You can feel free to close your eyes or soften your gaze and begin to take a few deep breaths.
As you breathe,
Is it possible to let go of any tightness,
Any tension you notice holding?
Opening the muscles of your face,
Dropping your shoulders away from your ears a little bit more.
Relaxing the lower back and belly.
Letting our hands rest comfortably.
As we settle into our chair,
As we settle into our being.
Noticing any internal sensations,
How we're feeling in this moment.
And making space for all of those different emotions and sensations and thoughts that perpetuate emotions and more sensations.
Making space simply allows us to be present,
To notice what is,
To be open without judgment to them,
To hold them tenderly if they're painful,
And to give ourselves permission for them to exist without trying to change or modify them in some way.
Being open in this way,
Sitting with what is,
Is our vulnerability.
It requires courage and strength.
It allows us to see that we are not fragile and weak to feel a certain way.
That it is inherent in our humanness that we get to both feel challenge,
To feel difficulty,
To feel anguish and suffering,
And still go on to heal using compassion and support and connection.
And come through the other side,
Knowing ourselves a little bit more deeply,
A little bit more clearly.
Is it possible to reflect on this idea of vulnerability in your own life?
Using past events or experiences when you noticed your defenses coming down,
When you noticed being with an open,
Loving presence,
Even in the face of pain or challenge.
How does it feel to be this raw,
To be open and exposed?
Is there a time when you let your defenses down and felt vulnerable,
Where you were also held in a compassionate and loving presence,
Either your own or somebody else's?
What is the felt sense experience of this compassion?
How did it feel to be held in such a way while also feeling raw,
Open and vulnerable?
When we allow ourselves to rest in compassion,
Our own or someone else's,
We discover a capacity to bear witness to,
To suffer with,
And to hold our own vulnerable heart with hope in the face of both the sorrows and the beauties of this world.
Mary Oliver has a poem called Wild Geese.
She writes,
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair,
Yours,
And I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes over the prairies and the deep trees,
The mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese high in the clean blue air are heading home again.
Whoever you are,
No matter how lonely,
The world offers itself to your imagination,
Calls to you like the wild geese,
Harsh and exciting,
Over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
In the midst of difficulty,
We can repeatedly stop and return to our heart's goodness,
Reconnect to our strength of compassion,
Reconnect to our vulnerability.
Our vulnerability yells,
We belong.
We belong in the family of things.
Our truth,
Our goodness,
Our deepest selves belong.
Is it possible to bring a wave of gratitude to yourself for this time,
For this intention,
For this openness to be with who you truly are?
Is it possible to continue being free while holding this balance of the challenges and things that are painful as well as the beauty that makes you,
You?
And allow yourself to take a few more deep breaths in and out,
Making gentle movements as you come back to this moment,
Come back to this room,
As you reawaken.
Namaste.
