So this is a meditation you can use when you need to regularly rest your body because of chronic pain,
Headaches,
Arthritis,
Fibromyalgia,
Or some other condition.
So just get your body comfortable.
Relax,
Sink into your bed,
Into your chair,
Wherever you are.
And I'm just going to talk a little bit while you relax.
You can use my voice as an anchor,
Just returning to the sound of it when you've gone off.
And then we'll do a little meditation in a few minutes.
You know,
Having conditions that require us to take breaks and rest throughout the day can be really challenging.
When I found out that in order to manage my fibromyalgia,
I needed to rest in a quiet,
Dark room a couple of times a day,
I thought that would be no problem at all.
I thought I would just love nothing more than going into my bedroom,
Lying down,
Closing my eyes,
Maybe even sleeping.
I had already been doing that after all because I had fibromyalgia and I didn't know it.
And so I was really struggling with my energy levels and my pain levels throughout the day.
So I was really excited to do this.
What I didn't anticipate,
However,
Were all the parts of myself that came up and rebelled against the idea of proactive rest.
I was telling myself things like,
You weren't getting anything done before.
How are you going to do that now?
You can't just lay there resting after emptying the dishwasher and doing little things around the house.
You did not earn that rest.
I would think things to myself like,
Maybe think about some problems you can solve while you're laying here.
Maybe think about some clients or some meditations and you know,
Maybe I'll get a laptop and I'll figure out how to hang it so I can lay flat on my back and write.
I just did not want to stop what I was doing and rest on a schedule.
I really still had this idea that I had to earn resting.
That I had to do the hard things first.
I had to prove my worthiness.
I had to prove my worthiness by getting things done and being productive and then I could rest.
But if I did that,
If I didn't rest say three,
Four hours after I had woken up,
If I hadn't taken like a kind of a noonish nap,
I would find that by one o'clock,
Two o'clock,
I was done for the day.
I couldn't just sort of blaze through hours and hours at a time anymore and have a little rest have a little rest later and then get up from that and have more day.
That just was not in the cards for me anymore.
Extremely difficult to accept that.
Really hard to say to yourself,
Okay you've done enough now.
It's your resting time.
It's 11.
It's 12.
It's time to go lay down.
I just really fought against that idea.
All my negative self-critical parts were saying,
You know you are essentially a lazy person.
You are just using this as an excuse not to do things.
You are just wanting to get out of what you're supposed to be doing and when I was laying down to rest,
I was not resting.
I was struggling with myself.
I was arguing with myself.
I was listening to these mean critical voices and that's anything but restful.
So what I'd like us to do today is to really bring in a lot of understanding and self-compassion as we do this work of giving our bodies a break.
Just settling in to wherever you are.
Maybe putting a hand on your chest over your heart if that feels comforting and good to you.
And remembering this is hard.
It's hard to have chronic pain,
Chronic exhaustion,
Depleted energy in a world that is so stimulating and requires so much energy from us.
And many of us grew up with not enough messages.
Not good enough,
Not fast enough,
Not productive enough,
Not smart enough.
And we have to understand that just resisting these messages itself is exhausting.
Just relaxing and feeling your breath as it moves in your body.
We're going to rewire our brains so that we don't lay down to rest and have the automatic thought,
You shouldn't be doing this.
This is good for our bodies.
It's good for our minds.
It's good to be able to take care of yourself.
It's good to be able to take care of yourself.
It's good to be able to take care of yourself.
It's good to take care of yourself.
It's good to manage your energy.
Distributing it carefully,
Thoughtfully.
Not just spending it wildly like money in our pocket.
You're not lazy.
It's not that you don't want to be productive or do things you don't want to do.
You have real limits.
You know,
I saw a meme that said something like,
Aftercare does not count as self-care.
And that really hit me because I realized a lot of the resting I'd been doing was what you would consider aftercare.
After I had exhausted myself,
After I was burned out.
And it takes a while to get used to monitoring our energy this way.
When we start to listen to our bodies and learn from them and let our bodies lead us,
It can be really challenging,
Especially if that's not how we've been living.
And just really feeling yourself relax,
Giving yourself permission to do this resting.
It's so important.
And then taking all the time you need and then taking all the time you need.
Coming back into the room.
Opening your eyes.
And you can come back and do this meditation anytime.
I really thank you for joining me in this.
It feels good to be supported by others going through the same thing.
Be well.
Have a wonderful rest of your day.
