You Are Not Alone

plus a short guided meditation

Photo by Susie Hunt 💕

Many people are struggling these days. Friends have spoken to me about being hijacked by fear, anger or grief. Others feel numb, frozen and far from the sense of possibility and aliveness which normally accompanies spring.

So as we continue to bump, often painfully, through personal and political changes, how do we find steady ground?

It’s hard to be human: hard to feel so deeply in a world where the only constant is change. It’s painful to witness oppression, inequality and injustice become increasingly validated: more painful still for the ones oppressed and abused.

Grief, anger and fear are natural responses to life. They belong here too. So we can start by remembering that it’s OK to feel this way.

What hurts us and others most, rather than the feelings themselves, is not knowing how to meet them when they visit.

Falling into old patterns of suppressing them locks their contractions inside, leaving us diminished and unable to access their gifts. Losing ourselves inside their reactive narratives and actions perpetuates the emotions as well as the violence which created them.

So pushing feelings away, drowning inside their stories and acting from their contractive energies, all create suffering.

The good news is that another way is possible. When we turn towards whatever we’re feeling, find it here in the body and hold it with love, our emotions flow and offer us unexpected gifts.

But we need to feel safe enough to receive emotions without suppressing or embellishing them. Like a tree which withstands storms because of the depths of its roots, we must first become rooted in presence: connected to this breathing body, the Earth beneath us, the Sky above, and the enormous circle of support all around us.

You belong here

In order to feel life’s pain and respond to it from wisdom, compassion and delight, we need to feel the truth that we really, truly, are not alone.

Try this with me right now.

Take a soft, slow breath in through your nose, and breathe out with a sigh or a sound. Repeat this a few times, feeling the ground beneath you and the sensations of contact, pressure and presence, with each slow exhalation. Imagine roots growing through your body deep into the Earth, like the roots of a tree, both deep and wide. Feel yourself held here, connected to this great, breathing lap of our ancient Mother. Receiving Her energy as you breathe in, releasing what no longer serves you to be composted and transformed as you breathe out.

Feel how deeply you belong here.

With your roots descending, take some deeper inhalations now, and imagine beams of light extending from the crown of your head to the Sun, Moon and Stars above you. Feel yourself illuminated by their light, held steady in love’s presence. Feel yourself guided by the tug and pull of their slow turning bodies through infinite space.

Feel how profoundly you are connected.

Held from above and below, sense a circle gathering around you of all the beings, seen and unseen, alive and dead, who have held, guided, inspired and loved you. Your loved ones, teachers, benevolent ancestors, spirit guides and protectors, the countless brave souls who have walked this path before you paving the way, all surrounding you with love. And imagine your own awakened self standing before you, smiling into your eyes with gratitude and joy.

Feel the truth of how deeply you are held and loved.

Life hurts, but you are not alone

Held from above, below and all around, we are all more able to turn towards the pain of life without drowning inside it. Presence flows through us to embrace whatever we turn towards with love.

So when we find grief in the body, we are able to receive it with love, knowing that although it hurts, our hearts can only break open. Grief held in love teaches us courage and opens us into reverence.

When we find anger in the body, we are able to invite its energy to connect us to the violation behind it, allowing us to respond wisely with its creative fire. Anger held in love teaches us compassion and liberates fierce grace.

And when we find fear in the body, discerning whether we are in imminent danger or have forgotten our wholeness, we can establish outer safety and remember inner belonging. Fear held in love teaches us trust and reveals the truth of peace.

The trust that we are not alone. And the peace of truly belonging here.

Sunday Sangha

Join me next Sunday, March 16th, online with Sangha Live from 7-8.30pm UK time (recording available) to grow roots, extend light beams and invoke a sacred circle of belonging, together.

To remember we are not alone, and that together we are unimaginably strong.

Let’s come together to remember our belonging and connection to this web of aliveness, so that our attention can turn from contracting and collapsing inside the cries of this world, towards the healing and growth that is our deepest potential.

Register here.

We are not alone in our longing for a more beautiful world. And we are not alone in its unending unfolding cycles of conception and birth.

“We are each an artist. We each possess an imagination. Everyone, whether they like it or not, is involved in the construction of the world.” ~ John O’Donohue