Opening Your Heart Space

This meditation invites you to relax your organs and heart space, to feel the structure and stability of your body and to recognize value and abundance within yourself and others. It also explores connecting with openness and care to our lineages, remembering that those who came before may have perpetuated harm or been harmed.

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 this meditation 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.

So for today's meditation,

Let's just take a minute and close our eyes.

And start by bringing some touch to your skin.

So you could wiggle your toes,

You can bring your hands together,

Make fists,

And feel the skin of your palms and the soles of your feet.

You can use your hands to bring contact and awareness to the skin of your body and just to brush your legs and your arms,

Your belly,

Your back,

Your face,

Your scalp.

Breathe deeply and as you breathe,

Feel the movement from inner to outer.

Notice how the swell of the inhale moves into your skin and the experience of the skin touching the external world is then changed.

Notice how you feel your container.

And take a moment to just consider what the feeling of gratitude for container might be.

So it's pretty incredible that we have this thing that contains us,

Our skin.

And it does define reality in so many ways.

See if you can feel how your skin is porous,

How it's a membrane,

And just like the cell membranes in all of your tissues,

It receives the contents of the environment.

Sunlight is metabolized in the skin,

It's received through the skin.

We receive nourishment through hydration.

We are receptive to chemicals in our air and water and our fabrics.

What comes in contact with our skin moves into the bloodstream.

Feel that your skin is porous.

And that it excretes through your sweat glands,

Through oils.

That the skin is constantly dying.

The outer portion,

Outer layer of the skin is dead skin.

And it's a very important part of the body.

The outer portion is dead skin.

I forget the percentage,

It's kind of gross I think,

But I think it's something like 80% of dust is dead skin.

It's quite astounding when I think about how much dust there might be in the entire world,

And how much of that is the transformation and the kind of slowing off of what is our physical barrier with the world.

In your consciousness imagine a circle of people who all have different colors of skin.

And as you feel the porousness of your own skin between inner and outer,

As well as its containment,

The membrane,

That it holds for your inner experience.

And as you feel how complex the inner experience is,

Can you also feel that this is the same for these other people?

As you sense your own skin,

Can you sense theirs?

And then bring one hand to the place where your ribs come together in the front.

And bring the other hand just in front of your belly button or onto your navel,

Your abdomen.

And then bring the other hand just in front of your belly button or onto your navel,

Your abdomen.

So you feel both hands on your body.

And notice if there's tension below the surface of the skin.

And often we have kind of an armoring,

Especially in this part of the body.

There's tightness and a shield that is formed at the navel center and in the upper body.

And this is kind of around the diaphragm.

This is an emotional protection.

It's an energetic barrier in this soft place of our body.

We're very receptive to feeling ours as well as others.

So as you breathe,

Can you soften the front wall of your body?

As you breathe,

Can you soften the front wall of your abdomen?

Can you allow the weight of your body to rest through your bones and into the earth?

Can your breath arise almost like a wave?

You could imagine the surface of the ocean,

How there's this kind of rocking,

A movement in this huge body of water and the container of the sea.

And how that rocking becomes small ripples.

And how the ripples become waves.

And the waves become patterns.

And from deep within your body,

Can you feel that each and every cell is breathing?

The cell membranes are porous,

Expanding to receive your body as it inhales and condensing.

The cells excreting,

Your body exhaling.

Now let yourself imagine a time or a person or place,

An animal,

That gives you a great sensation of care and tenderness.

So when you think about this person or this place or this being,

Your heart is open.

There's not judgment.

There's acceptance.

There's fondness and adoration.

And feel the quality of that sensation.

Feel where it resides in your physical body.

Feel how it manifests in your breath.

And then breathe that feeling into your bones and into your skin.

And can you feel that boundaries,

The boundaries of your skeleton and of your skin,

Are imbued with and saturated by tenderness and care.

Then open your eyes just a touch and whatever it is that you see,

It really doesn't matter what it is.

I've opened my eyes and I'm looking at a pen.

Practice transmitting that feeling of care towards that object or towards whatever you're seeing.

Maybe it's not an object.

And remember how it is to gaze upon something,

To look at something with care and tenderness in your eyes.

And feel how your whole face softens.

How the corners of your eyes broaden and maybe the corners of your lips lift slightly.

And as you continue this gaze and as you continue this breathing,

Feel the space behind you.

Feel the skin at your back.

And I'd like you to imagine all of your predecessors.

So this could be people in your family who have passed.

It could be your teachers and mentors.

It could be folks who have advocated and fought for you to define yourself in the ways that you do.

Could be people who have worked in the same field.

So all kinds of predecessors,

All the ones who have come before and who are supporting in some way where and how you are now.

And we can acknowledge all of their faults while also imagining that they are gazing upon us in the same way that we're gazing upon whatever we're gazing upon.

So can you feel at your back a sensation of tenderness and care?

Can you feel that you are surrounded by and supported upon the deeply felt hope and love and fierce will that the ones who have come before have?

And then close your eyes again.

And if you happen to be a parent or in relationship with people who are kiddos and younger folks now,

This will probably be easy.

If you aren't a parent or don't happen to know many younger people,

Imagine them.

Imagine the generations of people now who are everywhere from infanthood to young adulthood in their early and mid-twenties coming of age.

Maybe you are in that category.

And then you can look forwards to the ones who are younger than you as well as feel outwards to your era.

And feel the immensity of what it is to come of age in this moment,

To be given this iteration of human existence and the challenges that we're currently facing interpersonally as well as institutionally as well as environmentally.

And notice if there are feelings of fear or contraction or sadness that arise.

And if those feelings are present,

Notice what they do to that sensation of tenderness.

Notice how they draw the inner body away from the outer experience.

And notice how the skin and the skeleton contract and harden.

And breathe in again and allow the front wall of your abdomen to relax.

And remember that every cell is breathing and expanding and condensing.

And remember again adoration and love and tenderness.

And now can you read that into these beings,

To these bodies.

And just imagine how many there are,

Just billions of people who are coming in right now.

And consider what it would be not just to wish for but to actually trust,

To have faith in our collective remembering that we share the water and that health for one is health for all.

And see if you can consider without cynicism the possibility of structures that can support a huge array and difference of experience.

And that take as their baseline and founding principles the necessity that we all have upon our interdependence and shared resource that the earth provides.

And as you soften and as you breathe can you remember in yourself that what you need you have,

Even if in this moment in your life you are wanting.

Remembering that there is an abundance upon this planet that can be utilized and shared without depleting it.

And that we can live and give life rather than live through taking life.

And in these last few moments of this meditation I'd like to invite you to really feel into your individuality and with the huge amount of people who exist on earth right now and who have existed and who will exist of course we're all quite similar.

But it's also true that no one has experienced the unique array of experiences that you have and the unique configuration of influences in time and space that you have.

And that you carry some piece of a greater knowledge that we all need.

That we each carry some piece of a greater knowledge that we all need.

And consider in yourself what it means to feel that urgency and purpose and empowerment.

Consider what it means to hold that question.

And to recognize the inherent equality that exists within all others who hold that question.

And can you imagine that the more you can support this manifestation and embodiment of unique purpose in those who are around you,

The more you in turn will be supported.

Can you trust that?

And then we'll conclude the meditation in whatever way feels appropriate for you.

You might choose to bring your hands together.

And if you do you might also choose to touch the meeting of your fingertips to your forehead and ask for thoughts and thinking that align to your highest intent,

To your highest purpose.

And you might choose to touch your fingertips to your mouth and ask for speech that aligns to your intent and that serves the creation of feelings and forms that align to your intent.

And then you might choose to bring your hands to your heart space and ask that your intent is aligned with your greatest possible vision of tenderness and care and community.

And then if you choose you could bow your head to your heart as one of my friends and teachers liked to remind us the mind,

The true mind of the yogi,

Of the aspirant rests and dwells within the heart.

And then you can inhale and feel the way your heart rises towards your head and lift your gaze and see what's around you and remember that it's temporary and thank it for being here right now.

Reviews

Wow that was excellent! One of the best guided meditations I’ve ever experienced. Thank you for this gift. 🙏🏻

This was wonderful, thank you so much Renee!