Embodied Journey: 'Parts Work'

A 30 minute embodied journey for healing hurts and upsets. Begins with relaxing body scanning and mindfulness of breath. Second half is an adaptation of "parts work" from Internal Family Systems therapy wherein you'll be guided to bring genuine warmth to a part of you that is upset or burdened by hurts.

Transcript

Welcome to your practice for today.

Finding your seat,

Whatever that means for you.

Sitting comfortably,

Sitting tall,

Letting your tailbone tuck just a little bit so that your lower abdomen engages just a tiny tiny bit,

Very slight.

Letting energy move up the spine,

Back lengthens.

Placing your hands on either side of your lap facing down today,

Right around mid-thigh so that your arms sort of work as a kickstand for the balance in your shoulders,

The openness of the collarbones,

The openness of the heart.

We want to lengthen the back of the neck and we'll find this by letting the top tips of our ears lift up towards the ceiling.

And then now that the back of the neck is lengthened,

We want to straighten it and we'll find that by allowing the tip of the forehead to tilt forward just one centimeter.

And then your chin to tuck in towards the throat just one centimeter.

Gently closing the eyes.

Allowing your cheeks to relax and the tongue to relax at its root.

Just take a big deep breath down to your belly,

Really fill up the belly.

And exhale with some sound.

Let's do two more just like that.

Filling up the belly this time and the chest and maybe even lifting the tops of the shoulders just a little bit to let more air in and hold three,

Two,

One and let go.

And then one final big deep breath.

Energize the body as we breathe in and just to relax and let go as you breathe out.

Just begin by noticing what it's like to be you right now.

What it's like to be here in this body.

And what the condition of the heart is today as your starting point.

And I want you to remember why you're practicing today.

We're here to do some fairly deep work so I want you to call your reason for doing this work into mind and hold it there in your awareness for some moments.

You can even take a deep breath with that reason in mind,

Kind of like you're integrating your sense of motivation for practice into your body into your breath.

And today's journey begins way down in the soles of your feet.

I want you to take your attention down to the soles of your feet.

Just feel all of the aliveness that's present there for you.

Feel the tingling.

And the temperature that's in your feet.

And the pressure.

Feel the tightness as well.

And the fatigue that we hold in our feet.

If you look for it,

It's there.

It's there in the big toes.

It's there in the arches.

There's tension and fatigue in the bones of the feet.

And in the balls of the feet and the heels.

Just be willing to feel the feet.

The bottoms of the feet,

The tops of the feet.

And then feeling the calves and the shins.

And again,

There's so much aliveness and electricity coursing through these lower legs of yours.

And there's also quite a bit of stress of tightness,

Tension being held here in the shin bones.

Moving up to the knees.

Same thing.

Feel all the density and muscles and skin.

And the tightness.

And you can take a breath now.

Just a natural breath.

And as you breathe in,

I want you to feel that tightness even more.

Feel that tension even more.

And as you exhale,

I want you to imagine that it's releasing,

That it's softening.

Perhaps that it's melting like butter,

Turning to liquid and draining out of the body and down into the ground,

Down into the earth.

And then moving to the calves,

I'm sorry,

The thighs and the femur bones and the outer hips and your seat and your pelvis.

I want you to feel the upper portion of your legs and the region of your pelvis.

The same thing,

The aliveness,

The tension,

The tightness,

The fatigue.

From now on,

Every time you breathe in,

You're feeling the body and every time you breathe out,

You're inviting the body to relax and let go.

And it's like the tension is just falling away from the body and down into the earth below you.

It might be nice to even notice how effortlessly you're supported by the earth.

You have the force of gravity kind of pulling you towards the earth and holding you in your seat.

And that the earth rises up,

Rises up to meet you there.

So you can really relax in the lower body and feel safe and held here.

Breathing in,

You notice the belly and the organs and all the tightness and tiredness and aliveness.

Breathing out,

You allow it to relax and soften,

Very natural.

Low back releases as you make your way up to the chest,

The ribs,

The heart,

The lungs.

Feeling the articulation of the spine,

The tightness of the collarbones and the muscles around the collarbones.

The tightness of the shoulder blades and the muscles around the shoulder blades.

Feeling the shoulder tops as well and again every time you breathe in you're feeling the body and every time you breathe out just letting go,

Surrendering.

Your body doesn't want to hold this.

Gravity is sort of pulling this away from you,

Down into the earth.

So you're the only one who's holding on.

Let it go.

And then you feel the arms all the way from the heads of the arm bones down into the fingertips.

Feeling and releasing.

And then coming up through the neck and the throat.

Feeling the back of the head,

The top of the head,

The brain,

The temples,

All around the eyes and behind the eyes.

And the cheeks and the lips and the mouth.

And the jaw,

You can relax the jaw at its point of origin which is behind the earlobes.

Right at that hinge.

Just exhale to completely relax.

And today I want you to land in the space of the heart.

So move back down into the heart.

And just breathing in you feel the space of the heart and breathing out you let the heart open just a little bit.

Breathing in you feel the heart and breathing out you let the heart open just little by little and just enjoy this process for some time.

Okay?

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Healing the heart,

Swelling and dissolving.

Understanding,

Clarifying,

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I want to give this part warmth,

Tenderness,

Understanding.

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We'll start working with the breath here in 10 more seconds.

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Breathing in,

A thick black smoke and breathing out space,

More space.

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You can just return to the space of the breathing heart for just one minute.

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Reviews

Incredibly healing. ❤️‍🩹

Noticing the tremendous guilt, self-hatred, self-disgust, shame, despair, and confusion the teenage part of me carries is immense.

Being this younger version of myself, and seeing this younger version of myself through more mature eyes of compassion is intimately and exquisitely healing.

Dropping into the somatic, pre-verbal sensations around the trauma event allows for a profound weight to be lifted, an opening to sensitivity, and illumination.

The part of me that longs to die because it has been abandoned so cruelly is coming home into compassionate awareness.

It’s a visceral feeling in the left side of the brain and a trembling of the heart. It’s a lost child returning home. 🙏

Very well led parts work. It felt very safe and compassionate.

You create a lot of space and compassion for me and mij parts 🙏

I released a looping thought that was holding me hostage to a limiting belief related to, “if I’m kind I’ll be taken advantage of.” However, the underlying issue is really being afraid to speak my truth out of fear of not being liked. This practice is helping me to embody the power to be kind, compassionate and speak my truth via healthy boundaries. It starts with me and how I treat myself. I have to be kind and compassionate to myself.

Very deep and rich ❤️ exceptional guidance with strong presence, creating a safe space for deep work, thank you 🌷 l will be visiting more of my parts here over and over again

Gentle, accepting deep work. Wisdom and compassion combine for access to embodied ingrained patterns. Will integrate into daily oractice.

I think I actually experienced this and got a little more acceptance for myself

Walked through the steps with a part, and made a new friend…a part of me!

I often do not feel the energy vibrating in my body. But, this practice was amazing in feeling it. At one point my body moved and my upper back cracked. To me that is a major shift. Thankyou for this and I will do it again. ☮️🕉️💜

The long first part of the guidance made wonder at first if we were ever going to get to the parts work. When we did, I was grateful to be so relaxed. I met an adolescent part of me, very angry and quite unwilling to talk to me. Thanks to the gentleness of the process, she knows I see her now, and that I care. I will reach out to her again. 🙏

Thanks Ralph, I and my little one needed this today. She was hiding under a blanket, tight and dense and needed compassion and safety to relax and unfurl. We can move forward
together in this day lighter and with ease instead of fighting for every heavy step.

I have DID, so this was actually easier because I'm already more familiar with my parts. But because we do a lot of co-consciousness, it was a bit difficult to separate myself from this part. But I did, and before it was even suggested I was cuddling this small child who just wanted to get me out of a situation that was triggering wounds from 40 yrs ago. All she wanted was to be held and loved. But using my inhalation to pull the black smoke of old hurts out of her, and my exhalation to surround her with an expanding globe of golden compassion - that was so healing! And then smiling at the end, it was a genuine smile by the time it was done. I'm going to remember that trick! I'll definitely be coming back to this. (Eventually; it does use up emotional energy to do it.)

Edit: What does it mean to open the heart? To feel it expand and dissolve? I spent that entire time confused, wondering what on earth I was supposed to be doing. Can you please clarify?

superb. Wise and profound, a big thank you Ralph for generously sharing this exercise with us on InsightTimer. I felt a sizeable shift, so will need to return to this parts work again, work in progress... My inner child feels safe in your hands, your trauma course here on InsightTimer was game-changing too, with love and gratitude, Annabelle ✨ 🙏🏻 💕✨

This was amazing, so well explained and paced allowing time to really do the work. Thank you 🙏

Extremely attentive to posture, breathing and intention of practice, this one bears repetition for healing benefits.

This was really detailed and thorough. Great, in-depth parts work with proper preparation and conclusion.

Much love to you too for the great meditation this morning.
New findings to deal with emotional trauma pain.💝🙏😇

I was able to bring warm golden compassion and love to my part, comforting it and easing its activation. Thank you so much for this gentle, yet powerful practice.

Gorgeous. So kind and a useful guide to a preciously process.

Thank you for this powerful meditation. I have used it many times and the results are amazing. It's a gift. 💕