Hi and welcome to this meditation for when you doubt.
Close your eyes now.
Whatever part of you touches the earth,
Let your body sink deeper.
Whether it is the feeling of your feet sprouting roots,
Your pelvis sinking down,
Drop down and down,
Like a stone being thrown into a lake.
Whether you're conscious of it or not,
The earth is always supporting you,
So begin to throw off a veil of disassociation.
This meditation is for the parts of you that doubt.
That doubt your voice,
Your right to be here,
And you.
Mary Oliver says that attention is the beginning of devotion,
So attend.
Where does this experience of doubt live in your body?
Does this doubt live in your chest,
Wanting to cave in at the thought of being seen?
Does it hang out behind your forehead,
A litany of self disparaging words?
Does this doubt coat your tongue,
Causing you to stumble over your words?
Doubt can feel like it worms its way into your very being,
Whittling away at your desires and vitality until you are chipped.
Can you extend curiosity to this experience of doubt?
If you're ready,
Ask the doubt,
Where do you come from?
Ask the doubt,
What job do you do for me?
And how are you trying to help me?
Ask and listen.
If your hands aren't there already,
I invite you to cup your heart.
So often in life,
We encounter this paradox of wanting to be seen and wanting to retreat.
Is it any wonder that we might feel like this?
Now,
Blow into your hands or rub them together briskly,
Creating warmth.
Place a hand on your heart and the other on another part of you that craves this warmth and attention.
Ask and listen,
Coaxing these tender parts of yourself.
So often we want to battle with ourselves,
But we can learn how to temper that force and instead tend.
And if you don't know,
Try asking yourself,
How old were you when you first learned to doubt yourself?
If and when familiar stories come up,
Acknowledge.
And if you are able to,
Return to the sensation of doubt in your body,
Continuing to open a channel of communication to see why it's here,
How you learned it,
And what it believes it's trying to do for you.
And if you've had enough,
Just settle back into your body,
Back into the earth,
Feeling the heaviness of your body resting.
And maybe a distraction comes in and there's no forcing here,
Just continuously returning to the present moment.
With enough practice,
Attention,
And devotion,
You will begin to have a taste of your own beauty,
The being that breathes deep,
The parts of you that can never be harmed,
But can go into hiding.
Sometimes our hearts might respond and thrum with an endless longing when we start to ask and listen to ourselves.
You might experience a ripple of goosebumps throughout your body or tears prickling in your eyes.
And sometimes there's only the familiar cloak of numbness,
Which itself is a feeling.
Numbness is a powerful protector,
A flag planted in the sand that tells you of your exquisite sensitivity.
And instead of forcing an outcome,
Just tend.
A good gardener is patient.
They understand the mysteries of the earth and know not to pit their will against the seasons of life.
So welcome the doubt,
The resistance,
The numbness,
The restlessness,
The distraction.
Say hello to your bruised and holy heart.
Say hello to the hum of nature,
The life that courses through you.
Hello to the remembering of wholeness and the inevitable forgetting,
The life that breathes through all of us.
And invite anything you're not needing right now to drop back into its place in the earth,
Knowing that we are part of the cycle of taking and releasing with each breath.
Your doubt marks long-buried treasures.
Notice where it lives in your body and what it protects.
It's not easy to unearth this,
So trust.
Let any knowings from this practice be dipped in grace and swaddled in softness.
Be well.
