Hello and welcome.
My name is Nat and I'm here to guide you through a compassion exercise.
In my lived experience,
Compassion comes a little more easily for others and not so much for myself.
My work and my awareness around compassion,
Especially as it relates to this exercise,
Is designed to help have compassion for self.
I believe that when we are able to navigate our own darkness,
We are more easily able to help others navigate their darkness.
Compassion is fueled by understanding and accepting our shared humanity.
When we can accept our own strengths as well as our own struggles,
When we can see our own darkness,
Then we have the ability to see both strength and struggle.
We have the ability to practice compassion a little more easily with others as well in its true authentic form.
It is my belief that no one,
Not one person is immune to pain or suffering.
Compassion is the daily practice where we recognize and accept this darkness within ourselves as well as in others,
The shared humanity.
So that we may treat not just ourselves but others as well with loving kindness and in that loving kindness,
We may find action,
We may take action in the face of suffering.
That is my most favorite part of compassion.
Compassion is the practice that allows us not to feel stuck in our suffering,
Not to feel paralyzed in our suffering,
But to take action.
It is not just about feeling,
It is also about doing.
Compassion,
It allows us to draw from our wholeness.
In our wholeness we acknowledge and we recognize our suffering.
We see the strength in our lives but we also we see the struggle.
We acknowledge the light that exists but we also we also acknowledge the darkness and we pull from the wholeness of both these things.
They both belong.
The best part about compassion is it moves me away from needing to fix or to save or to rescue.
Compassion is none of those things.
Compassion allows us to hold generous space for our pain,
For our suffering,
For our darkness.
It allows us to sit in our discomfort rather than try to fix it.
And when we give ourselves the dignity of our discomfort,
When we give others the dignity of their discomfort,
We allow ourselves the courage to see it through to the other side.
To gain the wisdom that awaits us within that discomfort.
To dissolve it and to continue to move forward to take action.
It is from here with this new awareness on compassion that we begin our exercise.
Wherever you are is perfectly fine.
Will you scan your body and notice if you could settle into it just a little more deeply.
Begin with feeling where all the parts of you make contact with the earth.
What parts of you can feel a little bit more rooted,
A little more grounded.
And then welcome your breath into your body with a greater awareness,
With a conscious purpose.
Begin to notice where in your body the breath enters,
What parts of you expand and open and lengthen.
And then as you exhale,
Notice what parts of you,
Physical parts of you contract,
Hug in and soften.
The inhale,
Where do you feel it?
Notice.
And then as you exhale,
Soften into your whole self.
Place your hands on your body,
Perhaps your heart,
Perhaps your belly,
Perhaps your thighs.
Wherever a connection,
A touch feels good for you,
Feel your hands on your body press into your physical self.
Respond by pressing back into your hands.
Feel the gentle warmth of awareness as you begin to notice,
As you begin to feel into your presence.
And with this love,
With this gentle kind touch on self and the mind's eye,
Tell yourself,
I am safe.
Feel safe.
And then in this safe energy,
Can you bring yourself to a discomfort that you feel in your life?
A situation or a conflict,
Something that feels,
Something that feels a little uncomfortable,
Perhaps a little tender,
A struggle that you face.
And as the emotions of this struggle,
This difficulty as they surface in your body,
Feel into them,
Acknowledge them,
Accept them,
Welcome them lovingly and gently into your lived experience,
Into your physical body.
Begin to notice where they surface and how they feel.
And then repeat after me as these emotions swell and swirl,
As these sensations grow,
I am having a difficult time.
I am not alone in this hardship.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself all of the compassion I need to feel into this discomfort,
Into this struggle,
Into this space fully and wholly.
I am having a difficult time.
I am not alone in feeling this way.
May I be kind to myself.
May I give myself the compassion to feel this fully and wholly.
Give yourself this wonderful moment of feeling,
Of accepting the compassion,
And of acknowledging the struggle.
Feel into the energy as it swirls,
As it twirls,
As it moves,
As it evolves,
As it dissolves.
Together we take a cleansing deep breath in and a long,
Slow,
Mindful breath out,
Allowing our breath to return to its natural rhythm.
We begin to bring the awareness of our room,
Our space,
Into our physical awareness,
Into our physical knowingness.
We begin to move our toes,
Our nose,
And our fingers.
We slowly open our eyes if they were closed,
And we bring all of the sensations.
We welcome everything this room offers us back into our physical space,
Back into our awareness.
Compassion is a practice.
It is a practice of any point in your day,
At any moment in your life when you need it.
Pause in the overwhelm.
Pause in the discomfort.
Acknowledge the difficulty.
Acknowledge that you are not alone.
And then lean into the compassion,
Into the ability to feel the discomfort fully,
And notice what clarity becomes available to you once you gift yourself this practice of compassion.
