Mindful Mondays|Week 22: Validation

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Start today by finding a comfortable space somewhere familiar to you. Let any last movements needed in your legs or neck or shoulders to squirm out. Sit with a tall spine but without tension. Imagine a string from the top of your head to the sky above holding you up. Feel into the support of your seat to feel grounded and feel into the posture to find a sense of alertness yet ease. Look around your space for just a moment to get a snapshot of the objects and colors around you. Ground into your body and its connection to the world around you. When you are ready and feel secure, close your eyes to shut out all the outside stimuli.

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Now that you’ve allowed yourself into this inner realm of yours, what do you find in here? Do thoughts start racing? Are you still seeing the silhouetted memories of your outside room? Do you find a sensation in your body? Take a minute to just explore before we find an anchor. Anything that comes up, just acknowledge it. It has a valid space here. Any emotion, any tingling, any fantasy, any administrative thoughts — they are all valid in your inner realm. Try not to reject them but validate them. “I see you.” “Ah, here you are in my inner space, coming to find me.” “Thank you for showing me that.” Give that a try for a moment.

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Now that you’ve taken a moment to validate your inner realm and all its immediate needs and wants — let’s ask this wild canvas of thoughts and feelings to clear off for a few moments. You gave it time to be heard and validated. Now you’d like these things to validate your meditation moment with peace and stillness. Take three cleansing, deep belly breaths and come to a quietness in your spirit.

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This time that you set aside to still yourself is valid. The need and want is valid. The quietness is valid. The desire for peace and expansion is valid. I hear you. I see you. This is the work. Find your breath exactly as it is. No need to try to change its pattern or rhythm. Just follow your breath and let your time be precious.

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Come back now to your mind and thoughts and feelings and body. Thank them for validating your time spent with your focus off of them and on your own inner peace. Both things have validity. Both things are priceless. Before you go back to the whims of your brain, take another cleansing breath, and thank your mind for giving you space to be present. Anytime the demands of the outside world or your own inner self become too much — just pause and validate their concerns, and then ask for a little space to just be for a moment. The ebb and flow is a beautiful relationship between the Doing and the Being of life.

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When you’re ready, you can open your eyes. Step peacefully back into your day. Feel validated for this time and come back whenever you would like. Be well, survivors.

Mindful Mondays|Week 17: Quietness

Author Note: If you prefer to listen or watch instead of or along with -
 Check out the YouTube video and/or the Podcast audio.

Sometimes allowing quietness can be triggering for trauma survivors. When it’s quiet, you can hear your heart and head much more loudly. That may not seem like a positive choice because what’s in your body or mind may scare you or worry you. In the solace without noise, you may be confronted with some problematic thoughts or painful emotions. While that’s really common, it’s also totally normal and okay. Staying for a moment with those, you can then find an anchor like a soft gaze on the floor to focus on or listening to the rhythm of your heartbeat. Your soul may muster back up more of those thoughts and emotions, but you can sit with them again for a brief period and then go back to your focal point. You can watch the difficulty rise up, recognize how it shows up in your body, be okay with it, and then choose silence again by directing your brain back to its anchor — such as the breath or the pattern of rain tinkering on the window. It’s inevitable that when you slow down, still yourself, settle in, and pause — that the quiet around will be a lot for your brain to manage at first. Your mind wants to think, plan, worry, figure things out. Your heart wants to express the grief, anxiety, sadness, or joy that it feels. That’s what they were built to do. Anything that comes up is okay. It’s information for you to make note of so you can explore with curiosity later, and then to gently guide your brain back to its anchor and ask it to focus again. In this quietness, you can find peace between the balance of internal movement from thoughts, feelings, sensations, tingles, vibrations to internal quiet of stillness, solace, calm. Let’s try this today.

Whatever location and body position you’ve found yourself in for today’s meditation is wonderful. Stay there and settle down by feeling the weight of your body on the ground below you. Nestle your spirit into the safety of your body, this space, and this time. Close your eyes and search around for the anchor that feels right for you. Maybe a vision in your mind, your breath, or a noise around you. Whatever you choose, just get quiet and then let that quietness come like a blanket over you.

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When your thoughts and emotions rise up, let them rise. Don’t fight them or force them. Just watch them come in to try to make noise, get curious about them, recognize where you feel them in your body, and then just recenter your mind back on the quietness of your anchor.

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If you are lost in sensation or worry, that’s okay. Be kind to your feelings and mental state, and gently draw yourself back into the solace. If you need, you can even give your soul a soft “shhhh” sound to lull it into the quiet rest. Ground into your anchor and be still.

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Coming back to your body now; feel the space around you and your body in that space. Slowly open your eyes when you are ready.

Entering back into the noise of the world around you, remember that whenever you need a moment of quiet, you have that inside you anytime you wish to return.