Surrender And Trust (Meditation Only)

A 30-minute meditation that begins with deep breathing, grounding, and a short body scan. It then continues by walking you through a situation in your life where you get caught up in wanting to control or carrying more than you can. After noticing what this experience is like in the body and bringing compassion to it, you are invited to explore three different images that might help you find a sense of surrender and trust, focusing on what you can do or influence, and letting go of the rest, letting life unfold.

Transcript

Come into a meditation posture that supports you tonight.

You can choose to sit or stand or walk or lie down.

You can move around a little bit checking in with your body and trying to understand what the body needs,

How to find a posture that will help you stay awake and also be relaxed.

When you are ready you can see if you'd like to lower the gaze to a neutral point in front of you or if you'd like to close the eyes.

And one more time you can check that your posture is awake,

Your spine is tall,

Your arms and hands are comfortable,

Your feet are on the ground if you're sitting or standing.

And that you are relaxed and we'll do some deep breathing here to help with that.

For the next minute you can very slowly and deeply inhale,

Pause and then slowly and fully exhale and repeat.

You can let the breath be natural when you are ready.

And bring a gentle attention to your connectedness to the ground underneath you,

Noticing where you touch the ground or where you feel the pull of gravity very strongly.

You can notice the qualities of this touch.

Is it warm?

Is it cold?

Is it soft or hard?

And you can imagine that you have roots that extend from your body into the earth,

Just like a tree would.

And visualizing this energetic connection of stability and support between you and the planet.

And even here,

Starting from here,

You might see if it's possible to find a sense of surrender and trust in this connection to the ground.

Maybe a small sense of letting it be or letting go into it and trusting that you're always carried by the earth underneath you.

You are supported.

You might then take a minute or two to do a body scan and you can imagine that you are in the center of the earth,

Noticing the feet and the sensations inside the feet.

And then breathing into the feet,

Relaxing,

Letting go of the feet.

Trusting that the feet are there,

That they are okay and letting them go.

And then moving up to the legs and the rest of your body and doing this at your own speed.

I'll be quiet.

Each time you come into a new body part,

Noticing what's there to notice.

Breathing into it,

Softening,

Letting go,

And trusting.

Making your way all the way up to the top of your head at your own rhythm.

When you are ready,

You can notice the body as a whole now,

From bottoms of the feet to the top of the head.

And for another few seconds here,

You might let go and soften.

Noticing what it's like to have this embodied experience of life.

Being here fully inside the body as life pulses through you.

You might then bring a gentle attention to the body.

You might then bring a gentle attention to your primary anchor for a second or two.

This might be the breathing or the sounds.

This is your home and you can always come back to this home ground during this practice,

Whenever you need to.

Noticing how the breathing happens on its own or how the sounds rise and fall.

And then as we begin this practice on surrendering and trusting,

You might scan your life for a situation in which you're getting a little caught up in wanting to control.

You're holding on too tightly.

Maybe you're carrying too much.

This might be at work,

At home,

In the larger society.

And as you think of this thing,

You might also sense your window of tolerance.

What is the difficulty level here?

Is this a 10 out of 10?

A five out of 10?

Anything that's below a seven,

Sorry,

Above a seven,

Eight,

You can just let go.

And you can see if you can find another place of difficulty,

Another place of wanting to control that is more like a five or six.

It's manageable.

You might recognize this situation,

Maybe play it out in your mind like a movie,

See where you are,

What's happening,

And then hit the pause button.

And exactly that moment when you're trying to figure out what's going on in your mind,

And then hit the pause button.

And exactly that moment when you're trying to wanting to control or you're holding on too tightly,

You're getting a bit of rope burn.

You might see what's primary emotions or thoughts are coming up for you here.

There might be fear,

Anger,

Frustration.

There might be thoughts like,

I have to do something.

This needs to be different.

So for a moment here,

You can allow this difficulty to be present in your life,

Trusting in yourself that you can be with this.

You can make space for this.

And you might notice what's happening in your body in that moment of trigger.

Maybe you have tense shoulders.

Your jaw might be clenched.

You might be getting a headache.

You might have or extend some compassion for yourself,

Maybe putting a hand on your heart and whispering to yourself,

Yeah,

I'm getting a little caught up here.

This is difficult,

And I'm sorry.

I'm sorry that I'm suffering.

And you might also picture yourself receiving love and compassion from other sources of love and compassion.

Whether this is a dear friend who understands,

Or you maybe visualize that you are in the beautiful garden that feels calming and grounding.

And from this place of compassion,

We'll do a little bit of investigation and letting go practice now.

So using this image of a backpack and a heavy luggage,

You might gently ask yourself,

What's in the backpack?

What are the things I can do?

I can change,

I can carry.

And do I have a heavy luggage that I'm tugging along?

What's in that one?

What are the parts of this situation that are simply not up to me?

If there is a heavy luggage,

You might visualize yourself putting it down,

Just slowly lowering it to the ground,

Putting it down,

And noticing how your body finds a sense of relief just from the weight of the luggage.

And noticing how your body finds a sense of relief just from that action,

Lightness.

There might also be fear or grief coming up,

So you might see if you can find something in which you can trust.

You might trust that everything will be okay and everyone will be okay in the end.

You might trust the unfolding of life.

You might trust in your own capacity to hold whatever fear or grief is coming up.

To hold whatever fear or grief is coming up.

So asking,

What can I place my trust in?

I'll give you two other images here in case they support,

Just like the backpack and the heavy luggage.

This time,

You might picture yourself swimming in a river.

And you might imagine that you are swimming.

You're definitely floating above the water.

You're active.

These are all the things you can do.

You can change.

You can change.

And you might also picture that this river has a current.

Maybe multiple currents that are flowing in certain directions and that are carrying you.

So these are all the things that are beyond your control.

You might hold these multiple realities together.

You might notice what it's like to focus on your own swimming and to surrender to the current,

If that's even possible.

Again,

Maybe finding something in which you can trust.

Trust.

Asking,

What can I trust in?

And the last imagery to try on here to see if it does anything for you is to visualize that you are standing below,

Underneath a blue open sky.

And from where you are,

From having set your intentions,

Having done whatever actions you can do,

Whatever effort you could take on on your side,

You're now opening your hands towards the sky and you're just handing over whatever is not for you to carry and whatever is not up to you.

And maybe as you do that handing over,

You whisper some words like,

I trust in the process of life.

Or I will let the universe carry the rest of this.

It's okay if some of these images work for you better than others.

You can take a moment now at the end of this practice to let the practice go and to rest and to reflect.

You might ask yourself,

How did that go?

What did that bring up in me?

How did that go?

What did that bring up in me?

What was pleasant?

What was unpleasant?

What did I learn from this practice today,

If anything?

And do I have any intentions going forward?

Reviews

Thank you for such a wonderful meditation it's right when I needed in this process of surrendering and accepting the world as it is with great joy and peace.

I finally understood that I need to unburden myself of a few things and thanks to your guidance I will do so.