28) For Me or Against Me? - Meditate Now
Video Version - Guided Meditation
Audio Version - Guided Meditation
Written Transcript of the Guided Meditation
Alright.
Welcome to the Meditate Now Podcast. I am excited to be back after taking the summer off and hopefully we can get back into the swing of things and do some live streams.
This is the Meditate Now Podcast where we have the opportunity to just check in with the present moment, maybe receive some insight and wisdom, and recognize once again and again that just maybe... all as well. Just maybe.
Not yesterday, not tomorrow, not somewhere else that we imagine to be there, but here in this moment where we can connect with the reality that's actually happening and remember what's really true, what's really going on.
So, as this usually unfolds, I'm going to share some insight and wisdom about the topic to start with, and then we will drop into a meditative space, enjoy some short pauses, and I will attempt to guide a journey into presence using some words and invitations.
So, I just really invite you to be here if you're going to be here, whatever that looks like for you. Just an acknowledgment maybe in your heart, in your mind, in your body, "Here I am.”
Is This For Me or Against Me?
The title for today is a question— "Is This For Me or Against Me?" I love this inquiry into perspective because so often as we go about our daily lives, we are constantly, automatically, and subconsciously making assumptions. And so often, so often, these assumptions not only don't serve the wellness of our heart, but they make wild assertions that are just impossible.
Upon further investigation, as we look more closely at these assumptions, at what life is, at what we really are, we recognize this adorable absurdity in these things that we believe.
If we're not aware of it, if we're not conscious of this unfolding, then these assumptions can naturally just spiral and build upon themselves in a direction that is really the opposite direction that we would prefer to travel.
So, let's just acknowledge this from a very soft and compassionate place that recognizes the insanity that comes with being human.
These interpretations and these assumptions about what things are or what they are not, which really is just coming from a place of conditioning and it isn't really even you, it's just a conditioned response, it's what we've been led to believe.
It's not coming from a deep place of presence, it's not coming from a sincere observation that really wants to know, "what is this?" Rather, we proclaim, we judge, we condemn. This is what we do as silly human beings.
So, I invite us to look at this in a playful spirit, not as yet another opportunity to judge ourselves, not even with an effort to try and fix it, but really with a playful curiosity that's willing to look and see what's really going on here.
So, let's just do that. Let's just drop into a meditative space. We'll hang out here for 15 to 20 minutes or so in that space, and then just kind of see what happens. Okay, let's go.
Start of Guided Meditation
Pause and Drop All Expectations
Okay, we're going to take a moment and just ground into this moment, really allow ourselves to be here and we can allow our breath to guide us home.
Wherever you are, maybe you're sitting, maybe you're walking in nature. Let's just take some naturally deep breaths and allow the exhale to remind us of being here right now.
I love that exhale. It's like you can really allow it to drop you into this moment if you're present with it. With the exhale, we can drop any expectations.
We can release any thoughts about the future.
And there's just this conscious invitation... to just be here.
As we relax into this space, you can proceed with your eyes open or closed, just whatever feels natural for you.
As an opportunity to really be with yourself, maybe you want to just place your hand over your heart, and just feel the sincerity within you.
You Are Here… Right Now
"Here I am right now." Because of course, the mind thinks you're in yesterday, the mind thinks you're in the future. But no, "here I am right now.”
There's always a presence that shows itself that's so much more peaceful than before I began dropping into this space.
It's like beforehand, you know, I was busy doing this, that and the other. My mind thinking about this and that. But as I take this moment to just be here and be present, I recognize that there is peace here.
As we drop into this meditative space, I want to invite you to question something.
I wonder if you can see how in your human journey— that which has been the most impactful— has been the discovery of deeper love, deeper compassion, and deeper freedom that recognizes that you're not really a prisoner in this life.
It's through awareness, an awareness of what's really happening, what's really true.
Kind of like maybe when you were a teenager, you thought the most important thing was being cool. Maybe the most important thing was being popular or being liked or whatever it might have been. But as you gathered some years, you started to realize actually that's not important at all. You start to recognize there's a deeper sincerity that calls to you a deeper realness.
And as you've traveled this life, this is the question I really want to ask you.
Do those gifts of the spirit— will call them for now— do those gifts show themselves through the experience of always getting what you want?
Or do those experiences arise because you didn't get what you wanted and you saw that you are really okay? Then maybe you later realized it's not actually what you wanted?
This is a really important question.
"Did I discover the real gifts of life, the truth of what I am through things going how I wanted them to go?" Or by surrendering maybe what I thought I wanted after I finished throwing my tantrum and I saw something so much more profound?
The Pain and Struggle Brings Beautiful Lessons
In all the people I've talked to through all the years of doing this, it's always been the same. That somehow, the pain and the struggle, the things not going the way I want them to go had a beautiful lesson for me to see, and I was just stubborn.
Can we just take a moment and breathe into the humor of this?
Maybe you can't find humor in the situation you're going through now, but you can most certainly find something in the journey of yesterday where you thought that if you didn't get this, that, or the other, the world will end.
Only to discover you were perfectly fine and how seriously you took it.
Now, here's the thing. How much did we think that life was against us? How much did we think that what was happening was not for us? Only to find out eventually that this is exactly what we wanted?
You see, the point here is I'm not saying that that's what you're going through now.
I'm inviting us to recognize this movement in the mind that can become so convinced that something is against you only to find out later on, "oh, my goodness, that wasn't the case.”
Sometimes We Can’t Trust Our Own Minds
Maybe now, I'm so convinced this is against me.
Do you know what this shows me? Or at least it exposes an invitation to not be so quick to believe the mind's assumption.
Because when I get real honest, I have an enormous amount of evidence that shows me I can't really trust the mind. There's so much that the mind cannot see. There are so many variables unaccounted for.
Yet, I do have direct experience through this journey, through the path of things not working out, through not getting what I wanted, life has done something amazing.
Life has more and more given me what I was really looking for.
You know I discovered that that something in me that thought it was against me— it really in appearances— was against my ego, was against who I was trying to be in the world.
It was against what I was trying to hold up as an image of who I thought I was supposed to be.
It's like life wasn't helping me complete my imaginary image of self-importance.
We Are Held and Supported, Always
Life didn't care about that. Life didn't care about my imaginary character. Life cared about the realness of what I am and the sincerity of what I am.
And it's my own confusion about what I am that saw circumstance, life, and other people as against me.
But through softness, openness, and humility, life shows me that that's not what's really happening at all.
Life shows me that there is this journey unfolding a path that I'm walking, and whether I see it or not, I'm held. That's really, really sweet.
You know, sometimes I just don't see it. But it does seem that I always come back around after I throw my tantrum to see a deeper truth of the matter.
In this remembrance, I see that there is strength and courage to trust and do what I can without all the violence that projects an enemy out there somewhere. Knowing that in the most real and true way, I am supported.
Not who I think I am, not the character that I might be trying to complete into the future that will forever remain imaginary, but the realness of what I am— infinitely held and supported.
Let's just take a moment and breathe into that. If anything, just the possibility that this might be true beyond my own confusion, beyond what I think is happening, beyond what I think I want, maybe, just maybe, life knows exactly what it's doing.
Just breathe into that.
Whatever it is that appears to be happening, that seems like it might be against you.
Maybe ask yourself, is this really against you?
Who you really are? Or is this against who you think you are?
The image you're trying to maintain, the one that is so exhausting to hold up to the world.
Maybe we can just set that down for a moment and come home to what we really crave.
Thanks for meditating with me today.
I really, really, really enjoyed that.
Until next time.
Cheers to the beauty that you already are.
