Dissolving Gender

Here, I lead you through layers of awareness that have solidified as gender identity. Gender is a social construction and binary that separates humans from their vast potential. The construction of gender and the ways it is imparted in our societies lead to suffering on multiple levels and the perpetuation of abusive systems. Through imagery and felt-sense awareness, this meditation offers a practice for dissolving their strength and attachments.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by Renee Seals,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker,

And astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of these meditations sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance Renee offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi there and thanks for listening.

This is Renee and this is a somatic meditation.

Before I get going any further with this meditation,

I do want to say that I'm going to give an introduction and it's a little bit lengthy.

So if you've already done this,

If you've already listened,

Or if you simply just want to get into the meditation,

Skip forward to about eight or nine minutes in and you can find me there.

The meditation starts with the bowl,

So when you hear the sound of the bowl that's where we'll begin.

Okay,

So somatic meditation is an approach to meditating that is not formula.

It's really up to you how you want to practice this meditation.

You can lie down,

You can move around,

You can sit upright on a cushion,

And you can sit on a bus listening in your headphones.

I believe that meditation is something that we can practice in our lives,

In our relationships,

And in any of our activities.

Somatic meditation is a way of exploring your embodied experience,

Recognizing the ways that psychological,

Emotional,

And mental states are all rooted and constantly in relationship with your physical presence and the way that you're experiencing your life through your body.

So as we go through this meditation,

I'll introduce points of awareness in your body and provide imaginative spaces to occupy.

Take what works,

Leave the rest,

Feel free to pause when you need to,

Make adjustments as you need to,

And incorporate this meditation in whatever ways serve you the most in your work and other explorations.

So today's meditation we're going to be focusing on gender.

Gender is a social construct.

It's a way that we have divided people based on sex characteristics and chromosomal factors.

Gender,

For the most part,

Has been a binary.

Currently,

I think a lot of people are starting to understand that gender is a spectrum and that it is an expression but is not a fixed way of being.

So this meditation is coming at a time when collectively we're very enthralled with gender and with the divisions between genders.

So we have a number of months now of the Me Too movement and a lot of force being accumulated in people who experience themselves as one side or other of the divide between men and women.

I think that a lot of what's coming forward collectively is a need for healing and a need to understand that though there are divisions between people with different genitals,

We also have a huge spectrum of bodies,

A huge spectrum of hormonal influences,

And a huge spectrum of experiences.

We really can't divide ourselves any longer in these two encampments,

Men and women.

It's a pretty outdated notion.

But in order to get to this place of plurality and spectrum,

There's also a lot of healing that needs to happen in the places where we're divided.

So this is a meditation to provoke awareness of the ways that gender has been embodied for you,

For your relationships and your family and the world around you,

And also to give you some tools and starting points to integrate and heal around these divisions and play with the space between.

So I want to say first that,

Or define first,

That there's a difference between sex and gender.

So when I say things about sex,

I might be referring to the actual sexual organs that someone has or their chromosomal factors.

But we also need to understand that just as gender is a spectrum,

So is sex.

There are a lot of people in the world who are born intersex,

And they have,

You know,

We're not just in XX,

XY binary anymore.

It's being proven by science.

There's plenty of research to back this up that people are born with variations in their chromosomal makeup and their DNA.

So people who are born with body parts that don't fit the binary and with hormonal influences that maybe don't match the body parts or don't fit into the binary as well.

And this has always been the case,

And it's been covered up because we've lived in a world that really values binary.

Men,

Women,

Black,

White,

Good,

Bad,

Up,

Down.

And we're moving into a time on earth when consciousness is shifting,

And we're understanding again that there's more spectrum of experience.

So anyway,

When I'm talking about sex,

I'm going to be talking about the physiological makeup of a body.

And when I'm talking about gender,

I'm talking about the ways that people are socialized around their perceived sex.

So if someone is born in a body that has a penis and testicles,

They are going to be treated in a certain way that someone who's born in a body without penis and testicles is going to be treated.

And they'll be given messaging from day one,

Whether it's blue for boys,

Pink for girls,

Or don't cry,

Or this is what all the men around you do,

Or something like this.

There's so much messaging that's layered in,

And it's mostly subconscious.

And this builds up our personalities,

Right?

So we perceive the world from this space of identity,

But then the world also perceives us as that identity and continues to layer in the conditioning of gender.

So we are rewarded for behaviors and performances that correspond,

That kind of match our gender presentation to our sex.

And we are regarded as strange and perhaps mistrusted or perhaps even oppressed or traumatized and violated if our gender and sex don't match.

So this is complex psychology,

And there's a lot of work that's been done in this field.

If you're interested,

You can check out any kind of queer studies department at a university or just get online and search for writing by Judith Butler or Anne Fausto-Sterling or Sally Haslanger or Bell Hooks.

There are a lot of resources out there.

You can do a quick search for queer theory and you'll get plenty of them.

Or just do a search for gender as societal conditioning so that we can open up our minds and see past this binary.

I really encourage you to look into that.

And this meditation is offered as kind of another route into just feeling what it is.

So I'm not giving any answers,

And I'm not asking you to be any certain way.

I'm just asking you to pay attention.

Before we get into this,

I do want to recognize that these places around sex and gender are places where a lot of us have wounding.

And you might have already felt feelings coming up as you heard me speaking the words that I've been speaking.

So I do want to encourage you to take care of yourself as you listen to this meditation and take the space that you need.

If a lot of content comes up,

Maybe pause it and do it when you can do it with a therapist or with someone who can hold space for you and talk with you after.

Again,

Take what works.

Leave the rest.

Let these images and invitations kind of come in as suggestions and really,

Really take care of yourself in the process.

And if you're someone who's dealing with trauma or if you find that you feel dissociated or upset as we go along,

Open your eyes and look at the space around you.

Place yourself in that space by speaking out loud,

By hearing the sound of your breath,

By touching your body,

Maybe get up and take a walk.

These are really loaded places in all of our consciousness that for a long time now have been used to keep us separate from ourselves,

From our true essential nature,

And also from each other.

So if stuff comes up for you,

Don't be surprised,

But do be curious and do seek out resources that can help you integrate and work with it consciously and in a way that's healing for you.

All right,

So we'll begin now.

And again,

I just want to invite you to be comfortable.

So take whatever time you need to get any kind of blankets,

Cushions,

Put your walking shoes on and head outside or something like that.

And then when you're ready,

We'll just start by dropping into the breath.

And breathing is always really one of the first places to check in.

So as you bring attention to your breath,

You might naturally start to breathe deeper.

And as you breathe deeper and bring awareness to your breath,

You might also notice where you have not been breathing.

And as you notice those places,

Or if you notice those places,

Then the invitation is to soften.

And you don't need to try and force breath anywhere.

You might even just use your hands and touch the parts of your body where you want to invite more breath to enter.

And I use this analogy a lot and I'll keep using it a lot,

But I love the image of breathing like water moves through sand.

And so as your breath comes in,

It permeates and it saturates and it spreads through your tissues.

And the movement of your breath can actually travel out from your lungs into all of your organs and into your body.

And so you can all of your organs through the fluids of your body and as a sensation even into the space around you.

In the exhaling,

Try and just drop anything that has too much of your attention.

And so this might be a physical release,

Exhaling and feeling gravity,

Allowing your body to relax as much as possible.

In the exhale,

Softening any tension that you feel gathered around your neck or shoulders and your jaw,

In your face and your eyes,

Throughout the rest of your body,

In your belly,

In your back and your feet.

And as you exhale,

You might also consider letting go of any relational or emotional circumstances that you may have been involved with recently.

It's been pretty intense time for a lot of people.

A lot of stuff has been coming up.

And if stuff has been coming up for you,

Then just put it aside.

You can come back to it later and you're just going to give yourself the space now to be present with your own experience.

And doing the same thing for all of your tasks,

All the things you still have to do and all the things that are kind of lingering from what you have been doing,

All of your busyness,

You can also just set that aside.

And now I want you to imagine that as you're breathing in,

You are breathing in the collected history of the universe.

So when you're breathing in,

Of course you're breathing in all kinds of stuff.

You're not just taking in oxygen and atmosphere,

You're breathing in tons of different particles.

And the particles that you're breathing in are tiny,

Minuscule little pieces of everything that has ever been in existence.

Mineral,

Plant,

Animal,

Life,

All the stuff that we've built,

All of the things that are circulating through the air and then of course the ineffable stardust that we all come from.

And you know that we live in a phenomenal world that is in a constant state of change.

So as you breathe in,

You're part of the change.

You are transforming energy as you breathe.

You're inhaling oxygen,

You're exhaling carbon dioxide.

In this phenomenal world where everything is changing,

There is no such thing as permanent.

And this means any material objects,

Even if it seems really permanent right now,

Like a big heavy rock or a mountain or a skyscraper,

All of these things will change.

They have not always been there,

They will not always be there.

And just like the materials in our lives change,

So do our bodies and our identities.

And you as the person that you are,

Your name,

Your identity,

Of course you exist now,

But you have not always existed,

You will not always exist.

But the energy that infuses your body and the materials of your body itself,

This has always existed and it will continue to exist.

It will just change form.

So as our bodies change and as our materials change,

So do our conceptions and the language and the meanings that we make for the world around us.

And when we have language and meaning,

We like to,

Often we like to think of it as permanent.

So we give something a name and we go,

You're always going to be that thing.

You look like a skyscraper,

You're always going to be a skyscraper.

But in fact,

The skyscraper will crumble,

It will become something else,

Will have a different name,

It may not have any name at all.

So as you inhale and you exhale,

Can you imagine breathing in everything that you think you know is true?

And breathing out,

Possibility,

Unknown,

Mystery.

And this is a total imagination.

You might breathe in the images of words and your name and the headlines of the news and the image of your neighborhood.

And as you breathe out,

You could breathe out sparkles and empty space.

And so you're inhaling all of the boxes.

These are all of the forms.

This is everything that I think,

All the things and the constructs that I have placed around me.

And then as you breathe out,

It's all empty space.

And what's being transformed in your body is this permanence into impermanence.

So as you breathe in and your lungs fully expand,

All of the constructs,

The ideas of permanence,

The words,

The images,

The shapes,

They get spread out.

They get spread and stretched into their eventual chaos and change.

And then as you exhale,

You can exhale out all the particles that made them.

And you might imagine just kind of breathing it in,

Letting everything express to its absolute expression,

And then feeling the expression subside and dissipate and dissolve and shift.

And when you breathe out,

You're breathing out potentiality.

So now bring your attention into your head.

And I want you to kind of feel the inner space of your head,

Where your brain is inside your skull.

And just as you bring attention to it,

Notice the kind of voluminous space that's here.

So your head is not just the front of your forehead and your conscious thoughts or your forward planning.

But can you feel the curve of your cranium above your ears and the back of your skull and the place where your brain connects to your spine.

And now as you breathe in,

I want you just to breathe in the essence of I.

And this is for you,

Your identity.

And as you breathe out,

Let it melt.

So as you breathe in,

You're breathing in how you feel yourself,

Your identity right now.

And as you breathe out,

You're just letting it melt,

You're letting it dissolve,

Letting it change shape.

Let's take one more breath like that,

Breathing in the identity into your mind,

Into the place where language happens.

And then breathing out,

The language disappears.

And then let your attention travel into your chest and your heart and your upper belly.

And in this part of your body,

This is where we hold a lot of our relationships and the care,

As well as the obligation that we feel towards other people or with other people.

And so as you breathe in,

I want you to imagine that you're breathing in you as you have been given to yourself by other people.

So you might imagine your parents,

Your early caregivers,

Your siblings,

Your first friends,

And the way that they have said you and defined you to yourself.

And feel that expression spread out and feel it break into nothingness and feel your true nature as mysterious and undefinable.

And then as you exhale,

Let that exude into the world around you.

So as you're breathing in,

You are accepting the labels and the reflections and the projections that other people have given you.

And this can be throughout your life.

And I want you just to feel it in your heart,

Feel the way that other people have named you to yourself.

Feel all the stories and the sensations that can arise there.

And then just like we did with the idea of the material world,

Let that construct or concept of you get so stretched,

Get so pushed out,

That you break out of the box,

That you feel all the way into the vastness of your own potential.

And then as you breathe out,

You're breathing out the residue.

You're letting go of the dust and the stuff that was put on you in terms of other people's labels.

And these might have been given with love,

They might have been given with judgment,

It really doesn't matter.

It's all the same.

We'll take a couple more breaths like this.

This is a good place to take time and it's a good place to come back to,

Especially in the moments when you feel like it's happening.

So if you are in a relationship at all,

You will relate with that person and they will have their ideas of you.

And it is a really big gift to yourself,

To other people,

And quite a skill to be able to take in the reflection,

To feel it,

To feel the truth and the untruth of it,

And then to feel all the way past it.

To feel the conditioning that it has arisen within,

The socializing that this person has gone through,

The constructs that you're both working with,

The identities and the preferences for identity that exist in your culture,

In your era,

In your time.

And then to recognize that all of it is kind of inherently meaningless.

We put labels on each other all of the time and it may be useful for understanding in a certain moment,

But we can't get attached to those labels and we don't want to believe them for ourselves or for other people.

So maybe one or two more breaths like this and please take your time if you want to spend more time here,

Anywhere,

Breathing in the ways you have been labeled and reflected to yourself and put into whatever identity constructs that other people have formed,

Stretching out into the periphery and the parameters and beyond the parameters of those constructs,

Feeling them explode and dissolve,

Feeling all the way past into your vastness and undefinability.

And then as you exhale,

Just feeling all of the residue of those labels and those layers press out of you.

And just like all the tiny microscopic particles in the air,

Releasing them all,

Now they are nothing.

They can be reformed in a new way.

And then let's bring attention to the belly.

And this is kind of around your navel center and below your ribs and your low back.

And here I want you to breathe in the idea of what you have consumed.

And so you've consumed food and fluids,

Of course,

And you've consumed media and culture.

What have you taken in?

And then as you exhale,

You let it go.

And of course,

The material of your body and the form of your identity has been shaped and influenced and nourished and sustained by everything that you have consumed.

And just like we did with the previous two places,

As you inhale,

You can imagine the forms that you have consumed,

Whether this is information or food or air,

Anything that you're bringing into your body.

And you feel yourself spread all the way out beyond the form of what you've taken in,

Into the pure energy that exists in all things in the universe itself.

And then as you exhale,

You're exhaling out the residue.

And so as you consume,

You might feel the energy of your consumption.

And just like if you've been eating food that is unhappy food,

Your body will feel the distress of that food.

Or if you've been consuming some piece of culture,

Music or art that's inspiring,

Your body will feel vitalized.

As you inhale,

I want you just to feel the energy of what you've consumed.

And of course,

We've all consumed all kinds of things.

We've consumed things that have made us feel great and things that have made us feel awful.

Everything in between.

And as you breathe out and spread your awareness into the parameter of all of that,

You're also breaking apart the boundaries and the identities that have been placed around what you have consumed.

So if you consumed broccoli for dinner last night,

Then you're breathing through the parameter of broccoli.

And you're connecting with the vital force that moves through that plant that gathers the molecules of it into form.

You're breathing all the way out into its essence,

Which just like your essence is unknowable,

Is vast and mysterious.

And if you're breathing into the essence of consuming something that feels junky or toxic,

Then you're allowing yourself to feel the intent or the situation that has produced this junky toxic thing.

And then you're spreading out of that parameter,

You're feeling all the way into its edges.

You're remembering that that also is impermanent,

And that it's changing and you're breaking it apart and you're breaking the molecules that have bound together in toxicity.

And then as you exhale,

You're just exhaling out the residue.

And the residue is neither good nor bad,

It just is.

And just like the particles in the air,

Now it's just going to float around undifferentiated and wait to form into something else.

So as you breathe into your belly,

You're breathing into the vastness of the air,

You're breathing into the vastness and the possibility in your belly,

And in your abilities for absorption and assimilation.

And you can spend more time with that if you need,

But when you're ready,

Now bring your attention down into your pelvic center.

And regardless of sex,

Your body has both internal and external sex organs.

So the first place to bring your attention is about halfway between your belly button and your pubic bones.

And in this part of the body,

Uteruses and ovaries and vas deferens and other kinds of internal sex organs live.

And in this part of the body,

We register desire.

And we also register any kind of identity or projection that is put on us in a sexual way or in a desiring way.

So can you feel into this part of your body and can you feel what's there?

And as you breathe into this part of your body and as you let it exist,

And as you breathe into this part of your body and as you let it expand with your breath,

I want you to feel through the layers of your own stories,

Your identity,

The ideas about what's there.

And I want you to feel through the stories that other people have given you about this part of your body,

About your desire,

About your sexuality.

And just like we did in the last parts of the body,

Just breathe all the way out into the fullness of that expression.

Really let yourself feel it,

So don't rush to the dissipation.

But if you are connecting to your body and maybe you had an over-removed or something and you're feeling that story,

Feel the story.

If you're connecting to your body and you're feeling a lot of lust and desire,

Feel the lust and desire.

If you're connecting to your body and you're feeling trauma and violation or something that has kind of come in and you didn't want it,

Feel that sensation.

And feel all the way into the fullness of its expression.

And then feel past that barrier,

Past that boundary.

So if you had an organ removed,

You are feeling into the eventual change of all bodies,

Into the continuation of meaning and experience and memory after that organ has no longer existed.

If you're feeling into your lust or your desire,

You're feeling the ephemeral quality of desire.

You're feeling maybe into the lustiness of the entire universe or the earth as a very sexual entity.

It's something that's constantly procreating and birthing and meeting with attraction.

If you're feeling into trauma,

Can you hold the part of yourself that had the story,

That had the experience and feel all the way out into the layers of conditioning that have affected the person or the people that have imparted that trauma into you,

Connecting with their traumas,

Connecting with this web of misperception and then breathing all the way beyond that.

And then breathing all the way beyond that web and into the infiniteness of time and space,

Remembering that we're so much more than the stories and feeling also the resonance of the story.

And then as you exhale,

Just letting it go,

Feeling the emptiness.

So whatever language you want to work with for yourself here is helpful.

And again,

You can pause,

You can take time to write things down.

But as you bring your attention to the part of your body that is the place where the internal sex organs are,

You're touching into the emotional qualities,

To the histories and the experiences and of course the stories.

And you're letting those sensations and identities and experiences be expressed.

You're feeling them and then you're feeling all the way past their concepts,

All the way into the time and the space where they don't exist,

Where they're meaningless,

Where they're empty.

And as you exhale,

You're letting that go,

Releasing it from your body,

Kind of just imagining yourself shedding.

And in the space where they were,

There's just potentiality.

And you might think of this as like dark matter,

Empty space or love.

Spend more time there if you need.

And then we'll bring attention into your genitals,

Into the external sex organs.

And if you're a person who has breasts or chest and you feel that this place is also part of what expresses sexuality and gender into the world,

You can also let your attention be there.

And so as you breathe,

Just feel these places.

And these are places in our bodies,

Of course,

That most cultures hide.

And a lot of us have a lot of stories and unpacking to do.

And so we're going to take a look at some of the stories that we've been sharing.

And a lot of us have a lot of stories and unpacking to do about our relationships with these places in our bodies.

So as you breathe into them and as you bring your awareness there,

You'll just kind of be with and stay present with all the layers of story that are coming up,

But try not to get taken away by them.

So if a story comes up and you start to go off somewhere in your mind,

You're remembering this thing that happened,

You're thinking about this thing you want to happen,

Come back into your physical presence,

Come back into connection.

So we're going to do something a little bit differently in these parts of our bodies.

And what I'd like you to do is kind of play with,

And this is going to start in your imagination,

But you might also feel it as a physical sensation.

And I'm just going to say that feeling it as a physical sensation for some of you will happen immediately and for other people it might take a lot of time.

And so if I'm saying this and you're like,

I don't feel anything,

Just imagine it.

That's great.

That's a great place to start.

Okay,

So what I want you to imagine is that these places in your body,

And I'm going to just name them as your genitals,

Your external sex organs,

And your chest or your breasts,

And you can maybe feel your nipples or something like that.

I want you to imagine that these places in your body extend energy out into the world.

So kind of a fun image of like Barbarella with the laser boobs or something like that.

And if you're a person who has internal genitalia,

If you have a vagina,

It might feel really different to imagine more of an external sex organ,

Like energy coming out,

Moving out.

And maybe it has a shape,

Maybe it has a color,

Maybe it has a sound,

I don't know.

And the energy that's going out is the energy of whatever is internal being expressed through these organs.

And so you can think of them kind of like as windows or gateways,

Something like this.

So through the internal organs,

You can kind of see the internal organs,

And you can kind of see as windows or gateways,

Something like this.

So through the internal awareness,

Your desire,

The stories that are there,

The layers of your own story,

Of other people's story,

Experiences,

Etc.

This energy is then transmitting out.

Okay,

And then you can reverse that and imagine that your genitals and your nipples are gateways in.

And the gateway in,

This is for the world around you.

And it's where information comes in.

And it comes in through these gates as stories and as experiences and as desires and projections.

And so we've all had this experience,

Right,

Of seeing a body and having a feeling about that body.

And maybe the feeling is feeling turned on,

Maybe it's feeling disgusted,

Maybe it's feeling confused,

I don't know.

But seeing a body and particularly seeing the parts that are commonly hidden,

We have probably all had the experience of whatever comes up,

You see those parts and you're like,

Oh my god,

And then you tell yourself the story,

Or you feel the feeling,

Or you have the reaction.

Okay,

So now you're connecting with these parts of your body and you're connecting with them as gates and as places where other people in the world around you bring influence into your body.

Okay,

And then we'll switch it again.

And I want you to imagine these places in your body now being gates where your own internal experience extends out.

And then again,

Switch it and let these places in your body be gates where the external experience comes in.

So maybe you can start to feel how energy moves through your body and gets delivered into the world from the internal experience into the external experience,

And vice versa.

And they can't be separated.

But they can be worked with.

So what I'd like you to do now is kind of just come back into a neutral space with your breath.

If you've been working with eyes closed and you need to open your eyes or orient yourself for a second,

Then do that.

And then go ahead and align all of the places that you're going to be working.

So feel the space inside of your head.

Feel the place inside your chest and your upper belly.

Feel into your belly and your abdomen.

And then feel into your pelvic center and your genitals.

And then let's breathe into that entire alignment.

And breathe out from that entire alignment.

And again,

Just breathe into that entire alignment,

Just your breath.

And breathe out from that entire alignment.

Okay,

So what I want to suggest here,

This is not new information but maybe helpful just to hear it again,

Is that experiences that are happening in your head,

In your brain,

In your language and thinking structure,

In your memory function and in your expectations of the future,

Are also always relating with what has happened in your connections and the ways that you care for other people and are cared for and how you experience safety as well as expectation and obligation in your chest center.

And your relationships and your mental space are not at all separate.

They're very much influenced by what and how you consume and what and how your relationships consume or the world consumes.

And then the experience of desire,

Of sexuality,

Of instinct and assertion that can happen in the pelvic center is of course totally relating with anything that you're consuming,

How you're feeling in your body,

With the obligations that you have with your relationships,

With the way that you care for other people and do or do not express.

And then the experience of desire,

Of sexuality,

Of reflexes,

Of and of course with your thinking and with your constructs and your ideas.

And as you feel into any of these places and any of the forms that come in,

Any stories,

Any you'll feel these places shifting in yourself.

So if you feel a certain kind of thought or some kind of sensation that has to do with a relationship or you think about a certain type of food or if you think about some sexual experience or relationship to gender,

You're going to feel these places in your body respond.

And anything that you're thinking about,

Anything that has language around it,

That has a shape,

That has a feeling of permanence or oh my god that's something that happened and therefore it has shaped me,

It's going to do something to the alignment of all of these places internally.

And so with absolute reverence and respect for everything that's made you and everything that you value,

I want you to breathe all the way past any of those ideas.

So in your entire alignment from your pelvic center,

Your abdominal center,

Your chest center,

And your head center,

You're just breathing all the way out 360 degrees into the infinity of space.

And as you exhale,

You're letting the infinity of space move through your body and out your exhale and into the world.

And as you inhale,

You're breathing in and all the way down into your pelvic center and you're breathing past any kind of story you have about gender or sex or your desires or whether or not you're attractive or who wants you and da da da da da.

And as you breathe out,

You're remembering and resting in your vastness.

Okay so you're so much more than your genitals,

Right?

That's a ridiculous thing to base an identity on.

It's just a body expressing itself in a certain way.

And as you breathe in,

You might breathe into the experiences that your hormones create.

So if you're a person who cycles,

You might breathe into the ways that you feel your moods fluctuating and your desires shifting.

You breathe all the way out beyond that.

Remember that your time and space.

And then as you exhale,

Letting go of all of the stories that you have about those cycles,

About those shiftings.

Okay so as you breathe in and as you breathe out,

We're not saying that any of these things are unimportant.

We're just remembering that we are more than that.

And as you breathe into especially your genitals and the ideas that circulate around them,

Your gender,

Your sex,

Your desire,

Your who's attracted to you,

This kind of thing.

You're breathing into places that have probably been molded a certain way and this is conditionality from the world that you've been raised in,

From your parents,

From media,

From your friends,

Etc.

And you are so much more than that.

And you can express yourself throughout the entire spectrum of gender.

You can be someone who is very assertive and desiring and young.

Your sexual energy can move out of your body.

You are someone who can be very soft,

Very receptive,

Very attractive,

And yin.

Your energy can move deeply into your body and receive.

You can do both of those things.

Both of those things are natural and healthy and great for you to do.

And you can do everything in between.

So all of the little places where here over here you're receptive and there over there you're assertive.

Just feel that in your body and try and feel it through all of the tissues of your body,

Through your genitals,

Through the internal sex organs,

Through your chest and breasts,

Through your head,

Through your belly,

Through your lungs.

And as you breathe,

Let your awareness spread out to encompass again the planet.

And you can remember that this is a planet that is very sexy and it is constantly shifting genders.

One moment plant life is the seed,

One moment it's the pollen,

One moment it's the egg.

Okay,

Everything is constantly shifting,

Birthing itself over and over and over again.

And that is you.

Okay,

So we're gonna kind of wrap up this meditation with just some extending of this energy into the places that really need it.

And so think about someone or some place in your life where gender as a construct has become a prison.

And maybe this is in the news where we have lots of examples of really destructive binaries between men and women.

Maybe this is a place in your life where you feel yourself struggling to break free in relationships.

Maybe this is someone in your family,

I don't know.

Maybe this is the medical industrial complex and the way that labeling continues to happen.

Choose some place and as you breathe imagine that the consciousness of that place or those people is getting spread and expanded all the way out into the periphery and then dissolving.

And as you exhale imagine those people or those places,

Those situations totally releasing the old binaries,

Totally releasing the old forms.

And as you breathe in imagine these people and these places just expanding their perception and their awareness.

Oh my god it's a spectrum,

We can be everything.

How joyful is that?

And then as you exhale just imagine them releasing all of the suffering and all of the conditioning and all of the imposition.

And again taking a deep breath in into the possibility,

Into the mystery and a deep breath out.

Okay so you're welcome to stay with any of these imaginations for as long as you want and to take them in your own directions,

Please do.

And when you're ready open your eyes and place yourself,

See the things that are around you,

Maybe let out a nice loud exhale and hear the sound of your own breath.

Touch something,

Say something,

Feel the phenomenal world as it is in existence in this moment right now.

And then anything you look at you might just marvel,

Wow that's the form you're taking in this moment.

And think about all the things that it has been and all that it will be and all that you don't know.

And then extend that to your own body,

Just reference for the mystery that it is,

Where it came from and what it's doing and all that you don't know about it.

All right so I hope you've enjoyed this meditation and you can learn about the astrological influences and inspiration for this guided meditation and you can also find audio horoscopes for all 12 signs that are for this new moon cycle.

You can learn more about me and what I do at embodiedastrology.

Com or reneisills.

Com and if you enjoy these meditations and they bring benefit to your life please share them and consider donating a one-time or recurring monthly donation even if it's just a few dollars is very helpful for me and allows me to continue doing this work and sharing it for free.

Thank you so much and bye for now.

Reviews

I loved this meditation. Having struggled with the labels and expectations for many years, I feel that I can finally be the person I want to be and let myself relax into that. Thank you!

It's a beautiful meditation, and also quite advanced and ambitious for someone who has trauma or dysphoria around sex and gender -- I feel like this practice is best done when there is already a source of self-love, spaciousness, and safety. I think for people who have that, this is a really integrative and expansive practice!

Thank you! A few difficult moments of feeling but I am glad I stuck with it. I feel very present and this provides a lovely message.

Outstanding, thank you for sharing this. I’ll be returning to this practice to continue to dissolve more layers.