So today's meditation is building on our theme of self-love and love for the month of February and this will take us on a little journey of different versions of ourselves over the years.
So go and get yourself somewhere comfortable and we'll begin.
So when we look back over our lives whether we're 20,
30,
50,
80,
100 and however old we might be,
There will be different versions of our self over that time and meditation can be a really lovely experience to connect with those different versions of our self over the years and maybe give ourselves a little chat or conversation of what we might be going through at that time with the knowledge and experience of what we have now.
So in today's meditation we're going to be thinking and bringing to mind different times when we were at different people if you like or at different ages and of course that might throw up uncomfortable or sad or emotional memories and it's important that if anything is stirred up that you find someone that you can speak to afterwards but often it can be a really lovely experience to reconnect with younger versions of ourselves and just see what a journey you've been on since then.
So get yourself somewhere comfortable wherever you might be and just remembering that our posture is comfortable and alert so we're not looking to fall asleep necessarily during the meditation.
But what we're going to try and do today is speak to ourselves in a very positive and loving kind way as if we were talking to a best friend.
So take a moment to balance through your sit bones,
Sit bones draw up through the spine and just bring your hands down to your lap or to your knees.
Maybe give your shoulders a little bit of a roll around draw the shoulders down away from the ears and then just take a moment to release any tension stored in your neck and closing your eyes when you're ready and just taking the head slightly below the horizon line tucking the chin down towards the chest and take some time now just to breathe deeply filling your body with breath and as you breathe out allowing your body to soften and to relax and as you sit here with the weight of the body on the chair or the ground wherever you might be just feel grounded and supported in this moment and just imagine that you can turn the volume down on life for a few moments now for the next 10 minutes or so get sounds and distractions begin to fade and the same goes for thoughts so whatever's happened so far today or whatever you might be looking ahead to later on just allow those thoughts to fade for now everything and everyone can wait and start to feel like you're in this little bubble of stillness and all you have to do is to sit and breathe and connect with your breath and your body feeling your rise and your fall just take a few moments to be here in this moment breathing in any way you choose at this point so and let's take two deep breaths together breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth and just a few more breathing in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth and then when you're ready close your mouth and start to breathe in and out through your nose and having this incredibly gentle and kind experience as you gently focus on your breath the rise and the fall and I'd like you to take a moment to think of yourself here right now feeling the weight of your physical body here on the chair but also having a sense of who you are within what makes you tick what makes you unique what would your best friend or loved one say are your most special parts of your personality what makes you you and as you sit here in this moment your whole life is led to here formed by experience so I'd like you to think now of you yourself as a child maybe a memory or time of your childhood comes to mind that you'd like to focus on if you can maybe you can picture yourself as a child having that experience or maybe you can remember what it felt like to be there see if you can transport yourself for a few moments back to this time as a younger version of who you are today just take some time to breathe and be with this younger self so so and I wonder what you today would like to say to that younger version of you so look how far you've come so I wonder if you can fast forward in time a little bit now to maybe your teenage years maybe you can find a moment from your last few years at school or even when you've just left school is in a moment in time that's coming to mind today can you picture yourself or feel yourself in that moment now wonder where you are or who you're with how do you feel and is there anything that you today would like to say to teenage you just take a few breaths with this teenage younger version of yourself and look how far you've come so and now take a moment to transform or transport yourself back maybe just a few days a few weeks a few months or years so some time fairly recently maybe it was a time of challenge a time that immediately comes to mind maybe was a little tricky can you feel yourself in that position or even see yourself having that experience and what would you like to say to that person right now and take a few deep breaths here and look how far you've come and we'll spend these last few moments just really taking some deep breaths filling the chest but filling that heart space for all these versions of you that have formed who you are today so as you breathe in allow your heart to be filled with love for yourself in this moment on this journey and know all of those versions of you who we've met today make up you right now you are unique and you are special so just taking these last few moments of our practice holding on to the breath for a few moments if you can just to really feel that heart filled with self and as you breathe out just allow your body to soften to feel and to relax and then just slowly allowing your breath to return to a comfortable rhythm and flowing for you in your own time maybe taking a little bit of movement wiggling fingers and toes taking any little stretches you want to take and eventually bringing your hands together giving your hands a little bit of a rub creating some warmth and some heat and then hovering your hands over your eyes blinking your eyes open inside your hands and bringing your hands down away from your face away from your face and i'm here and i hope that's a useful little exercise for you to revisit other versions of yourself and practicing an element of self-love towards all of those different versions and knowing that they've made up who you are today hopefully you had a positive experience that helped you to feel a sense of connection of where you've come from but as i said at the start if anything's been brought up you can of course turn to a loved one or we do have some information on the website of people you might want to talk to if anything has arisen that you'd like to discuss a little further remember love and kindness to yourself always all right i hope you have a lovely rest of your day and i will see you again very soon bye for now you
