Welcome to this meditation.
In this meditation we will be focusing on self-love.
Indeed,
Just being here with yourself in this moment is an act of cultivating self-love.
In Buddhism we talk about watering the seeds in our store consciousness,
And one of those seeds is self-love.
Taking this time now to be with yourself.
So let's take a moment to really feel here.
Taking time to arrive in your body and in your being.
You might just want to move your eyebrows,
Loosen your jaw,
Shuffle your shoulders,
Even twiggling your toes.
Giving yourself time to shuffle and settle in the way that feels most helpful to you at this moment.
It is likely that your thoughts will wander and your feelings will ebb and flow.
That's part of the experience.
With a breath or two,
Just gathering your awareness to what here feels like.
In this moment,
This is what it feels like to be here.
This is the inside of your experience.
Then it may take courage and curiosity,
Confidence,
Compassion to bring yourself to here.
And here,
For the purposes of this meditation,
Notice that this is primarily an act of self-love.
Prioritising this space,
This time,
To spend time with you.
When we talk about self-love,
What does that really mean?
It can be helpful to think what it means when we love other people.
It's often characterised by wanting to spend time with them,
Wanting to express our appreciation to them.
Let them know what we value about them.
So in this meditation,
Let's do that for you.
This time that you are giving yourself to spend in the company of yourself.
Noticing a feeling of gratitude,
Whether it's easy or difficult for you to negotiate that time.
The fact that you are making this happen,
You are spending time with you.
And bringing into your awareness aspects of yourself that you appreciate about yourself.
It may be skills or behaviours,
Qualities.
Even though your inner critic may be getting in the way,
My invitation to you is to stay with it.
Because you will have some truly lovable and wonderful qualities and aspects and skills.
And we want to connect with those.
Reflecting back to yourself that actually you do appreciate this about yourself or that you do value that.
That it's important to you how you do this or how you respond to something.
And that all of these things are the things that you love about yourself.
Even though you may struggle at times to connect with that love.
Or to remember what it is about yourself that you do really love.
Yeah.
Really noticing what it feels like to hear yourself say that inside your mind's eye or out loud.
I love that I do this.
Or I love that this is one of my values.
I appreciate that I have this quality.
Just like we tell other people what we love about them.
My invitation to you is to tell yourself what you love about you.
Whatever your culture,
Noticing that it may be unlikely that you've been encouraged to express love for yourself.
Any beliefs that might be getting in the way.
And just checking are those beliefs helpful.
Possibly not.
And that actually just being here now could be one of the most courageous things you're doing.
Our relationship with ourselves is profoundly important.
Nobody else,
As in nobody else,
Is with us from our first breath till our last.
We are the company that we keep with ourselves every breath of the way.
And so watering the seeds of self-love will help to strengthen and support that most important relationship that you have.
And as that relationship strengthens and becomes more connected.
As you enjoy your own company more and more.
As you delight in being you.
There is a sense of connectedness where you and you are connected more and more.
So you may feel that the connection isn't very strong just yet.
That's okay.
Remember it can take the seeds a wee while to come through the surface of the soil.
And even then it takes more nurturing.
It takes the different seasons of spring,
Summer,
Autumn,
Winter to bring that seed into a strong and sturdy plant.
This is the stuff of practice.
So as we come to the end of this meditation.
Give yourself a moment to absorb and observe what this has felt like.
What do you now know?
Even though you may not know what it means yet.
Yeah.
And remember feelings are information and that it is always more helpful to be curious than critical.
