Guided Meditation 7.
1 The Post-Hersal Meditation.
A post-hersal is an intentional rerun of an experience that we feel triggered by,
Or regret about,
Or that we feel both things about,
To bring resonance to the part of the Self that was overwhelmed and unaccompanied in that moment.
As this previous Self receives warmth and understanding,
The body relaxes and new choices become possible for the next time such an event occurs.
A quick note of acknowledgement.
It can be hard to have warmth for yourself when you have a sense that,
Or know that,
You have either lost control or harmed others.
So reassure yourself that finding and growing the part of you that has generous acceptance for your past can take a long time.
There is a reason we keep punishing ourselves.
When the brain reruns shameful memories of anger and punitive behavior,
The evaluating Self,
Or the critical Self,
May not hold you with tenderness,
Because there can be an ongoing hope that self-punishment will help stop this from ever happening again.
With this in mind,
Try this guided meditation and see how far you get with it.
Stop whenever it is uncomfortable,
Stay with your body,
And listen to your heart.
Begin with your breathing.
Let yourself find the place of live sensation in your breathing,
And invite your attention to rest there.
Continue to breathe and offer yourself warmth.
You can pause this recording for a moment to breathe 10 to 20 breaths,
And after you have a sense of being connected with your breath,
Come back to this recording and let your attention go back to the memory of the difficult incident.
As you replay it in your mind,
Let yourself notice your body sensations.
At what moment in the replay does your body tell you that your anger began?
What were the words,
Gestures,
Facial expressions,
Or thoughts that were the trigger for this anger?
Stop the memory right at this moment,
Freezing everyone else who is involved.
Shift your attention away from this scene now,
To your sense of your loving presence who wants only the best for you.
As you look back through time at your starting to get angry self,
Do you have a sense of warmth and understanding for that self,
Or are you upset with yourself and worried?
If you don't have a feeling of warmth for yourself,
You have not fully located your resonating self-witness.
Once you have connected with a resonating self-witness who has compassion for your angry self,
Continue on.
If you haven't found a resonating self-witness with compassion,
Simply skip this meditation and continue on with the book to see if you begin to build this compassionate inner part,
And return to this meditation after you complete the book to see if there is more solid ground for this act of self-connection.
With resonance,
First make some empathy guesses for your present day worried or regretful self.
Are you needing hope,
Faith,
Or trust,
Or maybe some acknowledgement that you are worried about the other people in this scenario,
Or about whether you yourself will ever learn or heal?
Are you longing to be able to trust yourself?
That may have given you enough relaxation to move forward.
Now stepping in to your resonating self-witness,
Look back at your past self with warmth.
Take a time travel step back to yourself so that you are not alone.
Can your angry self feel this accepting,
Reassuring presence?
Switch your consciousness between your angry self and your more resourced self-witness.
Let your self-witness acknowledge the body sensations and the intensity of the emotions,
And make some guesses based on the body sensations you find.
For example,
If your stomach is clenched,
Are you feeling dread and overwhelm?
Is there a sense of panic and claustrophobia?
Do you need freedom?
Do you need choice?
As you feel the anger in your body,
Do you worry that stability,
Predictability,
And respect are slipping away?
Do you want to hang on as tightly as possible to some solid ground,
Some truth in everything that is going on?
Are you afraid that you or the other person has given up,
And are you lashing out against hopelessness?
Are you exhausted and needing support,
And do you feel a lack of trust that you will ever receive it?
As you give resonant attention to yourself,
To your angry self,
You may find that there are other kinds of feelings and emotions that are arising.
There might be shock and a need for acknowledgement of just how shocked or panicked you were in this moment.
There may be a need to acknowledge choicelessness,
Or a sense of the sudden loss of freedom,
Or the capacity for self-connection.
You may find that there is grief here.
You may find that there is fear.
You may find loneliness.
Whatever you find,
See what the true longing is that lies beneath.
If you notice that your past self had a deep loneliness,
See if what they're really wanting is connection,
Partnership,
Presence,
Acknowledgement of effort,
To be seen for their intentions.
If you find that there is a deep mourning that has not been acknowledged,
Then allow yourself to take some moments to see this ocean of regret and care and tenderness and worry that may be present.
After your guesses,
Check in with your body sensations again.
If the new or slightly different sensations that are in your body now were an emotion,
What emotion would they be?
Let your resonating self-witness make more feelings and needs guesses until your body relaxes in the memory of the trigger.
Let yourself imagine behaving differently,
Taking a different action,
Saying different words.
Does it feel different to you?
And now let yourself relax and come back to your breathing.
You have just done a complete post-hersel.
