If the soup has been stirred for you and there's parts of you resistant,
Wounded,
Confused,
Burnt out,
Afraid,
Or something else,
The idea here is we're going to let those parts of us just be there.
Give them space.
And there's more to the story.
We're going to bring in some healing energy.
And so as we begin to drop into the body here,
I'll give you an analogy.
And it's one of dealing with a tantruming kid or teenager.
When I was a foster care worker in my early social work days,
We had these kids who would get dysregulated during visitations,
And the practice was what I came to call benevolent ignoring.
Let the kid write it out,
Withdraw their energy source,
Don't give them any more power,
Any more impetus,
But stay warm and stay available,
Stay present to them.
We don't have to buy in to everything our mind does.
We can stand back and let that part of us go through what they need to go through as we work on introducing an atmosphere of love and compassion for them.
So let just be as you are and find your seat.
Take a few deep breaths.
Let the breath find that space between.
And this time,
Like we did last night,
We'll bring the breath into the center of the chest,
Into the heart space.
And if you're really cool,
You won't stop at the sternum.
You'll go all the way in,
Towards the back body,
Towards the spine.
In the yogic systems,
That's where the juice is.
And again,
Parts are allowed to be here,
Whether they're showing up as feelings,
Sensations,
Thoughts,
Images.
And you might want to just practice checking in.
Are they open to feeling better?
If yes,
Great,
Here it comes.
If no,
Benevolent ignoring.
They can do their thing.
You don't have to buy in.
You can stand back a little bit.
But I want you to picture now,
You're like a child standing in the grass,
A big open field.
And if you're looking up in the gorgeous sky and you're taking in the sun on your face,
Some of us might prefer to take in the radiance of the moon,
Full moon on our face.
And if that's you,
Run with that.
But either way,
You're like an innocent little kid,
Just taking in the radiance of the celestial body,
Feeling its glow,
Feeling it on your brow and on your cheeks and lips and chin and temples.
The life-sustaining properties of this light are allowing you to breathe and let the face soften and melt.
And on this day,
That goodness sinks in once again into the head,
Into the brain.
You can take a breath and let these regions soften even just a tiny bit.
Down the shoulders and arms and hands,
Down the torso and the back,
Side body as well.
Just sweet radiance from above flowing into the lower belly,
Once again the pelvis,
A place of tremendous holding in the body.
The thighs and the lower legs and all the way into the feet,
Toes.
And that sun,
Moon energy flowing through the body and down into the earth a little bit.
So you feel really rooted,
Connected from above to below,
Child of the sky,
Child of the earth,
Breathing here.
And hopefully now what you can begin to sense into is that there's space inside the body,
Even if it's cluttered,
Even if it's crowded inside.
There's a space inside the body from head all the way down to your pinky toes and everywhere in between.
That space is what the Buddhists call awareness.
It's an open form of attention that's very relaxed and passive.
You don't have to work.
You just kind of open and notice there's a body within the body.
And now it doesn't end there because there's all this space in the room.
Notice in an effortless kind of way,
You can begin to just open to the space on your left,
The space on your right,
The space out in front of you,
The space behind you,
All kinds of open space above and also below.
You can literally breathe into the heart space right in the center of all this open space.
If you've been overwhelmed with any parts,
Space is good news.
If you can't get space away from a part,
You can simply open to the space that's already here.
We're not so trapped or stuck like we sometimes believe we are.
And so if there's parts of you that are suffering or intense,
Especially,
Show them the space.
Just say inside,
Can you see this?
There's a lot of room in this space.
There's a lot of space in this room.
You can scream and cry.
You know,
There is a such thing as internally screaming,
Internally crying.
Dance,
Play,
Run around,
Throw a fit,
Whatever you need,
Pal.
I'm right here with you.
I'll hold the space.
Keep breathing.
And the last thing,
Consciously invite whatever energies are alive inside of you,
Whatever parts,
To check out the space.
They might be caught in some sort of diatribe,
But you can say,
Hey,
Look at all this space.
You really have room to breathe,
Permission to exist,
And it's endless.
It's everywhere.
13.
5 billion light years of space surrounds us at all times.
And just ask your parts to check it out.
What do they think of that?
I lied.
We're going to do one more thing.
Now ask your parts,
Whatever they're up to,
If they can turn around and look at you.
The one who's meditating,
The one who's breathing,
Can they look at your heart?
Can all the living energies in you just turn inwards and look at the heart space for a moment,
Where you're breathing?
And how do they feel towards you?
Especially if it's negative.
I need you to ask this question inside.
How old do your parts think you are?
Just ask.
Don't think of the answer.
How old do they think you are?
A lot of us,
Most of us are getting an age that is much younger than we actually are,
Which is good.
So now you can communicate inside how old you are and how very different your life is now.
You survived 100% of that.
Whatever went on,
You made it.
And you're here on some other wild trip now that has all these resources.
Personally,
I just had a part of me inside say,
That's great that it's over,
But I'm still hurting.
And so now I'm saying to that part,
It's okay.
You can just come close and you can lay your head on my heart space.
And I promise you we're going to work this out.
So one more moment to apply any sort of creative application of love within.
And if you're overwhelmed,
Just remember space.
It's everywhere.
You're not trapped.
We're going to conclude here by taking five deep cleansing breaths together.
And I want you to breathe in at least as big as any feelings have been present.
All right.
So please breathe in and let it go.
It's safe to make sounds.
There we go.
