So,
I want to read something to you because I wanted to teach something today,
And then I was reading my book.
And there is a part in it that so eloquently summed up what I wanted to speak about.
For me,
On my journey the last 10 years,
It can sound really silly,
And I know it sounded really silly to me when I was in the beginning of my journey.
One of my greatest healers has been self-love.
And I know for me personally,
I questioned,
Well,
What does that look like?
Do I just look in the mirror and say,
I love you,
I don't feel it,
I don't understand?
Because I had a ton of codependency issues,
Self-worth,
Anxiety,
All of that.
That is always a continuous work in progress,
Right?
We don't ever,
I mean,
Yes,
We can find deep relief and we can move to the next level of our expansion,
But we're still human and we'll always have emotions and things that come through us.
But what happens with self-love is we meet ourselves in a different place.
So instead of having a gnarly burst of emotion,
And you're like,
Oh my God,
This is so embarrassing.
You know,
I have these thoughts,
I'm 37 years old,
Why am I sobbing so hard over X,
Y,
And Z?
They wouldn't want to see me and saw this,
They wouldn't want to hire me,
You know,
Whatever is coming through my head.
And then I meet myself with what love would say,
You know what?
It's natural to feel.
And you learned that this is shameful because no one told you it was natural to feel.
And we live in a world that doesn't get this.
So people around you are probably going to say,
Whoa,
That's too much,
But it's not,
Baby.
You know,
It's okay,
Let it move through you and I'm here and I love you.
It's one aspect of it,
Right?
Meeting yourself with love and comfort.
So there's an incredible teacher of this.
Her name is Sarah Blondin.
I want to read you a couple of little sections from her book and then we'll move into the meditation.
It's called Heart Minded,
If you're interested.
How to hold yourself and others in love.
Thank you,
Sarah Blondin.
I don't know how to say her name.
Anyway,
She's wonderful.
Okay,
A couple little parts of her book.
So just round in with me,
Put work to the side for a minute.
Put your hand on your heart,
Take a deep breath into your belly.
Release.
Just slow down.
Okay.
She says,
You have these hands,
These arms,
This heart,
This breath,
And this primal knowing that you are deeply meant for loving.
So hold yourself,
Dear one.
And this is the line I love.
May you wake to your own inherent powers of comforting,
Self comforting.
May a memory wake you.
May a memory waken you the powers of your own ability,
Not to shy away from the wound so whenever we're triggered,
But to courageously rise to put pressure on what hurts and warmth on what stings.
May you awaken your awesome inherent powers to hold.
May you become the mother you most need.
I thought that was really beautiful.
We all have a power in us to comfort.
And what do most of us do?
This is habits and addictions,
Which we all deal with on a spectrum.
We don't stop.
Again,
We're not taught it.
This is like,
Ooh,
That's weird.
Why would I do that?
We don't stop and take a second when we're triggered to ask ourselves what we need or to be with ourselves.
Like she's talking,
Holding,
She uses the word hold to hold ourselves in love.
What do you need?
You know,
That was hurtful.
Do you need to go outside and take a break or whatever,
Whatever?
Or are we,
You know,
Not following your dreams?
Is that why you keep feeling hurt?
We have that capacity within us.
Okay,
So this is from another section.
So it's going to hold that last point and then we're going to come to a new point.
Okay.
See where I want to start here.
But figuring out how to love who we are as we are alone in the present moment is the work that will ultimately comfort and fill us.
Oh,
That's what I was saying.
Yeah,
We look for it in the outside world.
We look for that comfort in that holding so much in our partners,
Friends,
Parents,
Expecting them to be different than they're able to give us.
Co-workers,
Whatever.
We're in pain and we want the coffee,
The wine,
The relationship to say to comfort us.
And yes,
It's wonderful when they do,
But they can't always and they're in their wounds.
And so the constant is that we're able to do it from within.
And then ironically,
Because we're in an energetic universe,
The more we do it for ourselves from within,
The more people can meet us on the outside.
All right.
So figuring out how to love who we are as we are alone in the present moment is the work that will ultimately comfort and fill us.
If you have a sincere longing to find peace and love in your life,
You must first come to find both of these things within you.
Instead of distracting and avoiding,
It's time to kneel at your own feet and begin speaking softly to this core self you barely touch.
And then I'm going to move to one other paragraph to finish with.
A couple of pages away.
With no easy places to escape to,
Like yoga studios,
Cafes,
And friendships,
I had to learn to stay in the quiet when normally I would have run.
I had to shed the layers of my distracted mind and its need for constant stimulation.
I had to face my fear of silence,
My fear of myself,
My fear of the rawness of true presence.
And I'm sharing those three sections because I always say this,
I say this phrase so much,
But it rings true to me.
We're not taught this.
We're not taught the tools in kindergarten,
First grade,
Where we take a break,
Right?
When we're feeling strong and we're with our feelings and we are taught,
You know,
Meditation's not normal place,
Commonplace,
Where we say,
Okay,
Just go be with yourself for a minute.
We're,
And we've talked about this in this class,
We're prided,
It's not the correct phrase.
We are rewarded for being in masculine energy,
Which is just half of who we are,
Which is the going,
The doing,
The achieving.
And so when we're not in that,
We don't know what to do with ourselves.
And then we're scrambling to have somebody else fix these feelings that we're just not given the tools to handle.
So to slow down,
To carve out some time a day to do nothing at all.
I mean,
I did that this morning and I had that feeling like,
Okay,
I'm gonna check my emails,
Get ready for the day,
I'm gonna make my coffee,
Whatever.
And the sun was coming in from the window and it's so hard for our brain,
But I was like,
I'm going to put my face to the sun so I can feel it coming in the window.
And I told myself,
You can leave your eyes open if you want to just look around the room or close them if you want.
But let's just be here with ourselves.
It doesn't have to be some weird out there thing.
We're just going to sit.
Because in those moments is where the energy of whatever we've experienced in our lives has a chance to move and be felt.
And we can actually hear ourselves.
We're not running and running and running like she speaks of.
So what we're going to do in today's meditation is really simple,
Not easy,
But simple.
As if we are just turning our face to the sun,
Sitting at the table,
Dining room table,
Doing absolutely nothing at all.
Welcoming whatever is present for us.
We're so afraid that if we welcome the pain and we're going to stick in it,
But when we welcome it with love,
Remember when we hold and comfort.
So if there is pain,
I see you,
I hear you.
Whatever words are comforting to you.
Yeah,
Anybody else in my shoes would feel this way too.
We don't,
We're not buried in it.
It might feel like a bottomless pit,
But it moves.
Right?
And then underneath all of that is where we really get to meet ourselves and we skim the surface because we're running and running and don't feel and then doing all these things to not feel.
You can feel this as I speak.
So we're just going to slow down,
Be with ourselves,
Comfort and hold,
Welcome whatever is here and then give ourselves a chance for ourselves to speak,
To get to know ourselves.
We don't usually.
Our likes,
Our interests,
Our desires,
Our inspirations,
We don't have to fish for it.
We're just creating the soil for just stuff to rise into our mind as we get quiet.
Take a deep breath.
You can sit up or lay down.
This your hand on your heart if it feels good.
Heart,
Belly,
Both on the heart.
And rest one hand in your lap.
You can put some music on if that feels nice or we can do this in silence,
Which is also kind of nice sometimes because then we're just really with ourselves.
Close your eyes.
We're setting the intention to go within.
The safety of our own arms to our inherent power to comfort and hold.
If we grew up thinking innocently in some way,
Shape or form that we weren't worthy and deserving of love,
We wouldn't believe we were worthy and deserving to offer ourselves this love,
This comfort and holding.
So we do all sorts of things to not comfort and hold ourselves because we don't think we deserve it.
We all have that capacity.
It's even about deserving.
It's an innate gift in everyone.
So we can begin to stretch that muscle.
And if you feel sped up or anxious or wherever your mind goes to,
Just repeat the mantra to bring yourself back home.
Slow down.
We feel the connection between our body and the surface.
And our eyes are relaxed.
We give ourselves permission to be in the unknown right now.
To be still.
To know that without stillness,
The movement and the doing is not fed.
It's like driving a car without gasoline.
Cars are great to get us places,
But we need gas.
So we must feel from within and be quiet first.
Something that is foreign to the world.
As we really soften our eyes.
We give ourselves permission to allow simplicity and ease and flow.
To be aware of the sensations in our body and how we feel.
Even if it's uncomfortable.
Because our love is the healer of the discomfort again and again and again.
Just noticing it with the eyes of comfort,
The eyes of holding.
Our body is planted firmly on the ground.
Our face is relaxed.
We give ourselves permission to have stillness for this portion of our day at least.
Our body becomes still.
And we needn't control our mind.
And just let our mind still itself as it knows how to do this.
In its own time as our own awareness offers us this space of stillness.
And we breathe a little deeper and gentler down into the belly.
Everything becomes really slow.
And the breath moves now into the belly expanding through the whole body.
As we breathe down to our toes and out to our fingers and up to our head.
Allowing this breath to soften our bones and our muscles.
Face and our eyes.
To just be still and that that is enough.
Here we take one breath at a time ever so slowly.
As if we are in one second and then the next second and then the next and then the next second.
Each its own container.
Welcoming whatever rises in comfort and in holding.
There is an area of your body that you notice is tight.
Fluttery constricted.
Just offer it I'm sorry you're hurting.
I'm here now and I'm listening.
I'm not sure how to help you yet.
But I'm here and I'm listening.
I'm sorry you're hurting.
As we slow down and meet ourselves right where we are.
All emotions are natural normal and welcome.
Taking your power back as you hold each one in the non-judgment of your own presence.
The breath continues to move in and out of the body gently.
Your body relaxes a little bit more.
Wherever there is tension or constriction or energy or density.
We bring our awareness and we say I see you.
And I hear you.
And I'm sorry there has been so much unkindness in your life.
They didn't know how to properly love because they weren't properly loved themselves.
This pain in you is valid.
Anyone else in your shoes would feel it too if you comfort yourself.
Offering yourself a warm blanket of energetic love as you allow all sensations and feelings to be here.
I'm sorry you're hurting.
You let your body relax and you allow yourself once more to slow down.
No more running.
Just breathing.
You allow yourself to soften and be still.
And in your own time for the next few breaths,
I want you to offer yourself comfort and holding to a part of you that perhaps needs it the most.
What would the most ideal mothering figure,
Which is you,
Say to this part of yourself?
What do they need to hear from you right now?
What do they need to hear from you right now?
As we begin to slowly imagine this beautiful golden ball of light above our heads filled with the energy of love and comfort in being held.
This light fills up to the brim with these energies,
These three energies.
And then this energy moves in through the top of your head and expands through your body just filling you with the warmth and light of comfort.
Being held,
Being loved,
Finding it first within and then allowing the world to deliver it to you second.
Breathing this in,
Letting it expand to feet around you on all sides.
As we slowly start to bring our awareness back to our bodies connected underneath of us.
Awareness right behind our eyes,
In our bodies.
Back to the breath.
And as we gradually return to the day,
I want you just to take this last minute together to be still with yourself.
So maybe your eyes are open and you're just here looking around the room hanging.
You keep your eyes closed and you're breathing.
Just to be still with yourself for a moment as we slowly come back.
And whenever you're ready,
Knowing you can come back to this anytime you feel you need to connect within.
Starting to stretch and wiggle and bring yourself back.
Opening your eyes to the day if you haven't done so yet.
Thank you for joining me.
Have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday,
Beginning of November.
You're so welcome.
I'll see you all soon.
Bye.
You you you
