Hello,
My beautiful fellow traveller.
Thank you for being here with me.
Thank you for taking one hour out of your week and making it all and only about you.
Thank you for giving yourself this time to recharge your battery,
To replenish your soul,
To pay a little attention to your heart,
And to heal.
This week's meditation did not come easy for me.
I had no idea what to make this week's affirmation audio journey about,
Because this week I was feeling so stagnant and uninspired,
Like there was absolutely no creativity or inspiration in me.
I tried to write something down,
But it felt forced and inauthentic,
And so instead I decided to surrender,
To surrender to the way I was feeling and just accept exactly where I was.
And as soon as I did that,
As soon as I surrendered to what is,
That's when I realised that where I am is the perfect theme for this meditation.
So today's theme is about accepting what is.
Choosing to accept what is,
Even if what is,
Isn't what we'd like it to be.
Choosing to accept ourselves,
Even when ourselves are not how we would like to be.
Today's affirmation audio journey is about being okay when things aren't okay.
If your eyes aren't closed,
Then I invite you to close them now,
So we may begin our journey of acceptance together.
To start,
I'd like you to simply focus all of your attention on your breath.
Follow your breath in through your nose,
Down through your throat,
And into your lungs,
Feeling your lungs expand.
And then follow your breath back out of your lungs,
Back up your throat,
And out of your nose.
Just keep focusing on the breath,
Following its journey in and out.
As you breathe in,
Your stomach expands,
And as you breathe out,
Your stomach sinks back into your ribcage.
Begin to feel your breath like it's a wave flowing inside of you and back outside of you,
Like the soft,
Gentle tide of the ocean at sunset,
Rising and falling,
Rising and falling,
In and out,
Like the gentle waves of the ocean.
Feel yourself begin to relax and slow down.
Feel your mind begin to slow down.
Feel your heart relaxing.
This is your time,
Your space,
To accept everything that is.
We all know that things aren't going to be okay all the time.
We already know that up ahead,
There's going to be some bad days,
Because that's how the tide of life works.
It rises and it falls.
Life rises and it falls.
Some things are good and some things aren't so good.
Sometimes life is calm and easy.
Sometimes life is stormy and a struggle,
Just like the waves in the ocean.
It's the cycle of life that we need to accept if we want our lives to be easier and softer.
If we insist on only having good days,
Then we are setting ourselves up for disappointment.
If we are only content when everything is okay in our lives,
Then we will never ever be truly content,
Because there's always going to be bad days.
Our lives aren't always going to be okay,
And that's okay.
We can choose differently.
We can change our perspective to make our lives easier and softer.
We can decide right here,
Right now,
In this safe space that we are sharing together,
We can decide to give ourselves permission to feel everything.
We can decide to give ourselves permission to feel the discomfort.
Accepting that things in our lives are not okay doesn't mean you have to crawl into it.
Accepting when you're struggling does not mean wallowing in self-pity.
It simply means we are allowing ourselves to be in the moment we are currently experiencing right now.
So what is the experience of this present moment for you right now?
If life feels difficult for you,
Why not simply accept that life is difficult right now?
Instead of panicking and getting overwhelmed by the fear and the anxiety,
Why not just accept what is?
Experiences never last forever.
Everything passes in time.
So why not give yourself permission to be exactly where you are?
Knowing deep in the core of your soul that where you are is not where you will always be.
It's just where you are right now.
And soon enough,
You will be somewhere else,
Living a new experience.
If life is frustrating right now,
Isn't it better to sit and feel the frustration here with me rather than deny the frustration is there and take it out on everybody else during the course of your day?
If you're feeling sad,
Isn't it better to just sit here with me for a moment in the sadness rather than denying it's there and stuffing it down with a pizza or a bottle of wine?
Instead of pushing the experience away,
Why not welcome it?
Instead of avoiding the uncomfortable feelings,
Forcing them down,
Denying them or ignoring them,
Why don't we just become explorers of our own present experience and emotions?
Explorers of ourselves and the things that make us feel what we feel.
Together here in this sacred space,
Let us dare to explore ourselves and how we feel our emotions.
To start,
I want you to tune into yourself,
To what's going on in your inner and outer worlds.
What is happening outside of you and how is that making you feel inside of you?
Perhaps work is stressing you out.
Perhaps a relationship is causing you heartache.
Perhaps life is not going according to plan and you're feeling frustrated.
There are no wrong or right ways to be here.
All is welcome.
Just tune into your inner and outer worlds and see where you are right now.
And from this place,
I'm now going to ask you to step outside of yourself.
Using your imagination,
I want you to step out of your body so you can get a better look of where you are and how you feel.
I'd like you to imagine your soul self stepping out of your body to get a better perspective.
See yourself where you are right now,
Sitting or lying down with your eyes closed,
Drifting along on this audio journey with me.
Step back and watch yourself.
Look at yourself like you would a piece of art in a gallery.
Observe yourself.
Observe your experience.
Observe your emotions.
How are you feeling right now in this very moment?
Are you feeling calm?
If so,
What does calm look like on you?
Circle around yourself and observe yourself feeling whatever emotion it is that's inside of you now.
Are you feeling anxious?
If so,
Where in your body does that anxiety live?
Perhaps you're feeling sadness.
Does the emotion you're feeling have a temperature?
Does it make you feel hot or cold?
Perhaps if you're feeling frustrated,
It feels warm.
Perhaps if you're feeling lonely or lost,
It feels cold.
There are no wrong or right answers here.
It's just about observing yourself feeling the feeling.
Instead of believing,
You are the feeling.
You are not sad,
But you may be feeling sadness.
You are not frustrated,
But you may be experiencing frustration.
You are not calm,
But you may be feeling calm.
You are not lonely,
But maybe you are feeling alone.
Do you see the difference?
As you watch yourself feeling the feeling,
Do you see the difference?
As you watch yourself experiencing this moment exactly as it is,
By sitting quietly and finding stillness,
By stepping out of yourself to see how you're really doing,
You stop yourself from getting lost in the emotion.
You give yourself permission to just be where you are,
And by doing so,
You stop yourself from becoming consumed by the discomfort or the struggle.
Instead,
You just see how it feels.
See how the emotion feels under your skin.
See how the experience manifests in this present moment.
See how the experience makes your heart feel open or closed.
How the emotion makes you feel constricted and hard or soft and weak.
Simply watch,
Observe,
And accept.
I'm going to stop talking now,
And you're simply going to explore yourself and what's currently going on inside of you.
Just take a look around and see what's there.
There will always be good days and bad days.
Sometimes you'll feel okay,
And sometimes you won't.
And that's okay.
When things aren't going according to plan,
When things aren't aligning,
When creativity isn't flowing,
When we're not feeling our greatest selves,
Instead of getting anxious or upset or overwhelmed,
We can choose to just give ourselves permission to not be okay.
Not aligned,
Dried up with creativity with plans gone wrong.
The easiest way to ride out a storm is to surrender to the current.
Instead of fighting the waves and trying to control what is,
You can choose to just lay on your back and let the waves carry you wherever they may.
Because when things aren't okay and we aren't accepting of that,
We are choosing to let fear take hold of us.
We begin to constrict,
To get smaller,
To disconnect ourselves from everything and everyone around us.
We disconnect ourselves from being truly present in the here and now.
We get so stuck in our heads that we disconnect from the beauty that is everywhere.
But we don't have to disconnect every time life gets tough or uncomfortable.
We don't have to disconnect from the beauty that is everywhere because things in our lives are not okay.
We can choose another way.
We can choose fear,
But we can also choose acceptance of exactly what is.
Trust that what is is constantly changing and evolving.
Choose to simply accept that what's going on for us right now is exactly what's going on for us right now.
And we can take a moment of stillness,
Time to step out of ourselves in order to see,
Feel and accept what's there.
We can choose to believe we are exactly where we need to be at this very moment.
Even if we don't know why,
We can choose to surrender to the waves of life.
Sometimes smooth,
Sometimes stormy.
So maybe something in your life isn't the way you want it to be.
And that's okay.
We can make the choice to accept and be okay with not being okay all the time.
We can choose to accept and explore the discomfort of our current experience.
We can choose to accept what is and not try and control it to be something else.
Choose to let go and surrender to the waves of existence.
And so,
Before this meditation comes to an end,
Let us focus on our breath again,
Following it in and out like the tides of the ocean.
And let us be okay with whatever is inside of us right now.
Just breathe.
Just surrender.
Just accept.
Just lay on your back and float with whatever is.
