This meditation is called Cultivating Your Agency to Overcome Trauma.
This mindfulness exercise is designed to help you overcome the harmful effects of trauma and to give you a stronger sense of self and control over how you relate to your trauma.
As you listen to this exercise and all mindfulness exercises,
Please remember that you are in control of your experience and you can do as much of it or as little of it as you wish.
No matter what kind of trauma you have gone through,
Large or small,
Physical,
Sexual,
Mental,
Emotional or spiritual,
Your trauma involves an incapacity to stop a terrible thing from happening to you.
Regardless of blame or misfortune,
It involves an incapacity to stop something terrible.
Sometimes this truth can wear on the psyche,
So recovering from trauma may require that you at some point increase your strength and capacities within to remember how incredibly powerful you are and how important your decisions are.
In this general way,
It may also be useful to do this kind of work with a therapist.
It's good to know that along with your trauma,
There may be natural common feelings or beliefs of entrapment,
Immobilization and helplessness.
To some degree,
You may not feel like you can escape the awfulness of it.
One thing that has helped thousands of others who live with incredible trauma is to become mindful of their agency or simply their ability to make something happen.
This can be accomplished with I am affirmations that make us feel empowered and awaken our intuition or inner truth.
Building your strength one block at a time will help in overcoming your exhaustion and burnout.
You will reach a point where you feel there is nothing you can't take on with your embodied strength and kindness that is always inside you.
So let's initiate our practice to work with difficult emotions associated with past traumas and offer kindness and compassion.
We will start by labeling our emotions and finding them in our body.
Then we will bring awareness to the difficult emotions,
Hold them in awareness and offer them loving acceptance and compassion.
So close your eyes and settle in your body.
Feel your feet on the floor and the weight of your body on the chair.
Now take a few deep breaths to the count of three,
Hold for a count of three and exhale to a count of three.
Let's do this together.
Inhale,
Two,
Three.
Hold,
Two,
Three.
Exhale,
Two,
Three.
One more time.
Inhale,
Two,
Three.
Hold,
Two,
Three.
Exhale,
Two,
Three.
Good work.
I would now invite you to think about a current situation in your life or past trauma that brings difficult emotions in your mind that you find challenging to deal with.
This could be a relationship issue,
Something to do with health or work.
Maybe you are feeling tired or exhausted or burnt out.
Maybe what comes to your mind?
Choose something that is not too overwhelming to handle.
Choose one issue at a time.
Think about this challenging situation.
What are you afraid is going to happen?
Bring to awareness people in situations that bring fear.
Think about this challenging situation.
Now become curious.
What kind of feelings come up for you?
Maybe you're not sure what you're feeling.
If you can,
Tell in a friendly tone and label it gently.
Yeah,
That's sadness.
I see.
I'm feeling grief.
There it is.
So much confusion.
I see you,
My fears.
I can hear you,
My anger.
See if you can identify what seems to be the strongest emotion.
Choose one emotion for now.
Now I invite you to locate where you feel the emotion in your body.
It may be a tightness in your throat,
Pounding in your heart,
Stabbing in your gut,
Gritting in your teeth,
Or tightening of your jaws.
How is this difficult emotion manifesting?
Where is it?
What does it feel like?
Hot?
Cold?
Tight?
Tingly?
Become aware of the emotion as a bodily emotion.
Just feel the emotion in your body.
Now try to gently soften that tightness and feel your body melting.
Soften your body.
Soften the edges of the tension.
Now we want to soothe and comfort because these feelings are hard.
Put a hand on your heart,
Neck,
Stomach,
Or any part of your body that is feeling the tension.
Let the warmth of your hand penetrate into the tension and emotion in your body.
You might imagine kindness,
Support,
Care,
And then say some words internally of kindness,
Validation,
And support for having these difficult emotions.
Say kind words to yourself.
I am so sorry.
It is so hard to feel these feelings.
I am here for you.
This too shall pass.
You are okay just as you are.
I'll support you in any steps you need to take to make this better.
Checking with yourself.
What do you need to hear to feel supported as you are experiencing these difficult emotions?
Feel a little bit safer.
See if you can allow this emotion to be.
Just allow as you feel.
No need to fix it or make it go away.
Allow it to be so.
Gently allow.
Allow these feelings.
Now as you open your eyes,
Ground yourself to the earth,
Feeling your feet on the floor,
And repeat these affirmations.
I am strong and resilient.
I have the power to overcome my trauma.
I have the power to overcome my past hurts.
I have the power to overcome my past hurts.
I have the power to overcome my trauma.
I am strong and resilient.
I shine my light brightly.
I bring hope in this world.
I bring loving kindness in this world.
I stand in my power and truth.
I am strong and resilient.
Thank you for joining me today.
I wish you all a very blissful week.
