Hello and welcome to the official launch of the Daily Insight here on Insight Timer.
My name is Sarah Blondin and I am a teacher here.
Today's meditation is going to be a gentle practice that focuses on accessing your inner source of hope and optimism.
It can be useful when you're feeling overwhelmed,
Disheartened,
Or stuck in a muddy place of fear and insecurity.
I wish you a restorative practice and look forward to seeing you again next month.
And of course,
Happy New Year!
To start off on a bit of a personal note,
I have found myself in this last year overwhelmed with feelings of fear and despair,
Both inside myself and for the earth.
I sense the collective heart of our world is a bit heavy and I know I'm not alone in feeling this.
So on this first day of this new year,
I'd like to instill hope and offer a way for us to cultivate optimism instead of remaining caught in our concern and pain.
We are not wrong to feel distressed and heartache.
In fact,
We are really right to feel these things.
We are highly intuitive beings who can sense subtle currents of disharmony both inside of ourselves and in our surroundings.
So when feelings of despair and dread come up,
It is important we recognize that our body is signaling to us that something is amiss.
Something very loving and essential is rising inside of us that is in opposition to the fraught frequency a lot of us are finding us caught in.
We are being asked to restore balance and harmony in any way we can and the best place to start is within ourselves.
Imagine your heartache as your body essentially calling you to turn inward and take care,
As if calling you back to find and reestablish your alignment with truth.
If wise,
We can use our hopelessness as a call to not recycle our grief but instead deepen our roots and connection with our true nature.
This is how we cultivate hope,
How we take despair and spin gold.
We walk toward the ache and the sting of our heaviness,
So to unveil and invite the healing powers of our hearts.
Let us find hope this new year in our own bodies,
In our latent capabilities to stand as a beacon of light burning back the dark.
Let us refuse to stay immobile in our dread and rise as we are being called to,
To take care,
Fasten to truth and hold in our love.
I'm going to guide you through a practice now to show you how you can do this.
So let's just begin by breathing deeply into your body,
Sending your breath down to your toes,
Out through your fingers and up through the crown of your head.
Drive your breath through the length of your body.
Really push yourself open and wide.
Say yes to growing your body strong in posture and awareness.
Say yes to your walls falling away.
Say yes to receiving grace.
Create a strong spine and inner confidence while at the same time stepping into the softest,
Most loving aspect of your being.
Unguarded and ready to give and receive love.
We must go inside of ourselves when we are in suffering and gently push at the tender and sore spots.
Take both our hands to put pressure on the wound.
This is how we challenge what is hard with our loving awareness.
What happens when we actually turn toward these places with our attention is they begin to drain and shrink in size.
And often you can find the helplessness of the distress gets revealed.
You can see that these displays of the world's fear and our individual fear are but places asking for love.
Compassion is innate to us.
If we become soft in the face of what feels hard,
We deactivate one reaction.
We heal one small corner and we make it safe for others to do the same.
Nothing can move if we do not help it.
There is tremendous hope to be found in confronting what threatens our peace.
These things are ours to hold.
These arms,
These hands,
This heart of yours are so capable of loving,
Dear one.
This you know how to do.
I'd like you to really look within yourself now for anything you wish to mend or soothe.
Ask that it be so and know that you are beginning the healing process.
To see is to heal.
So take a few moments now to resolve anything that may be weighing heavy on your heart or in the world.
To what you sense needs help.
Let what you intuitively feel be spoken aloud.
Bless and comfort the uncomfortable.
If we long for peace,
It must begin first in this way,
Within our own body,
Mind and spirit.
So ask that it be absolved and it will begin.
Ask that it be nourished,
That it be loved and it will be so.
Ask for what needs restoration,
Summon healing with your seeing,
Your naming,
Your powerful voice.
Now pause in this open space,
Empty of what you feel and allow grace to find you,
Dear one.
Let it sprout up from the cracks around your feet.
Let it pour into you.
When we allow ourselves to come close to all of what we are feeling and experiencing as we just did,
We reclaim our agency.
We unearth hope in ourselves and in the world around us.
When we search for goodness within ourselves,
When we ask for healing,
We begin to see it everywhere we look.
In many shamanic societies,
If you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened,
Dispirited or depressed,
They would ask one of four questions.
When did you stop dancing?
When did you stop singing?
When did you stop being enchanted by stories?
When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?
I like you to continue forward,
Setting in place some sort of daily practice where you are naming the fear as it comes up and loving it until it is fully seen and let go of.
Daily moment by moment if need,
Learn to hold in your love for this life,
This earth and everything that cries out beside you.
Remember to dance beside your struggles.
Remember how to sing your pain to sleep.
Remember how to find refuge in the silence of your body.
When you begin to feel the weight on top of your heart,
Accept the invitation to your growth and expansion by stepping out from the fright and inertia to shake your love awake.
This will help in healing the waters of this earth.
This will help you see goodness beyond the small shouting parts.
This will help in moving us through the pain into the grace blooming on the other side of it.
So as we and the world tumbles through its cycles of torment,
Be as you are in truth,
Dear one.
Made of love and kindness,
Hold your ground and push against the frightening forces to find what is asking for love.
Hope will rise in force as you discover it is you who summons forward healing,
You who can encourage growth in all directions so long as you learn to hold in love.
We are most looking for a warm hearth to rest our guards,
So let us relax our fear,
Relax our walls,
Relax the noise,
And become a warm embrace.
Taking a deep breath,
Coming to gently stretch in your body and open your eyes whenever you're ready.
Thank you for taking the time to ground yourself in the loving frequency of your body,
For joining me to cultivate and remember the hope born from being awake and the hope born from choosing to lead with and stand in love.
What I really believe this time is calling forth in us is a resolute-ness to stay with our hearts and ourselves,
To not spiral into the distress but to really ground back in our healing hearts.
It can be really helpful to come up with a short mantra for yourself that you can say whenever you feel yourself kind of falling into a place of despair or distrust,
Something that can anchor you back in the moment.
I like to use,
I trust in myself and the goodness of this world.
I trust in myself and the goodness of this world.
So I want you to remember this is a muscle we are learning to work.
This is a rewiring of our brains to not focus on the fear but instead empower ourselves to think thoughts of love and healing for this world,
For ourselves.
And the more we learn to strengthen and use this muscle,
The more hope builds in force within and around us.
There really is a practice of remembrance and commitment to focusing on what is good and what is right and what is true.
So I encourage you,
Even if the fear comes,
To remember your commitment to choosing the love at your center.
I will be right beside you doing the same work so you are not alone,
Sending blessings to each and every one of you.
Thank you again for joining me.
And again,
Happy New Year.
