Welcome to today's meditation.
Today,
The theme is resilience.
Resilience is the ability to overcome challenges that you may meet on your path to achieving your goals in life.
We can build emotional resilience through the technique of mindfulness,
The practice of mindfulness.
And by building more emotional resilience,
We're able to let go more easily to feelings of success and also feelings of failure.
By creating more space between ourselves and these feelings of success and failure,
The idea is that we'll be able to build more equanimity,
Allowing us more easily to navigate through any periods of success or any periods where we may have a strong sense of failure.
So we're really thinking about cultivating the ability to notice the physical sensations of success and failure,
And then being able just to bring awareness to them,
Knowing that they are just feelings that we can create distance from.
So in this visualization exercise,
I'm going to ask you to bring to mind the recent experience that you may have had with success.
And I'm also going to ask you to bring to mind an experience that you've recently had of failure.
Any event where you feel like there has been a strong theme of failure,
And then another event with a strong theme of success.
Let's start by taking three deep breaths together.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Breathing in and breathing out.
Allowing yourself to settle wherever you are.
Whether you're seated in a chair,
Lying down or standing.
Find yourself in a position where you feel comfortable,
But you're also alert,
Able to bring your full awareness to this mindfulness exercise.
I'd recommend having your feet grounded on the floor.
Just feeling the sensation of the earth beneath you.
Just noticing,
What does that feel like?
You're welcome to close your eyes.
Or if it's more comfortable,
Just lower your gaze.
Bringing gentle awareness now to your breath in your body.
Noticing that you are breathing where you feel the breath.
Noticing any qualities of the breath.
Anything that stands out.
Maybe the breath feels deep,
Shallow,
Smooth,
Ragged.
How does it feel?
Bringing our awareness to our bodies.
Just scanning the body lightly.
Gentle awareness from the head to the face,
Neck,
Shoulders.
Just noticing as we scan down,
Are there any tension points?
Maybe a tightness in the throat,
The shoulders,
The arms,
Maybe some other sensations.
Tingling maybe in the hands,
Fingers.
Scanning our torsos,
Our lower back,
Pelvis,
Sit bones,
Legs,
All the way down to the ankles,
The soles of the feet and the toes.
Just take a deep breath,
Breathing in and breathing out.
I ask you now to bring to mind that experience of failure.
A memory of something that happened where you felt in some way like you'd failed.
Maybe you let someone down.
Maybe you didn't meet a goal that you had.
Maybe you made a mistake.
Just noting to yourself what happened.
Who else was there?
Now just observe what emotions did you feel during this experience of failure.
Where do you feel those emotions now in the body?
What do the sensations feel like?
Just scanning the body again as you relive this experience of failure and just noticing what sensations are you experiencing in the body.
And what about thoughts?
What thoughts are coming up for you in this experience of failure?
Are there any words or phrases that stand out?
Is there a narrative here that you're telling yourself about this event?
What about yourself?
Now let's see if we can experience these emotions and thoughts without any aversion.
Without trying to push them away.
Acknowledging that they may feel unpleasant but knowing that they are just emotions.
They are just thoughts.
Can you just allow these experiences to happen?
To move through you.
To come and go.
Giving your emotions a chance around this experience.
Space.
Kindness.
How does that feel?
Taking a deep breath in and exhale.
Now I ask you to bring to mind that experience of success.
Something went the way you wanted it to.
Maybe you achieved a significant award.
Recognition.
You met a goal that you had.
Just firstly noticing who's there with you.
What happened?
And as you take yourself back to that experience,
Notice where in the body are you now feeling emotions,
Sensations arise.
What parts of the body are particularly activated for you right now?
Are there any places where you feel strong sensations or more subtle sensations?
Notice what thoughts are now arising about this experience of success.
Again noticing any words or phrases that stand out.
Noticing any narrative that's there.
Just observing the emotions and the thoughts.
Bringing your awareness to everything that you are experiencing.
Now let's see if we can create the ability to experience all of this emotion,
The sensations,
Your thoughts without holding onto them.
Just acknowledging that these are just physiological responses in your body.
They aren't you and you are not your emotions.
Maybe the sensations,
The feelings are pleasant but they're still simply just experiences.
Seeing if you can allow these experiences to come and go as they please.
Giving them space just to be.
Let us now take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale.
Allowing us to return to the present,
To our bodies,
To the room that we're in,
The space that we're in.
Just check in now with your body.
Maybe doing another scan from head to toe.
Just noticing any sensations that are present.
Taking another deep breath in through the nose and exhaling.
If you'd like to,
Placing a hand on your chest,
Over the heart.
Just noticing,
Continuing to be aware of what's happening in your body.
