Guided Meditation 9.
1.
Inviting the Dissociated Self to Come Home.
Before you begin this meditation,
Notice what your attitude is toward your dissociated self.
If you are irritated with this self,
You have not yet picked up your resonating self-witness.
If this is so,
Then empathy guesses for your irritated part are important.
Maybe the part of you that is irritated is concerned for your well-being and viability,
And is longing for some sign that there is hope.
If even more intensely you notice self-loathing and this meditation feels impossible to you,
Please don't force yourself to embrace the dissociated one until the evaluating self gets more resonant acknowledgement.
You can refer to Chapter 11 for more information on working with self-hate.
To begin,
See if you can feel your breathing.
Spend some moments gently inviting your attention to stay with the place where your breath is most alive.
If you can't feel your breathing,
Which we often can't when we're dissociated,
Simply move to the next paragraph.
If there were a part of you that was not actually in your body but was outside of it,
Where would that part be?
You may have a sense that this part of you is here in the same room with you,
Only five or ten feet away,
Or you may have a sense that this part of you is stuck in the past somewhere or in some simple unidentified space that is not connected to your past but is entirely separate from you.
Locate this self and see if you can shift your perception from being in your actual body with your resonating self-witness present and available to you,
To being the dissociated self and then back again,
Toggling between your dissociation and your presence.
Now,
Let yourself pause here,
And I invite you to imagine freezing anyone else who is in the space,
Present time,
Past time,
Or imaginary,
Especially if it is a space of memory so that your dissociated part is completely safe.
Now,
With great gentleness,
Allow your resonating self-witness to travel to where your dissociated place was,
Whether that was five feet away,
Half a lifetime away,
Or worlds away.
As your resonating self-witness arrives,
See what distance is most comfortable for the part of you that has been dissociated.
Let yourself see the dissociated part with tenderness and warmth.
As your resonating self-witness looks with soft eyes at the dissociated part,
Check to see whether this dissociated part has any idea who the self-witness is.
If introductions are necessary,
Go ahead,
Say something like,
I am the best and warmest part of you,
Come to be with you so that you are not alone.
Let this self-witness express a little longer,
Verbally or non-verbally.
Acknowledge the wisdom of this part in choosing to be away from you when your body seemed like a dangerous or uncomfortable place to be.
Acknowledge the dissociated part's need for safety,
And acknowledge what you both have lived through.
In most of our meditations,
We work with body sensations,
But in the beginning of the dissociated self-meditation,
We rarely have body sensations to work with.
The most important thing to remember is that the self-witness is offering gentle,
Acknowledging contact without any expectation of change or movement.
There may be words,
There may be respectful space,
There may be an embrace or a gentle touch.
It may be important for the self-witness to stand some distance away,
Even in another room or outside the space.
See how much contact or connection your dissociated part is willing to receive,
And see how much is welcome.
Here are some possible resonant empathy guesses from your self-witness to your dissociated self.
Are you fairly certain that being in a physical body is not safe?
Would you like some acknowledgement of how unsafe bodies have been?
Are you worried about your body and about how it's getting on without you?
Do you feel hopeless,
And do you long to be able to feel warmth,
Welcome,
And belonging from the earth itself?
Would it be unthinkable to receive warmth,
Welcome,
And belonging from humans?
Are you confused and bewildered?
Do you wish you remembered or knew what clarity felt like?
Do you feel a distrust so deep that you would need a trust transplant in order to ever feel faith in anything again?
Do you need acknowledgement of the enormity of the original shock that blew you apart?
Was it like an atom bomb that destroyed the earth and all of humanity in that instant?
Do you feel lost?
Are you unsure how to return home?
Do you need absolute guarantees of protection,
Simplicity,
And ease?
After making these guesses,
See where your dissociated self is.
Is it still the same distance away as it was when you started the meditation?
Is it farther away?
Closer?
Wherever it is,
Ask if it is willing to rejoin your body or to go to the safe space that you created in the meditation in Chapter 8.
Whatever response comes,
Receive it with warmth,
Acceptance,
And understanding.
Sometimes,
As the self is acknowledged and seen with respect and gentleness,
It comes back and rejoins the body with a kind of shift of energy,
A click or a small silent thud.
Wherever this self is,
As you near the end of this meditation,
Let it know that you see that it is trying its best to ensure your survival.
Ask it if it would like some acknowledgement or appreciation for that.
And now,
Coming to the end of the meditation,
Invite your attention to return to your physical body.
See if you can catch any whisper or sensation of breath and acknowledge your toes,
The bones of your heels,
The skin over your knees,
Your belly button,
Your collarbone,
Your little right fingernail,
The very top of your head,
And your body as a whole.
And when you are ready,
Gently bring your attention all the way back to your present day life.
