This is a meditation on self-forgiveness.
Taking the time to consider yourself as the imperfect human being that you are.
And as such you're bound to failure and challenge.
Come seated on the floor in an upright position.
Or if that's not comfortable,
Find a chair or a bed and fully support yourself with pillows and blankets to create a time of comfort.
And take a deep breath in,
Breathing in deeply,
Exhaling completely.
Closing your eyes if that feels safe.
Notice the breath coming into your body,
Being warmed through your nostrils.
And notice the breath leaving your body,
Taking with it stress and distraction.
Exhaling in cleansing energy to ground you in this moment.
As you feel captivated by the breath,
As you allow yourself that time and energy to come that time and space to be richly filled by that breath.
Notice the presence of thoughts that may be unsettling you.
Thoughts that are holding you to a standard that you just cannot meet.
Chasing you,
Gnawing at you,
Compelling you to be perfect.
The perfect friend,
The perfect child,
The perfect sibling,
The most perfect performer,
In any and every role that you play.
Notice those thoughts.
Notice where you feel those thoughts in your body.
Is it in your forehead?
Is it in your throat?
Is it a heaviness in your chest?
Or an unsettledness in your belly?
You feel this pain because you can't meet that standard.
Maybe sometimes,
But certainly not all the time.
Because no matter how hard you try,
You cannot escape being human.
We are by definition imperfect,
Delightfully imperfect,
Frustratingly imperfect,
And human.
Take this moment to offer yourself the love and support that you'd offer a friend if they came to you and said,
I have sadness,
I have heaviness,
Because I'm not perfect.
It's hard,
It's disappointing,
And it's deeply frustrating to not be in any given moment the person that we want to be.
Yet we can offer ourselves love in that moment,
Love through the pain of not being and doing and acting in the way that we would like.
Offer yourself love.
I love you.
I'm here for you.
I forgive you for not being perfect.
Take a few more breaths.
Letting the air that you're taking deeply enrich you.
And let the exhale take stress away.
And now take this moment to remind yourself that you're not alone.
You share a common humanity with all the other imperfect humans on this planet.
Not only is there someone who's made the same mistakes that you have made,
There's someone also feeling the suffering of those mistakes.
Let's take a moment to offer yourself forgiveness for your imperfection and send forgiveness too to the others who in this very moment are also suffering in the very same way.
The power and the focus of your mind heals yourself through this moment and heals another far,
Far away.
Hold that love in your heart.
Hold that healing for yourself and for another.
And now let's take a few deep breaths.
Inhaling deeply and exhaling completely.
As we begin to consider opening our eyes and bringing our attention back to the room.
