Something that I weave through all of my work is that at the root or at the core,
We're all basically good.
So when we think about at our core we're good,
Or there's something very whole,
At our core we're not broken,
We're not damaged,
We're whole.
What prevents us from discovering that and really knowing that all the time are these habits that we have,
And a lot of them are generated by the nervous system.
Our brain,
The negativity bias,
The way our brain likes to remember everything bad that ever happened because it wants to prevent it from happening again.
There's a good intention,
But a not very helpful outcome.
Just as you're getting settled into the practice,
Let your shoulders relax.
You might have your eyes open still,
You could look around the room.
There's this big difference between the fear for our safety in the moment and the fear for our safety in the future.
So right now in this moment if we can notice,
We look around,
We see the cues of safety,
We let our nervous system notice,
Ah right now it's okay for me to relax,
It's okay for me to take some deeper breaths,
I'm safe right now.
When we start a practice like that,
Noticing in our nervous system,
In that non-verbal language the nervous system has,
That it's okay to soften our muscles,
It's okay to breathe more deeply,
Then we have a chance at pulling the mind back in from the future worry.
Will I be safe in the future?
And when we have that running through our mind all the time,
It creates a lot of stress and anxiety and fear,
It's very hard on our system,
But it also really kind of blocks out or makes it less available to us that knowing of our wholeness,
Our basic goodness.
So as we're settling into the practice,
That's the core knowing is our own basic wholeness and basic goodness,
And that we have a to make it hard for us to access that.
And it's okay,
It's just the way our system works,
But when we understand our system,
Then we can let ourselves relax a little bit.
We don't have to try to find some goodness or develop some goodness in ourselves,
It's already there.
So let's just focus on that for a moment.
I'm fundamentally good,
Whole,
Unbroken.
Notice what the mind does when you say that,
It might set up a bunch of rebuttals.
Well,
You're not really all that good,
Look at the comment you made,
Or look how frustrated you were when you were doing this,
Or you had that jealous thought,
Or can't get out of bed and do your walk,
What's going on with you thinking you're such a hotshot?
And that's very familiar language,
Oftentimes from when we were children,
But also with the inner critic.
We have this perfection control mechanism that's very strong in our culture and most of our lives.
So if we were to sit with that and let that be known,
That's one of the responses in my mind.
We could see that for what it is,
It's not the truth.
We don't have to be perfect in all of our thoughts in order to be basically good and unbroken,
We don't have to expect that of ourselves.
That's actually another way to keep ourselves trapped.
As we work with cultivating gratitude,
One of the things that I'm very grateful for is that I know a lot about trauma and the trauma response.
I know how similar our systems are,
Even though the details are different.
We all have a survival system.
We all want to be connected with each other.
We all have trouble trusting that that's going to work out okay.
We all have some level of anxiety and fear for the future.
We have all of these mechanisms in common,
And some of these mechanisms make it very difficult to be present and whole,
To really feel that we are basically good and whole.
So as we're doing this practice,
Notice what's here,
Notice what's not helpful or unhelpful,
And see if you could let that move to the background.
You could bring your awareness more into the interior,
Into your heart center if you wanted.
What does your heart know about this?
What does your heart know about basic goodness?
What does your heart know about being whole and unbroken?
And as you're registering that,
Notice what that feels like.
You could also notice the thoughts coming in,
But also notice what does it feel like to sit with this knowing?
What does my heart know about being whole and unbroken?
One of the changes that happens as we do this deeper healing work is that we get to be very patient and kind with ourselves.
We take some of the pressure off in terms of wanting to be perfect or in control.
We get to really see these mechanisms as they work in our body,
Mind,
In our life.
Notice if there's gratitude here for that.
I know myself so well.
I'm not exactly thrilled at some of the patterns that are causing suffering,
And yet I know why they're here.
I know and I trust that I'll continue to heal.
My shoulders that used to be right up up in my ears are a little bit softer,
A little bit softer.
We can gradually let go of that tension in our body.
And then come back into just the feeling in the heart center and that sense of basic goodness.
I'm whole.
I'm not broken.
There might be parts of me that are having trouble with something.
At my core,
I'm basically good and I'm whole.
Our heart knows this.
We know this on some level.
Let's anchor into that for another minute or two.
Let yourself feel the truth of that.
I'm whole.
And if your mind wanders off into something else or a rebuttal,
That's okay.
Just bring it back.
Put your hands on your heart if you want.
In my deepest knowing,
My deepest heart,
I know that I'm whole.
