Welcome to this meditation where we will be focusing on courage.
In this meditation we will be talking about watering the seeds of courage.
Watering the seeds is a practice from Buddhism and it's a way of cultivating the aspects or traits or qualities that we would like to have more of.
So as you arrive in this meditation give yourself a moment to just notice what here feels like.
Noticing the inside of your experience.
The thoughts,
The emotions,
The physical sensations in as much or as little detail as feels helpful to you at this point.
Giving yourself a breath to just be here.
Noticing that actually here may carry some discomfort.
There may be aspects of your experience that may be difficult or even have some fear.
Sometimes meditating can be the bravest act we can do.
Courage is not needed when there is no fear.
And so cultivating courage in itself is an act of courage.
It's something that we can do both when we are in the state of fear but also when we are not in the state of fear.
It's something that we can practice and grow like a skill.
Strengthen it like a muscle.
So just take a moment to get a sense of what courage means to you.
What do you associate with a state of courage?
Even that may take some courage.
So be kind and compassionate to yourself as you have a look.
We often dismiss our everyday acts of courage and take them for granted.
We often give ourselves a hard time for not being courageous enough.
So in this meditation,
The practice is to sit with the experience that you are having in this moment where we are gathering our awareness and our focus on the state of courage.
Courage is rarely static.
Rarely do we feel the same amount of courage consistently all the time.
Our ability to be courageous can be affected by the most basic things like whether we've had enough sleep,
Whether we've had enough food,
Even whether we feel too hot or too cold.
Anything that feels likely to amplify our stress response will be affecting our ability to be courageous.
And that's even before we bring in the people or the activities where we feel we need to draw on our courage.
Taking a breath to recognise that courage is not static.
It's not something given only to the few.
We all have the seeds of courage in our store consciousness.
And when we water those seeds,
They will grow.
Even just doing this meditation is an act of watering the seeds.
Small acts of courage help us build our strength and sturdiness so that we are able to lean into bigger acts of courage.
So recognise the courage that you are showing and sitting with your experience.
Yeah,
Just being here is courage.
You may have had experiences in the past and maybe even still have experiences where you go to great lengths to not be here.
We all do.
Whether that's through substances or consuming films or movies or TV content or activities or spending a lot of our time working or helping others.
There's lots of ways that we have to avoid being present with ourselves.
And sometimes they are helpful.
So this is not about making this a good or a bad thing.
This is about being with what feels genuinely helpful in each moment.
And giving yourself credit for the courage that you do have.
And recognising your aspiration to strengthen that courage.
As you sit with your experience and as you breathe through your experience,
Feeling that sense of the courage you already have and that sense of the courage that you are aspiring to and what that will feel like.
Yeah.
So as we come to the end of this meditation,
Give yourself a moment to observe and absorb what you have thought,
The emotions you have had and the physical sensations you have experienced.
Our feelings are information and that it's more helpful to be curious than critical.
