Nothing needs fixing right now.
Welcome.
For the next little while,
I'd like to invite you to put something down.
Not your phone,
Not your responsibilities,
Not even your thoughts.
Something perhaps a little less obvious.
The idea.
That there's something about you that needs fixing.
Just for now.
You can pick it back up afterwards if you really want to.
But for these few minutes,
There is no project.
No better version of you we're trying to uncover.
No breakthrough required.
No lesson you need to learn.
No emotional state we're trying to reach.
You don't even need to get better at meditating.
You just get to be here.
Find somewhere comfortable and let yourself sit or lie in whatever way feels good enough.
And when you're ready,
Gently close your eyes if you'd like to,
Or don't.
And start by noticing the support underneath you.
The weight of your body.
Being held by the earth beneath.
Notice the places where you're making contact with something solid.
These are portals into the present moment.
Let your breath do whatever it's doing,
No improving that either.
You may have spent a lot of your life learning,
Growing,
Healing,
Changing.
Understanding yourself.
And those things can be extraordinary.
Sometimes understanding ourselves changes everything.
But there's also a strange little trap we can fall into.
We can become so committed to becoming ourselves.
That we rarely let ourselves simply be ourselves.
There could always be another book.
Another podcast,
Another insight,
Another pattern to identify,
Another trigger to understand,
Another childhood experience to revisit,
Another habit to improve.
Another part of ourselves to heal.
And without ever quite intending to.
We can begin relating to ourselves as though we're an ongoing renovation project.
So today?
Today.
No renovation.
Just you.
Breathing.
Existing.
Taking up some space in the world.
Notice what happens in your body when I say,
Nothing needs fixing right now.
How does your body respond?
Maybe something softens.
Maybe absolutely nothing happens.
Maybe a part of you immediately objects.
But there are things I need to work on.
Probably.
You're human.
Welcome to the club.
But that's not the same as there being something fundamentally wrong with you in this moment.
See if you can notice your body without assessing it.
Just feel it.
Not,
Is this relaxed enough?
Am I breathing properly?
Why is my chest tight?
Should my shoulders feel different?
Just.
Sensation.
Perhaps your body feels comfortable.
Perhaps it doesn't.
Perhaps you're tired.
Restless.
May be heavy.
Or tense.
Perhaps you have some pain somewhere.
Or perhaps you're feeling emotions.
Perhaps you're not feeling much at all.
Can any of that just be here?
Without becoming evidence that you're doing life incorrectly.
Nothing needs fixing right now.
Perhaps notice your thoughts.
Not every thought,
Just the fact that they're happening.
Your mind may be commenting on this experience,
Judging it,
Planning what's next.
Remembering something embarrassing you said in 2007.
Brains are marvellous like that.
You don't have to quieten it.
You don't have to challenge every thought.
You don't have to replace it with a better thought.
For these few minutes,
Your mind can chatter away.
And you don't have to attend every meeting it invites you to.
Let your mind go.
Notice your breath again.
Just notice one breath arriving.
And one breath leaving.
And another.
You haven't earned these breaths,
You don't need to.
Life is happening through you without requiring you to prove anything first.
And maybe,
Maybe there are things in your life you want to change,
Things you regret.
Things you're learning.
Ways you've behaved that you want to take responsibility for,
Ways you want to grow.
None of that disappears because you stop attacking yourself.
Accountability doesn't require self-rejection.
Growth doesn't require you to despise where you're starting from.
And healing doesn't have to mean spending your entire life looking for evidence that you're wounded.
For these few minutes,
You are allowed to be unfinished.
You are allowed to not know.
You are allowed to have patterns you haven't figured out.
You are allowed to have feelings that aren't particularly evolved.
You're allowed to be irritated.
Confused Messi.
Bored Human.
And none of it needs attending to.
Right now.
See if you can feel the space around your body.
The air touching your skin.
And the sounds that come and go.
The world continuing without requiring anything from you in this exact moment.
How about spending a few moments in your own company without evaluating yourself?
Without trying to love yourself harder.
Without trying to forgive yourself.
And without trying to improve your relationship with yourself,
Just.
.
.
Just.
.
.
Being.
With you.
Perhaps there is something quite intimate about that.
To be witnessed by yourself.
Without immediately being corrected.
So stay here for a moment.
Nothing to do.
Nothing to sell.
Nowhere else you need to be for these few breaths.
Nothing needs fixing right now.
And when you're ready.
Begin to notice the room again,
Sounds,
Temperature.
The surface underneath you.
Move your fingers.
Move your toes.
Maybe stretch your arms or roll your shoulders.
Turn your head from side to side.
Extend your spine,
Flex your spine,
Let your body decide what feels good.
And before you go.
Perhaps take this with you.
You can be committed to growth.
Without making yourself a problem.
You can change things.
Without declaring war on who you are today.
And you can return to yourself.
Not because you finally become the person you were supposed to be.
But because this is where you live.
So go gently back into your day.
There will be plenty of time for doing,
Learning,
Changing,
Figuring things out.
But perhaps.
.
.
Every now and again.
Put the tools down.
Close the toolbox.
Take off the emotional hard hat and remember.
You're also allowed simply to live.
