12) Forgive Yourself, Please - Meditate Now

Audio Version - Guided Meditation

Written Transcript of the guided meditation

It's so wonderful that we get to come together now and introduce some more love into the equation of being human.

Not through trying, not through efforting, but through a gentle seeing.

Let's just be still and see what's true. My goodness, this is meditation. This is spirituality. This is the primary opportunity of being alive. It's so adorably fascinating that we could think the prize in life is something other than seeing the truth of life.

We could think that the prize is somehow getting what we want in the future. We could think the prize is things going this way and not going that way.

Yet, throughout the history of man, there's been the spiritual pointer that says, "My dear, be still."

Connect with this miracle that's breathing through you, see what you really are. Allow the recognition of this to expose that in the most real way, you already have everything that you desire.

In this, there's nothing missing.

This experience of being alive transforms into a playground of opportunity to share the love that's been discovered within, what an opportunity.

Today, we're going to dive in a little bit to that opportunity of seeing what's real and what's true with this guided meditation called, "Forgive Yourself, Please."

That's super sweet.

So welcome. We'll take this little journey together and see what wants to be seen.

Let's get started.

Let's begin by just recognizing that here we are right now.

It's the most simple of recognitions, "Oh yeah, here I am."

Just connect with that presence, feel into this moment, recognize that right now is happening.

The more we bring our awareness to this space, we can notice an immediate relaxation, large or small, but we can breathe a little bit more.

So let's invite that naturalness of breathing.

We can just watch it happen.

More and more, we just recognize permission that says, "It's okay to just be here right now."

Connect with What’s Real

I'd like to start by extending an invitation to see the limitation of thinking, in such a way that whatever you say about this moment, it's not that. There are 10,000 stories you could tell about right now, and it's not that.

There are a thousand stories you could tell about this character that's speaking right now. And the reality that gives birth to this character is not the stories about the character.

You see, there's this great discernment between what's really happening and what I think is happening.

So let's just acknowledge that the mind can't really say what is or is not.

Sure. It might be helpful at times in our navigating, but it can't really speak to what's real and what's true.

In this time together, we're going to connect with what's real and what's true beyond the 10,000 stories.

Just breathe into this moment more and more. Just allow yourself to be here in life.

There's this adorable quality of human beings that think the point of life is getting to a particular outcome in the future, that somehow the gift, the miracle, is not yet here.

There's a funny thing that happens when we believe that, and that is the assumption that things can go horribly wrong because we didn't get there or we might not get there.

You see, all of our assumptions about how things should be or shouldn't be are based on this assumption of life's point and purpose. Not realizing that maybe the point and purpose of life is to be life. Not trying to get anywhere, but to allow the miracle to be the miracle.

Can we breathe into that for a moment?

Life Itself is the Ultimate Prize

The possibility that the gift is here right now, the possibility that life itself is the ultimate prize, the opportunity to have this temporary human experience.

If we travel this journey with an open heart, we begin to recognize that life has some pretty spectacular things to show us, all of which, in some way or another, revolve around the blooming of love.

We can call it a profound human connection.

We can call it the great art of self-expression.

We can call it holding space for those who are hurting.

So many opportunities to experience more love, which of course, we could say fundamentally is what we crave most.

My friend, all of these things that we crave, all of these things that we enjoy, they're held in presence, the ability to be here and now fully, not missing anything, but showing up and sharing from a depth of sincerity the great honoring of what we are.

Blooming of Love

I want to invite us to gently acknowledge this blooming of love.

It happens in the most natural and effortless way, as we allow things to be what they are, and we see what's really true.

So often, we imagine so many mistakes we've made. And of course, these mistakes are only seen as mistakes because it seems to keep us at a distance from the prize we imagine in the future.

We say, if only this, if only that, then I might have that future prize.

But yet, as we become present and connect with the reality of what we are, the reality of life, seeing that the prize has already been given and maybe it just hasn't been seen. Can we recognize a little bit that maybe all the things we think didn't go right was just life being life?

It comes back to the real opportunity of being alive. We're not here to get something that implies you're missing something, and it implies that the prize is in the future.

And it implies that things can be in your way.

You're not here to get something.

You're here to share something. Not some grandiose idea of sharing something, but sharing something that we could describe as a sacred offering from your heart, which is really just the sincerity of what you are.

Because the sincerity of what you are is a great offering that contributes to life's unfolding.

One way we can see this is that if you look at your most profound moments of discovery, that which has opened you up to more love, it didn't come by getting what you wanted. It didn't come by everything being organized and going how you thought it should go. No, it came from life being life, maybe the exact opposite of what we think we wanted.

As you recognize those gifts that have been shared with you from life, maybe the destruction of illusions held onto, allowing us to see beyond the mind’s content to surrender the hope for something in the future and to become more present right now. We recognize wellness, a wellness that says, "Oh, maybe I don't need that. Maybe that's not where love comes from."

Life is Going to be Life

We become open to seeing that it's already here. In the human journey, what we call the great disappointments of life, people not doing what we want them to do, people not acting how we want them to act.

Those are the teachers, that's the sincerity of life. Life isn't going to reorganize its sincerity to give you what you want in the future.

Life is going to be life. We learn to flow with life in service to life, to share.

So maybe, what was, just had to be. Maybe, it's not what you think it is because sure, we can tell stories of judgment.

We can tell stories of should have, shouldn't have.

We can tell stories that take things personally.

But is that true? Or does it just seem that way? Does it just look that way?

I Don’t Forgive Life; There’s Nothing to Forgive

People are disturbed with life because life seems to get in the way of what they want in the future, because they don't see what they have. They don't see what they really are. And that's okay. It's part of the learning. And so as you move in your sincerity, going through your own lessons, your own misunderstandings in the play of things, it's going to disturb other people, just like life seems to disturb other people.

But my disturbance with life isn't really about life.

It's me thinking that life is in the way of what I want. And so I don't forgive life. I see that there's nothing to forgive.

It was a misunderstanding.

So, in the understanding, there arises an effortless forgiveness.

In this, I see that as other people move, how they move, life being life, they don't disturb me. I get disturbed by my own innocent misunderstanding that I'm currently learning through so that more love can flow.

Be gentle on yourself.

Forgive yourself, please. Breathe into an openness, an openness that's open to the possibility that life knows exactly what it's doing.

Something within you knows exactly what it's doing, playing its perfect part so that more love can be seen. And we all play both sides of that coin. The parts we play, play both sides. And that's okay.

Be gentle on yourself.

Thank you for taking this time and resting in this space with me.

Cheers.

—- End of Meditation —-