Learning to sit with yourself and everyone else too.
Take a moment to arrive wherever you are,
However you are.
Let your body settle.
Let your breath soften.
Let your attention gently turn inward.
Close your eyes if it feels safe to do so.
And if not,
Simply lower your gaze and soften your focus.
Now take a deep breath in and a slow steady breath out.
Again,
Inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the nose.
With each breath,
Invite yourself to be just a little bit more here.
Not in the past,
Not in the next task or thought,
But in this moment with yourself.
Know that you do not have to change anything,
You do not have to fix or figure anything out.
Just notice.
Notice how you feel.
Notice what's present in the body today.
Notice what you're carrying,
Even if you're not yet ready to put it down.
This practice of sitting with yourself.
Not to analyse or judge,
But to witness.
To sit with your sensitivity,
To sit with your strength,
To sit with your confusion,
Your clarity and your contradictions.
Can you let it all be here without the need or the pull to tidy it up?
If emotions do rise,
Guilt,
Joy,
Frustration,
Tenderness,
Greet it like an old friend.
Are you again?
I see you.
What are you here to show me?
Let your breath be your anchor,
Bringing you back into your body whenever you need.
And let your presence be the kindness.
As we move into today's reflection,
Know that it's okay to feel deeply.
It's okay to hold many truths all at once.
And it's okay not to have the answers.
This practice is never about being perfect.
It's about becoming honest,
Whole and real.
And so take another slow breath in,
And a gentle breath out.
Learning to sit with yourself,
And everyone else too.
Regulating our emotions is a journey.
You might be somebody who feels deeply.
Someone who notices a shift in a room when someone enters.
Who picks up on unspoken tensions,
Unmet needs and unsaid apologies.
You might be empathetic,
Curious,
Creative and sometimes exhausted.
You may have learnt to manage your emotions with a certain grace,
Yet still find yourself undone by a sudden sharpness of disappointment or frustration.
This doesn't make you broken,
It makes you human.
Many of us live in contrast.
We may feel a strong call to be calm and composed,
While also containing storms of passion or frustration.
We want to be kind,
But also honest.
We want to show up well for others,
But first we must learn to show up for ourselves.
That,
It turns out,
Is the hardest task.
The quiet work of self-compassion.
There is often a harshness in the way we speak to ourselves,
An invisible standard we measure our reactions against.
You should have known better,
The inner voice says.
Why are you still like this?
But what if self-compassion wasn't just about being softer,
But about being more truthful?
Sometimes we raise our voice,
Internally or externally,
Because something matters to us.
Sometimes we retreat,
Because the situation touches a wound.
Sometimes we over-explain,
Spiral,
Or replay conversations in our heads at night,
Because we haven't yet learnt how to safely hold our own contradictions.
This is not weakness,
This is awareness asking for practice.
Becoming your own safe place.
The next time you feel overwhelmed,
Try this.
Notice your reaction without judgement.
Label it if you want.
Anger,
Fear,
Sadness.
But then go further.
Where did it come from?
What did it touch in me?
Ask yourself.
Am I tired or overstimulated?
Do I feel misunderstood or unheard?
Am I responding to the moment or the story I'm telling about it?
Noticing doesn't erase the emotion,
But it does interrupt the automatic pattern.
It allows us to pause long enough to choose a new response.
It makes space for understanding instead of shame.
The integration of opposites.
You are allowed to be many things at once.
You can be calm and assertive.
Angry and still kind.
Sensitive and grounded.
The more we accept that we are walking contradictions,
The more room we give ourselves to grow.
The goal isn't to remove certain parts of ourselves.
It's to listen to them.
To understand why they show up when they do.
To stop treating one emotional state as better than another.
Every reaction is a signal.
Every feeling is a message.
What changes everything is our ability to sit with it,
Listen,
And choose how to respond.
Nobody gets it right all the time.
We all make mistakes.
Sometimes we lash out.
Sometimes we freeze.
Sometimes we disappoint others or ourselves.
Growth doesn't mean you never mess up again.
It means you reflect.
You repair.
You make space for learning.
And you stop believing that one bad day undoes all the good ones.
When others reflect something back at you that feels hard to hear,
Try this.
Resist the urge to defend.
Get curious.
What are they seeing in you that you haven't yet?
What story are they telling?
And what can you learn from it?
None of us are finished products.
We're all in motion,
Always becoming.
Emotions are old friends.
Evolution doesn't erase our emotional blueprint.
Anger still rises like a warning flare.
Fear still tightens our chest.
These feelings used to save our lives.
Now they mostly ask to just to be felt.
When strong emotions show up,
Try to thank them.
Say,
I see you.
I know you're here to protect me.
And then decide,
Do I need this protection right now?
Or can I choose something else?
This is emotional regulation,
Not suppression,
Not denial.
Just mindful,
Intentional engagement with the full spectrum of our experience.
Showing up more fully.
We often think that becoming better means becoming more composed,
More stable,
More in control.
But maybe it actually means becoming more aware,
More forgiving,
More attuned.
When we take time out to understand what's happening inside us,
We naturally show up more honestly with others.
We take things less personally.
We judge less.
We listen more.
We become people who are safe to be around because we've learned to be safe within ourselves.
So next time you feel something deeply.
Anger,
Joy,
Sorrow,
Tenderness.
Pause.
Witness it.
Ask what it's here to teach you.
You don't have to be perfect to be present.
You don't have to have it all together to be a person of value.
You just have to be willing to keep learning.
Even if it starts with nothing more than saying,
Today I noticed.
Let this be your reminder.
The way you speak to yourself matters.
The way you make space for your contradictions,
Your flows,
Your fire and your tenderness.
It all matters.
There is no final version of you waiting at the finish line.
There is only this moment,
This breath,
This chance to be a little more honest,
A little more gentle and a little more whole.
Keep showing up for yourself first.
Everything else will follow.
Start to deepen your breath.
Coming back into the body.
And just taking any of those words that resonate into your day with you.
And taking a moment of gratitude for showing up for yourself and carving out 10 minutes of your day just for you.
Let's take one deep breath together.
Inhaling in through the nose and sighing out the mouth.
Namaste.
