Guided Meditation 6.
1 Time Travel Meditation.
In order to work with this meditation,
Please choose a memory that has been troubling you,
Where you felt alone and you have a sense that you would like to be able to go back and accompany yourself.
Please note that I strongly advise you not to embark on a memory journey without warmth for your traumatized former self.
If you would like to build the warmth,
Re-read and work with the earlier chapters of this book.
Another option is to do this work in session with a therapist who understands resonance,
If you aren't able to carry it for yourself and you don't want to wait for your own self-warmth to develop.
So to begin,
Allow yourself to sink into your breathing.
See if you can feel the breath coming into you and going out of you.
Your breath may be very slight.
Where is the sensation most alive?
Can you feel it in your lungs,
In your ribs,
In your nose,
Upper sinuses,
Mouth,
In your throat?
Wherever the sensation has the most intensity,
Invite your attention to rest there.
And when your attention wanders,
As attention does,
Gently and with warmth,
Invite it to come back to your breath.
Thank your attention for its commitment to keeping you going with its alertness to importance,
And see again if it is willing to come back to the sensation of breathing.
Now bring to mind the memory or bewildering stimulus you wish to work with.
Allow yourself to feel the body sensations connected either with the memory or with the confusing experience of having been triggered.
A possible question to ask yourself is,
Have I ever had this set of body sensations before?
If so,
What is the earliest memory that arises with this set of body sensations?
Or there may be a sense of familiarity but no clear memory,
And you can ask yourself,
How old do I feel?
If you know what memory you are working with,
Let yourself see what it is like to shift your consciousness between the sensations that are alive in the traumatized part and your consciousness of your resonating self-witness,
Anchoring this self in the warmth that you had for your attention and that you are feeling for the younger part that experienced the difficult memory.
If you don't know what memory you are working with,
Ask yourself how old this triggered self feels.
What do you know about your life at this age?
Have you seen a photograph of yourself at this age that you can bring to mind?
If you don't have a memory emerging,
Simply continue with this rescue of the memory of yourself at this age.
Shifting your attention into the point of view of your resonating self-witness,
Come into relationship with your younger self.
As you look back through time at your younger self,
Do you feel tenderness and warmth for yourself?
If the tenderness and warmth are tentative,
Make a few empathy guesses for the self that has this tentative approach to the younger part.
For example,
As you look at your younger self,
Are you irritated and angry,
Longing for strength,
Maybe even superhuman strength?
Are you aching for this younger part to feel fully separate from this experience,
To be completely free of his or her emotional burdens?
See if any other body sensations can receive needs guesses to bring you more relaxation and let you move into a more self-compassionate point of view.
Now shift fully into the resonating and warm self-witness.
Do you feel full tenderness now for this younger part?
Again,
If not,
Please stop this guided meditation here.
Work with the previous meditations in this book for a few months and then return here.
If you do feel tenderness,
Take a long step through time and space to enter the room or area where your younger self is,
Freezing everyone so that the environment becomes safe.
As you enter the environment,
Make sure that you have your younger self's consent to be present here.
Find out if your younger self can see your self-witness.
If there's no sense of connection between the two,
Then simply make empathy guesses based on your younger self's experience,
Either what you can feel when you step into the part of you,
Or what you can see from looking at that part,
Until your younger self can see the older part.
Your guesses might sound like this.
Are you overwhelmed and frozen,
And do you long for a world where safety is possible?
Are you worried about the other people in this situation,
And do you need everyone to be okay?
Do you need acknowledgement that this was really hard?
As your younger self starts to realize that someone is there with them,
You can see if this part knows who the older self is.
If your supportive presence brings bewilderment,
Then you can introduce yourself,
Using words like,
I am the older part of you.
I have come back to be with you since this situation was too hard for anyone to be alone in.
Come as close to your younger self as seems comfortable.
Based on what you can feel or see in your younger self's body,
Acknowledge your self's truth using metaphors and reflections.
Track what is happening in this younger body,
Either by shifting your perspective or by watching changes in posture or movement,
And let your guesses reflect these observations.
Your guesses might sound like this.
Are you stunned and paralyzed,
And do you need acknowledgement of your grief and your loss?
Are you terrified,
And do you long for protection and a sense of safety?
Do you need to survive?
Does the rage make you shake as if you were touching a high voltage wire?
Are you bewildered about how to feel so much rage and still let the world survive or survive yourself?
Are you worried about the people you love and do you need them to be okay?
Was this moment so horrifying or terrifying that you thought you actually died?
Is it a surprise to find yourself alive?
And check back in now with the body of the younger self and the body of the resonating self-witness.
Is there still warmth and tenderness for this younger self?
As the stunned quality of frozenness fades in the memory,
There's often an arising of rage or terror or grief,
So you can see what might be here for this younger self.
As your younger self's body relaxes,
Gently offer physical contact if it is welcome.
If it is welcome,
Then you can shift your frame of reference into your younger self,
Into that physical being,
And allow yourself to experience receiving this surprising support and warmth and accompaniment.
Shifting back to the resonating self-witness again,
If an embrace is welcome,
See if you can feel the warm heaviness of your younger body in your own arms.
Once the younger self relaxes,
Let that part of you know that you have survived this and that you need the energy and gifts that have been previously frozen at this point in time.
Invite your younger self to come back to the present time with you.
Sometimes these parts dissolve into us and find their place in our heart.
Sometimes they are so happy to have a safe environment that they just want to play or explore near us.
It doesn't matter which they choose,
Just enjoy it.
Notice what it is like for you to have this part with you safe now,
Beloved.
Do you feel delight?
If you feel warmth,
Love,
Or delight,
Let yourself close your eyes and feel the sensations of these emotions until they come to a peak and start to ebb.
And now returning to your breathing and your warm self-connection,
Practice this movement between attention and breath until you are ready to re-enter the present-day world.
