Hi,
I'm Stephen Webb and welcome to a meditation that just softens some of our suffering.
So just as we settle in,
It doesn't really matter how you're sitting or how you're doing this meditation.
It's just important to stay alert and aware.
And we allow our body to settle in just by giving it permission to relax.
Allow the face to relax.
To allow your shoulders to relax.
And just become aware of your breath.
Allow your breath to be natural.
You don't have to do anything with your body.
Your body knows how to breathe and your body knows how to relax.
Most of the time the body is staying on alert,
So it's just ready.
We don't have to be ready for anything.
Everything is fine just as it is for this moment.
And just invite your whole body to relax.
And I like what the Buddha says about suffering and pain,
And how he distinguishes the differences.
So pain is like arrows that are shot at us.
Whether it's life or whether we do them to ourselves or whatever it is.
One thing's for certain,
Life will cause pain.
I think it's quite unavoidable.
But the second arrow is different.
Life doesn't very often follow up with the second arrow.
That's what we do when we go,
Why me?
This should not be happening to me.
How long is this going to continue?
And when we start debating it in our heads whether we deserve it or not.
Whether life should have done it to us or whether we've already had enough suffering.
That's when we start doing it to ourselves.
And then eventually we're just beating ourselves up over it.
So what we're going to do is just bring to mind.
A moment that life felt a bit unfair when we were hurt recently.
And just observe it fully.
Where is it to in the body?
How did it feel?
Was it attention?
Was it heaviness?
And just rest your awareness there.
With just a bit of curiosity.
And recognise that this pane is the first arrow.
And recognize that When you bring your attention to it,
How much it wants to move to your head and become a story.
It wants to make sense of it.
That's what the mind does.
It wants to make sense of it.
How did it happen?
Why did it happen?
Can I not let it happen again?
And what we might notice when we add this story to it.
We're not in control of the first arrows very often,
But we're very much in control of the second arrow and the third.
And we're definitely in control of the fifth and sixth.
It's if someone says something to you in the street that isn't very nice.
We'll catch you up in the car.
And later that day you're phoning everybody and telling everybody well your body is reliving that pain.
Sometimes we have to for to do a report or something to make sense of it.
But when we continue to do that,
We continue to suffer.
The body reacts every time.
It's okay for the body to react.
Especially to the first,
Maybe even the second arrow.
It's not okay to keep doing it week in and week out.
Because we become the heroes of our own story.
No matter how many arrows are thrown at us,
We're battling through and we're doing okay.
Not realising we're the ones causing them.
So if we settle back into our breath now.
Breathing in calm,
Breathing out relaxed.
And just recognise a time when.
.
.
Someone says something not very nice to you.
And you took it away and you kept repeating it.
And recognize that.
Every time you repeated it,
It just made things worse.
We build upon it,
We make it a story.
Very often those stories are not even true.
And this meditation is not to fix all the arrows,
Not to get rid of them.
Is to recognise in future when.
We do get hurt and it is painful.
That we step in and recognize that we may be doing the next 10,
20,
30 arrows to ourselves.
Ah,
I did that one.
And you smile and just move on.
It's a wonderful bit of wisdom and courage just to be able to smile and laugh.
Because that's what we need sometimes in our suffering,
We need a bit of humour.
We need a bit of self-reflection and recognise that.
We sometimes do it to ourselves as well.
In a moment I'm going to come back from five.
We're going to bring our awareness back to the room,
But I want you to take something back with you.
We cannot do this in one simple go.
Life will keep throwing arrows.
Some will land and some will be more painful than others.
But we don't have to keep adding to them.
So yeah.
It's a nice little wisdom to have in our back pocket when we're suffering.
To soften that suffering just a little bit.
Bring your awareness to your breath.
Five,
Just bring your awareness to the room.
Four,
Just gently move your arms and move your fingers and toes,
Wiggle them maybe.
Three,
Gently open your eyes.
Two,
Take a deeper breath.
And one just smile that how many times that we've thrown our own arrows.
And we're a pretty good shot.
That's one thing we can say about our own arrows.
They tend to land every single time.
And life's arrows don't always land,
But ours do.
Thank you for sitting with me today and thank you for reducing your suffering a little.
Thank you for your support on InsideTimer.
And if you haven't already,
Please do follow so the next one finds you.
Take care.
