Guided Meditation 10.
1 Attachment in Community.
Begin this meditation with your sense of your body.
What does the space that your body takes up feel like?
Is there an emotional tone that you live in?
When you simply let yourself breathe and exist,
Do you feel calm and happy to be yourself?
If not,
Are you numb or frozen?
Do you need acknowledgement of shock or exhaustion?
Do you notice that there is some sense of fear,
Loneliness,
Or anxiety?
Do you long for certain safety for the well-being of those you love?
Or maybe there's something more like ongoing irritation and a need for effectiveness or sadness and a need for supported mourning.
Simply notice what you find and meet it with gentleness.
Now let your attention come to your breath.
As you breathe,
See if you can feel your breath go in and out,
Moving your ribs or your abdomen.
As you ask your attention to stay with whatever place of alive breathing sensation you find in your ribs or your abdomen,
Hold it with warmth and acceptance.
If your attention is drawn to other parts of your body or to other thoughts,
Gently and with kindness ask if it is willing to return to your breath.
Now close your eyes and let yourself imagine your community and your family members spread out around you like an interconnected web.
How close are the people who are most important to you?
Is their distance from you a comfortable one?
Are you in the center of the web or do you find yourself at a far edge?
Wherever you find yourself,
Turn your attention to the person who is standing closest to you in your imagination.
If this person is very close or merged with you,
Have them take a step back.
If this person is quite far away from you,
Let them take a step closer to you.
Either way,
With this change in proximity,
What happens in your body?
And if that sensation that arises in response to the change in distance were an emotion,
What emotion would it be?
And what deep truth,
What kind of integrity or love or longing for freedom and autonomy lie beneath that emotion?
As your body relaxes,
Notice what meaning you make of the movement.
And in your mind's eye,
If someone comes closer to you,
Does it create a sense of overwhelm?
If someone moves away,
Are you being abandoned?
Allow your resonating self-witness to stand with you at the comfortable distance or closeness of your choice to provide an anchor of empathy and support for you.
Invite another movement toward you or away from you and see what happens in your body this time.
What are the emotions that arise for you?
And what do you long for most?
Do you long for closeness or do you long for distance?
See if there is any exhaustion and if you have needs for hope for meaning or for trust.
Would it be sweet to know that you are exactly right just as you are and that you get to move or heal at your own speed?
Would you like to be able to rely on everyone else in your community and your family to each be on their own healing journey and to know the feeling of being held with warmth by the universe,
No matter what you do or don't do?
As you imagine this web of interconnection,
Continue to follow your body sensations,
Emotions and needs and let your body lead you.
As we come to the end of this meditation,
When you are ready,
Allow your attention to come back to your breathing and to the space that your body takes up.
Check back in with the emotional tone of your body,
Its space and your world.
And finally,
For a last moment,
Please allow yourself to breathe in the wondering that maybe you are beloved just as you are,
That maybe you are the center of things just as you are,
And that you get to heal the way a flower unfolds or the way a healthy baby grows organically and perfectly.
