This is a loving kindness meditation.
Once you find a comfortable seat or a spot to lay down where you feel supported,
Safe and you'll be undisturbed for the next 10 minutes,
Start to notice your breath.
Let's see if you can inhale love and exhale to let something go.
Inhale compassion and exhale to surrender.
Inhale forgiveness and exhale to grow heavy.
Know that you can always come back to your breath as an anchor.
You have the option always to keep your eyes open,
Softening your gaze or closing them entirely.
Now bring to mind some aspect of your personality or maybe a perceived mistake that you've made or something you've been criticizing yourself for that's made you feel inadequate.
Something that's not too emotionally charged.
So it's not going to be overwhelming in this moment or too difficult to look at.
Bring that thing to mind.
Whatever you choose,
See if you can get in touch with your feelings about it.
Identify your emotion.
An emotion being one word like sad,
Inadequate,
Afraid,
Isolated.
How do you feel when you think about this thing?
Notice if it might sit in your body somewhere.
Rather than resisting,
See if you can allow it to be there with acceptance.
You could ask yourself,
Where are the emotions sitting in my body?
You might consider how sometimes our belief of being perfect can often cause our own suffering.
We as humans are meant to be beautifully imperfect.
If it feels okay in your body,
Bring your hands to a space on the body.
Could be a hand on your heart or belly.
You could bring them together,
Twiddling your thumb.
And now see if you can let your heart be moved by how difficult these emotions can be and the suffering that you experience when you think about this thing.
Now,
With loving kindness,
Bring in support that you are an imperfect being.
That in fact,
No one on this planet is perfect and that's okay.
And here is the loving kindness meditation and affirmation.
You can hear the words,
You can repeat them in your mind or out loud.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
May I be kind to myself.
May I accept myself as I am.
May we all feel safe.
May we all be peaceful.
May we be kind to ourselves.
May we accept ourselves as we are.
And I'll repeat that once more,
Again,
The option to just absorb what I'm saying or to repeat in your mind after me or to repeat out loud after me.
May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
May I be kind to myself.
May I accept myself as I am.
May we all feel safe.
May we all be peaceful.
May we be kind to ourselves.
May we accept ourselves as we are.
Consider sitting here in stillness,
Observing what's there for as long as you can today.
