A practice for working with dis-ease and addiction.
Settle yourself down,
Make yourself comfortable to reflect and meditate on addiction.
A practice to stay with and move beyond any dis-ease and discomfort you may struggle with or want to avoid in some way that drives addiction.
So whether you are sitting or lying down,
Adjust the body to feel supported,
Comfortable,
So you can spend some time being with any dis-ease or restlessness.
You might like to put something like a book,
A blanket or a pillow under the back of the head to slightly lift and support it.
Having something under the knees like a pillow or a bolster can also help you feel supported,
Turning off any external devices that might distract you.
Make yourself comfortable to spend some time just being with any feelings or emotions of discomfort that you may want to get rid of,
Fix or change,
Thoughts,
Feelings or emotions that you have suppressed and voided,
Used on.
It may be that you want to deepen a connection to a higher power,
An unchanging stillness that is completely free of any addiction or dis-ease.
Remember you can stop the meditation at any time if you need to.
But here see if you can learn to sit with any discomfort or dis-ease for one second and then one more second before you move.
You can learn to bring in an inner soothing feeling of comfort and ease,
A natural sense of well-being to help calm the nervous system,
A sense of inner comfort and safety if you need it,
To neutralise any discomfort by connecting with the feeling of inner comfort and safety in the body as you recall images,
Smells,
Tastes,
Touch and sounds that can soothe you when needed.
If you have not felt safe,
How would you comfort someone else?
Can you learn to give that to yourself?
You can physically use something like hugging a pillow as if you were comforting the hurt part of yourself.
Now recall an image of somewhere safe,
Maybe a place you have gone to where no one can hurt you,
It can be a real safe place or an imaginary place where you can or have felt safe,
A safe room,
A beach,
A safe space,
A forest,
A place where no one can harm you,
Your own resource,
Your own safe sanctuary.
Then let go of the images and connect with a feeling of comfort and ease in the body and ease in the other senses,
Healthy tastes,
Soothing smells,
Safe touch,
Nurturing sounds and in a resource you are connecting with a feeling of safety,
Comfort and ease,
A calm feeling you can access,
That you can use to nurture yourself.
At any time during the meditation if you need it,
A feeling of ease in the body to balance out any dis-ease.
What is your deepest wish for life?
Maybe to be clean and sober,
Free of your addiction,
Happy,
Safe and content,
Become it.
The opposite of the irritable,
Restless and discontent,
Confirm it in your mind's eye,
I am happy,
Clean and sober,
Peaceful and content.
Or any other deep wish you have,
Feel it,
Become it.
Let's scan the body and feel the body as sensation.
Feel inside the mouth,
The gums and the jaw,
A sensation.
Feel the sensation running through to the left ear and the right ear.
Both ears a pure sensation.
Feel the nose pulsing with air coming in and out of the nostrils.
The nose a sensation.
Imagine and feel the left eye and the right eye,
A sensation.
Both eyes are balls of sensation.
The whole head is a ball of sensation.
Take your attention to the left shoulder and feel the sensation pulsing down the left arm,
The upper arm,
The lower arm.
Pulsing sensation.
The left hand and fingers pulsing.
Feel the whole left arm and hand as vibrant,
Radiant sensation.
Take your attention to the right shoulder,
Feel the sensation pulsing down the right arm,
The upper arm and the lower arm.
Pulsing sensation.
The right hand,
The fingers,
Pulsing sensation.
The whole right arm as vibrant sensation.
Feel both arms pulsing.
Feel both arms as sensation.
Feel into the chest,
The lungs as vibrant sensation.
Feel the belly rising and falling,
The upper back and the lower back.
Feel the whole trunk of the body as sensation.
Feel down into the pelvis,
Down into the hips.
Feel the left hip pulsing,
The right hip pulsing.
Feel the pulsing going down the left leg,
The upper leg,
The lower leg,
The ankle,
The foot and toes.
All as sensation.
The whole left leg as sensation.
Take your attention to the right hip,
Feel the pulsing down the right leg,
The upper leg,
The lower leg,
The ankle,
The foot and toes.
All as sensation.
Feel both legs together,
Both legs as sensation.
Feel the whole body,
The whole body as radiant pulsing sensation.
Sense the space around the body.
Step back as the one who is just aware and free.
As the watcher of the sensation of the body.
Free from the body.
Sense how you are the unchanging stillness.
As free of the body.
Feel back into the body.
Pay your attention to the breath.
Feel the breath as sensation,
Entering and leaving the body.
Feel the body being breathed.
Step back as the part of you that can just watch the breath and the body.
Feel into being the watcher.
The awareness of the body being breathed.
The unchanging,
Undamaged space of being.
As free of the breath and body.
The vast space.
It is unchanging.
Feel back into the body.
Feel into the body.
Can you welcome a feeling as sensation?
Maybe a feeling of discomfort or restlessness.
Dis-ease within the body.
Or any other feeling.
Can you welcome and experience them just as sensation?
Without trying to change them or alter them.
Just feeling the feeling as a sensation.
Curious.
The sensation of feeling.
Remember the feeling of inner comfort and safety.
The natural antidote to dis-ease.
A tool you have available to soothe the nervous system.
And any discomfort.
Help you feel safe and at ease.
If you need it at any time.
It is helpful.
What would an opposite feeling be?
Maybe what is the opposite feeling of dis-ease?
What is the opposite feeling of restlessness?
Irritability.
Or discontent.
Could you welcome in that feeling maybe of comfort?
Ease.
Contentment.
Calmness.
If you can feel them or imagine them.
Where do you feel it?
How does it feel?
Feeling these sensations.
You can go between the two opposite feelings.
Comfort,
Discomfort.
Ease and dis-ease.
Now feel both these feelings together.
The opposite feelings at the same time.
Curious of the effect of opposites together.
And with practice they can cancel each other out.
Sense how these feelings come and go.
How they reveal a space.
Behind the feelings from where they come and go.
Step back into that space.
Become the watcher of feelings.
A neutral observer.
Free of the feeling.
A pure being.
As the observer of feeling.
Feel back into the body.
Do you feel into the body,
The body being breathed?
Be curious if there is an emotion coming up.
If there is,
Could you welcome an emotion as sensation.
Just as it is.
Without trying to change it or get rid of it.
Feeling the emotion as sensation.
If there is an emotion,
Where do you feel it?
Can you be curious how an emotion feels?
Curious where you feel the emotion.
If it is helpful,
What would the opposite emotion be?
Can you feel or imagine the opposite emotion as sensation?
Where do you feel the opposite emotion?
Now go back and forwards between these two emotions.
Between the two opposites.
Now feel both these emotions together.
Opposite emotions together at the same time.
Be curious how emotions seem to come and go.
How they appear from space.
Fall back into space.
Revealing a space that is free of emotion.
Just step back and feel the space.
Become the space.
The stillness.
As the watcher of emotion.
Free of it.
Sense how you are this unchanging space.
It is timeless.
Limitless.
And free.
Free of emotion.
Coming back feeling into the body.
Feeling the body being breathed.
Is there a thought?
A belief that is there?
Maybe coming up around these feelings and emotions.
Remember the feeling of inner comfort and safety if you need it at any time.
Can you walk and embrace any thought or belief?
Sense how it feels.
As you experience this thought as sensation.
Curious of whatever else comes up with it.
If you take these thoughts to be true.
If it is helpful.
What would the opposite thought or belief be?
If you took this opposite thought to be true.
Curious where you feel it in the body.
Go between these two thoughts.
Back and forth feeling them both.
Then let them come together.
Feel them both together at the same time.
Sense how thoughts come and go.
They appear from space.
They fall back into a space that is free of thought.
Step back into the space that is free.
Become the space that is free of thought.
Timeless,
Limitless space.
Undamaged.
Unchanging space of stillness.
Sense how you are that space.
Feel back into the body.
The body lying on the ground,
The bed,
Sitting in a chair.
Body being breathed.
Can you welcome being thankful?
Can you get a sense how it feels in the body when you are thankful?
Grateful for something you have.
Sense how being thankful opens a door to just being happy.
Happy for what you have got.
Grateful for what we can do rather than ungrateful for what we can't do.
Remember this feeling of gratitude can act like an antidote when you feel restless,
Ungrateful for what you can't do or don't have.
Feeling of being thankful,
Where you can comfort yourself if you feel irritable or discontent.
Feeling ungrateful for what you can't do.
Take a moment to reflect on the journey you have taken.
Explore any thoughts,
Beliefs,
Emotions,
Feelings that may have come up.
Experience them as sensation.
Feeling the breath and the body as sensation.
Let's practice exploring this ease of addiction.
Call the feeling of calmness,
Ease,
Well-being.
A connection with inner comfort and safety.
Feelings to neutralise,
Dis-ease.
Hugging the part of yourself like a cushion or a pillow that might feel uneasy.
Know you can connect to the feelings of comfort using the senses of images,
Sounds,
Tastes,
Safe touch and smells.
It can help you to nurture feelings of ease,
Comfort,
Calmness.
Being safe in the body.
A natural resource that's always available.
Call your deep wish a mission for life.
What's in your heart that you want to experience in your life?
Know that the feeling is there if you nurture it.
Regardless of your physical situation.
Let it grow.
Know it's possible.
Become it.
Call the intention of exploring addiction and dis-ease.
This practice is complete.
When you're ready,
Open and close the eyes.
Moving the toes and the fingers.
Let the body stretch out.
Return to your waking state.
When you're ready,
Continue with your day.
