Hi,
My name is Karen.
I wanted to create a meditation to perhaps help you by giving you the language of letting go or releasing emotional pain.
Broken bones mend.
Cuts heal over and scars fade but emotional pain and trauma can remain.
To continue to carry its burden is to choose to build a wall around your heart and you deserve so much more in this life.
I will be speaking in the first person voice using the proper pronoun I.
My hope is that my words will begin to ring true as your own.
The concept of letting go is very big and feels sometimes impersonal but we feel its pain very personally.
I hope that this helps and of course know that you're not alone.
Seeking the assistance of a therapist can be very effective to help to guide you in the right direction.
Find a place where you feel safe seated or laying down and if you'd like to use earphones this can further enable you to feel as though you're listening to your own thoughts embedding your own understanding of the content.
Take a deep breath in and then sigh it out through your mouth.
You can use this breath as often as you need to throughout this meditation.
On your next exhale gently close your eyes.
If you're uncomfortable closing your eyes turn your gaze slightly downward and soften your focus and take a moment now to see how it is that you've arrived.
Become aware of your thoughts without judgment.
Acknowledge each changing thought.
With an objectivity to find clarity as to the quality of your thoughts their nature are these kind thoughts,
Angry thoughts,
Anxious thoughts.
A thought is neither good nor bad it's simply there for a moment and then it's gone.
Notice your heart space.
Your emotions are tangled up in your thoughts and this can be confusing.
Now scan your body looking for any sensations that might be there noting any fidgeting,
Pain,
Tension,
Congestion and if you find a place in your body where there is no discernible sensation label it as blank.
It's neither good or bad it just simply is.
Take another deep breath in and as you exhale we begin.
I release you.
I release you by my own choice.
I release you.
I let go of you because I have carried you for too long.
I release you to make space for myself.
A space of love and compassion.
Of forgiveness.
I forgive myself for carrying your burden.
It has continued to cause me pain because I need to be free.
Pain has been one of my greatest teachers but I am not frightened of the candle it's flame.
As a young child I learned long ago the dangers of fire and I will not willingly put myself in harm's way again but I didn't see you coming.
I suddenly realized that I was caught in a storm of confusion and anger hurt and fear and it takes nothing to be suddenly pulled back into that space when first we met or last parted.
I left but I brought the pain with me and it became mine.
In that moment long ago I was so lost and so confused I couldn't see beyond the blinding turmoil that it become my heart my life.
I could no longer see any separation between the pain and me but now that there is time between the pain and I I can see beyond the walls that I built to protect myself.
I see that I trapped myself inside and you as well.
We became angry sad creatures lost in a cycle of resentment and hurt and I found myself each time returning to the story it cut through me just like it did when it happened.
How long ago did that happen?
I don't know.
It doesn't really matter.
It feels like yesterday and I bound myself up with that pain.
My confidence was shattered.
I don't know how I let this happen.
Trust was broken.
I don't know how I let this happen.
I found myself a victim.
I forgive myself for carrying this burden.
I couldn't understand in the moment.
In that moment I had a choice to sink or swim but now I feel like I'm drowning in this and so I release you.
I accept what was and so I take the wisdom of the candle forward with me but I choose to let go the wick which has bound myself to its pain.
I watch as the pain sinks down into the ocean and I allow myself to rise up to ascend.
I'm no longer bound by the anger and fear that crippled me.
I rise up above the walls that I built and I soften my heart and I breathe in my own breath and breathe out any memory of its pain.
I release self-doubt.
I did my very best with everything that I had.
I did my best.
I let go the acrimony,
The anger,
The sense of being wronged.
It no longer matters you see because I'm free.
I let go of the pain and the confusion to make space in my heart for love and kindness and in that space of compassion I realize that I am enough.
I survived.
I survived whatever pain was there and in surviving I can now see that I was strong.
So strong and so brave that the armor that I wore to survive this has become so heavy now and so I let it drop and I will not visit this memory again.
I now know your voice.
You are the voice of doubt in my head and I know that it's you not me speaking.
I choose me.
I am the survivor.
I am enough and so I let you go but I will never forget you just as I never forgot the candle.
I will remember the inherent threat you bear to my wellness,
To my sense of self.
I know you now and whatever the universe may bring to me I will meet it with hope and grace and I will open my heart,
My mind to experience what it is to be human.
I am a survivor and I will make space for all that the universe can give me.
Allow yourself a few moments now just to be in your body.
As you represents yourself into this space perhaps tap your chest lightly with your hand or gently pat your belly.
Breathing in and breathing out.
May you be well.
May you be safe and free as is the right of all beings.
Namo Buddhaya.
Namaste.
