The following is a guided meditation on self-forgiveness.
Take a moment to find a comfortable position,
Adjusting your seat and your posture so that you may comfortably be here for the next several minutes.
Invite a few deep breaths into the body or settle in any way that allows you to come into this present moment.
Offer relaxation to any obvious areas of tension in your body.
Relax the tongue at the bottom of the mouth.
Feet gently parted,
Open and spacious within the mouth.
Forehead relaxed.
All those little muscles around your eyes,
Relaxed.
Once here,
Allow your senses to open.
Taste inside the mouth.
Ears open and receptive.
Listening with the whole body.
Smell,
Air and aroma inside the nostrils.
Vision,
Relaxing the eyes from the external world.
Final vision opening.
Notice the air on your skin,
The texture of your clothes.
Feel the surface beneath you,
Sensing into the parts of you that are touching the ground.
Now gather your awareness into your breath,
Noticing the natural rhythm and flow of your breathing.
You might now begin to feel the breath at the heart,
As if the breath is flowing in and out of the heart.
The heart itself.
And sense if you can begin to listen deeper,
Listen to the heart.
And with an intention to open your heart to your own being,
To free your heart as we practice together.
Ask yourself,
Is there anything between me and being at home with myself?
Is there anything between me and being at home with myself?
What stories have you been telling yourself of letting others down,
Not being good enough,
Not meeting your own expectations?
Where have you been pushing yourself out of your own heart?
By judging or blaming or holding shame.
What's going on inside of you when you're acting out in some way that you condemn?
And staying with the body,
Staying with the breath and the heart.
As these underlying wants and fears arise,
Allow yourself to feel them directly in your body and in your heart.
When you're asking yourself these questions,
Where in the body do you sense these feelings,
These thoughts,
These belief systems?
And with an open and spacious awareness,
Is it possible to hold these vulnerabilities with compassion?
To see how you too are suffering,
Possibly acting from hurt or insecurity or out of the need to feel safe.
Continuing to breathe in and out of the heart,
Viscerally sensing the space that's created by the breath in the chest.
Holding yourself in forgiveness and in compassion.
Seeing whatever arises with the message of forgiveness.
You might sense what that communication of self-forgiveness would be most helpful for you in this moment.
Offering a short saying like,
I see how I've caused myself harm and I forgive myself.
Even resistance to this practice can be met with forgiveness.
Spending a few moments here,
Placing your hand on any part of your body that feels comforting,
Compassionate.
Forgiven.
Forgiven.
Breathing into the heart.
Wanting yourself to fully be here.
A sense of spacious awareness that offers forgiveness to whatever is here,
Whatever arises.
How to horny say.
Finding a way to make peace with our human imperfections is the ground of all healing.
The intention to forgive is the seed of forgiveness.
And although we cannot will forgiveness,
We can have a willingness to forgive.
So may we continue to plant these seeds of forgiveness,
And may we practice sprouting that seed of forgiveness in our own hearts.
