolves feel as if this um emptiness but an emptiness that is full so it's empty of mind but heart full so the emptiness that I experience in grief is an emptiness that can't ever be filled right and then acknowledging the space the movement of the breath takes in deeper breaths that this process of welcoming and witnessing in the moment is so powerful it takes some pause it takes some training some practice and doing it when we're not activated with grief can bring a sense of appreciation for feeling in general something that some of us may avoid or look down upon and because of our conditioned past right and now visualize that you're sitting on top of a mountain and the mountain is very high up the crown of your head is wide your spine is long and yet that open quality that is also full right this expansion from the heart out from the spine you begin to connect to the open sky so the clouds part and it's this rising to the heavens through the crown through the spine and you absorb the the fresh air the fresh Qi and energy on the top of a mountain through yourself your pores and you let it fill you so any spaces that still are empty can be filled and you might fill yourself with a white color unless another color calls to you and you can take deeper breaths filling from the crown of the head to the tip of the tongue to the whole spine to the fingers and the toes and in the symbolism of the clouds parting spine regal and elegant reaching towards the sky we receive inspiration from the heavens knowing that clarity and insight and fullness can exist even when experiencing something difficult like grief and so this is these are the qualities of and symbolism of the metal element in Chinese medicine inhale exhale then inhale reach your arms overhead long hands and prayer overhead exhale hands to the heart let's chant the sound of ohm so we'll do ah pronounce each syllable then om exhale then Thumbs in between the eyebrows honoring the collective consciousness and the space shared.

We say Namaste.

Head rises,

Cross the thumbs so the palms face you,

Fingers are spread like wings so the hands are crossed and then hands on the heart praise your flow.

Jayi praise and your flow can mean so many different things let it be personal and intimate for you right now.

So we close by saying Jayo flow.

Praise your flow,

Your practice,

Your heart,

Your life.

Thank you.