I Know My Body

To love ourselves and our body, we can cultivate connection through becoming familiar with our body. Try this guided practice of connection and relaxation to explore your body and your relationship with your body.

Transcript

To know me is to love me.

How can we love what we don't know?

That quote from Gabor Maté,

We disconnect from ourselves our sense of value and from the present moment.

What we're doing here is that we're coming into knowing ourselves in a very deep way.

And as we do that,

We really find and discover our own basic goodness that was always here.

It's just that we didn't have access to it.

So notice just now what your response was as I'm speaking about loving ourselves.

And let yourself have whatever complex,

Nuanced response you have.

It's not an easy thing.

Most of us don't have an abundance of love for ourselves.

All of those responses might be part of that.

There might be a sadness or a grief.

As we're noticing that,

Just notice your body,

Notice your breath.

Notice if things kind of tightened up or if things loosened up,

Softened up.

We're interested in knowing ourselves and releasing the things that hold us back from that whole hearted love and support and I'm my own best friend.

And just the possibility that we could love ourselves more.

Might have opened something up,

Maybe softened something.

Notice your whole body,

Head to toes.

In a particular,

Notice your heart center.

And then notice your forehead and eyebrows,

Your eyes.

As you're breathing out,

Let your forehead soften.

Let any worries or concerns melt away.

We're not trying to change anything.

We're just noticing.

Coming down into the navel center,

The lower belly as well.

Notice the rhythm of your breath.

And if it feels okay to take some deeper breaths,

Do that.

Really let yourself breathe in and let yourself breathe out.

We could do that extended exhale or two-to-one breathing for several breaths.

Just notice what that feels like.

So as you're breathing out,

Not to press your stomach muscles in towards your spine,

Just to soften your stomach muscles.

And if you're breathing in to a count of three,

You could breathe out to five or six,

As long as there's ease in your breath.

And we're letting go of the stale air in our lungs.

What else could you let go of right now?

Deep inhales,

Long slow exhales.

We could let go of tension in the body.

We could let go of the stale air in our lungs.

And as you're aware of your experience right now,

We're just resting your body,

We're noticing the breath.

Notice what's in the way.

Are there any obstacles?

If you were to say,

I love myself,

I know myself,

I know myself fully,

I love myself,

Is there any objection to that?

Either a contraction in your body or holding your breath or thoughts in your mind?

So often we have an inner critic,

We have shame.

What are those things that you could let go of?

Just as you're breathing in and then breathing out and releasing the stale air,

The tension in your body,

We could experiment at least with letting go of some of those things that hold us back.

A lot of those obstacles are really interconnected and interwoven with trauma,

With experiences as a child that we weren't really known and loved included,

We weren't safe.

These are not simple things.

Maybe we could foster a cultivating of love,

A cultivating of,

It's okay for me to let go of some of those old patterns.

I don't need to be scared anymore about getting to know myself.

I'm not going to discover anything bad.

I might discover hurt or pain or an inner critic or something like that.

It might be trauma held in the body or shame,

That's true.

And that doesn't mean that we're bad,

It means that we've been hurt.

Just keep bringing yourself back into this softening.

Soften through your heart.

Deep breaths,

Long exhales,

Letting go of anything that's being held in your body.

Notice the sensations of air in your nostrils.

Notice your whole back body.

Notice if you're settled back into the support or settled down into it.

Are you letting the chair or the floor or the bed support your body,

Letting it hold you?

And look to see how well you know your body.

These practices that we do of relaxation,

Part of what we're doing is reconnecting with our body or maybe connecting for the first time since we were a child.

If you were to say,

I know my body,

I'm familiar with my body,

We won't go to,

I love my body,

Not yet.

Just,

I'm familiar with my body.

I'm willing to know and to be present in my body and to cultivate that.

Again,

We're working with that disconnection that happens with trauma and we can't consciously decide that all of a sudden we're going to really love and take care of and be connected in our body.

That's a process.

Just to notice the willingness.

I'm willing to get to know my body more and more deeply.

I have such compassion for the tough working conditions in my body,

The tension that we hold,

The ways that we escape,

Which might include addictions or other things that aren't healthy for us.

And if you're getting anything other than a hundred percent yes,

Then see if you could have some compassion and just be connected with that.

I'm not quite a hundred percent on that yet.

And then come back to just kind of letting that settle.

Notice what you're experiencing again through your senses,

How your body is being held,

What happened to your breath.

One of the most loving things that we can ever do for our body is to breathe,

But take in enough air to give it the fuel it needs.

The oxygen can go to all the cells in the body.

To relax our body and release the tension out of our body also really helps.

We could also look into this feeling that our body is doing its best for us.

That our body is never deliberately trying to mess us up or hurt us.

Even though we might have illness or pain in the body,

There's no maliciousness.

There's nothing there that's trying to hurt us.

Our body is on our own side.

We could sense into that,

Feel into that for a moment.

What's your response to that?

And as I get to know my body well,

I become much more connected with my body and much more loving towards my body.

We can heal that disconnect,

That separation in the mind,

Body,

The heart.

Notice your heart.

Notice any feelings,

Sensations,

Any thoughts.

I know my body.

I'm willing to know my body.

I'm willing to cultivate a friendly relationship with my body,

A connected,

Loving relationship.

Let the words kind of fall into the background.

Focus on the felt sense of that.

Notice where your mind goes if it wanders off and bring it back.

Of course our body is not separate from our being.

Our experience in this life is through a body,

It's through this particular body that we're in.

And we're noticing the willingness to have a loving connection.

It's okay for me to know and cultivate love for my body.

And to really accept whatever is happening,

This is where we are now.

There's not a problem if we're not 100% on board with that.

That would be very common if we're not.

And this is something we can really heal and really work with,

Is this willingness to keep coming back into connection with our body,

With our thoughts,

Our emotions,

Our reality,

And to experience that love,

That connection.

Reviews

Very helpful allowing me to meet myself where I’m at to nurture a connection with my body. So important for my healing. TY

Great thank you so much for the meditation