Hello and welcome to this meditation for those with loved ones affected by mental illness.
Let's begin by taking a comfortable seat.
Sitting up nice and tall,
Elongating your spine,
The crown of your head reaching towards the sky.
Allow your eyes to soften,
Relax your jaw.
I want to bring your attention and awareness to your breath.
Feel your breath.
Place your hands either on your belly,
On your heart,
Or one hand on your belly,
One hand on your heart.
Take some deep,
Smooth inhales through your nose,
Taking that breath into your belly.
And then allow your exhale to be smooth and gentle out your nose.
Taking a few more breaths just like that,
Calming and soothing our nervous system.
We're able to control the mind with our breath.
Now I want you to call to mind your loved one who lives with mental illness.
And I want you to think about how their illness has impacted you and your life.
How and in what ways?
Just pause here for a moment,
Bringing to mind your loved one.
And perhaps their illness has allowed you to take on a different perspective.
Maybe you're not just seeing things through your lenses,
But you're able to put yourself in their shoes for a moment.
Thinking about how their life has been impacted by their mental illness,
The choices and consequences of their actions.
Sometimes we think we know better than them,
So we might judge them.
But we are not living their life.
We are not living in their body.
So offering love and compassion to your loved one who lives with this mental illness every single day.
How it impacts their ability to work,
To interact,
To live a relatively quote normal life.
Maybe their life hasn't gone the direction that you would have liked to have seen it go.
But that's where we can learn to let go a little bit.
Letting go and knowing that this is their journey and they have to make their own decisions.
So it's important to remember to also send ourselves love and compassion,
Not just our loved one.
Because their mental illness has had some impact on our lives.
Something important to remember is to not take things so personally.
Understand that this is part of their mental illness.
And we need to remember to see the person and not the illness.
So try to remember who your loved one is.
And if you are a caretaker of a person with mental illness,
Please remember to take time for yourself.
Self-care is not selfish.
It's what we do for ourselves so that we can help and support other people around us.
You cannot pour from an empty cup.
So make sure you have your boundaries.
Where you're able to say no to things when you need to,
To protect yourself,
Your peace,
Your sanity,
Your wellness.
Taking another breath here.
Observing the breath.
Breathing into the belly,
Nice full inhales.
And allow the exhale to completely empty out of your body.
Take a moment here to again send yourself some love and compassion.
Send your loved one with mental illness some love and compassion.
And remember to not judge ourselves so harshly to expectations that either we place on ourselves or maybe our loved one places on us.
It's important to remember to be gentle and kind to yourself,
Especially if our loved one is going through a crisis.
And the most important thing to remember is to not give up hope.
Keep that hope alive in your heart for your loved one.
Take a nice deep inhale through your nose.
Open your mouth,
Sigh it out.
On your next inhale,
Reach your arms up and overhead.
And exhale,
Bringing down that divine universal energy to your heart center.
Thank you so much for joining me for this meditation.
The light in me salutes and honors the light in you.
Namaste.
