Find a comfortable seat and breathe deeply with this meditation. Host Lola Wright guides you through a practice of acceptance for the holiday season that is now upon us. Would you be willing to accept yourself, exactly as you are?
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Transcript
This “talk” is electronically transcribed. Please excuse any errors or omissions.
Lola Wright: As you may know, I’ve recently launched an incredible new live experience House of Bodhi with Lola Wright. We convene monthly at iconic music venues throughout Chicago. There is a thought provoking message, a powerful meditation, ridiculous music. It’s intended to really wake up and shake up any fear-based patterns or sleepy states that you and I can find ourselves in and provoke a kind of creativity, aliveness, freedom. Tickets are now available for the December 18th House of Bodhi experience at The Hideout. Visit bodhicenter.org for more information and to get your tickets. I hope to see you there.
Lola Wright: Hello and welcome to a special meditation episode of And This is Bodhi. I’m your host, Lola Wright.
Lola Wright: I’m going to recommend that you find a comfortable place to sit. If you happen to be driving right now, you may consider listening to this meditation at a later date where you can really give yourself the place and space to still your body and close your eyes. For now, if you are driving, I encourage you to stay wholly focused on the road before you. If meditating is something that’s new to you, you likely have done it before. You know, sometimes we’ll talk about this thing, meditation as if it involves sitting in the Lotus position on a mountain top. And it happens when you’re walking down the street and you have awareness. You have the ability to witness yourself. You’re not being run by your reptilian brain. You actually have some spaciousness. It can happen when you’re washing dishes that can occur when you’re taking a shower. Meditation is a way of living.
Lola Wright: This particular practice is a seated meditation and it will invoke the breath, still the body, quiet the mind and create a little more access to what’s called your witnessing ability, the ability to witness your thoughts, the ability to notice what’s occurring in your being without being taken out by it. So it’s a conscious practice. So find yourself in a comfortable seated position. Invite your feet to rest firmly on the ground. You might choose to adjust your spine so that it is slightly more erect than is typical for you. You might choose to roll your shoulders back, creating spaciousness between your ear lobes and your shoulders. We so often can hold our shoulders in a kind of clenched position. So just relax your shoulders. You may choose to place your hands in an open and receptive position in your lap and bring your awareness to your breath. Begin to allow the breath to move more deeply in the body.
Lola Wright: Today’s meditation practice is on acceptance. As we move into this winter season, we are oftentimes encountering family and friends that can sometimes trigger all kinds of old wounds in us. So let’s just go into a practice of acceptance today. I trust that this practice will serve you during this season.
Lola Wright: Start by bringing your awareness to your breath. Bring your awareness to the tip of your nose and notice the sensation at the inhale. As you inhale, allow your belly to expand and exhale through your mouth.
Lola Wright: Bring your awareness to yourself. Perhaps scan your physical body. Perhaps bring the primary areas of focus into your attention. Your career, your finances, your health, your recreation. You may begin to notice the activity of the mind as judgment. You may begin to notice the mind’s tendency to compare and contrast where you are against where you should be against where you’ve been against where people in your life are. Just watch the mind’s tendency to judge, assess, compare, and contrast.
Lola Wright: Continue to deepen your breath, inviting your belly to soften, your shoulders to fall. Just to invite the question: Would you be willing to accept yourself exactly as you are?
Lola Wright: Would you be willing to accept your finances exactly as they are?
Lola Wright: Would you be willing to accept your relationships exactly as they are?
Lola Wright: Would you be willing to accept your health, your wellbeing, your physical body exactly as it is?
Lola Wright: Finally, would you be willing to accept your career exactly as it is and exactly as it isn’t?
Lola Wright: Again, remembering as you breathe in and out, the mind’s tendency will want to figure out how we can improve, expand, transform what you already have. The great paradox is your acceptance is one of the great ingredients in transformation. Would you be willing to allow yourself to be exactly as you are?
Lola Wright: Bring your awareness to your family. Begin to tune in to the primary relationships in your family. Would you be willing to allow them to be as they are? As you place your awareness on each of your primary family members, notice the mind’s tendency to judge, compare and contrast.
Lola Wright: Would you be willing to let your family members be exactly as they are and exactly as they are not?
Lola Wright: Relieving yourself, relaxing yourself of any tendency you may have to fix, to manage, to control.
Lola Wright: I invite you to breathe in deeply in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you notice judgment is here now, just imagine that with every exhale that judgment is able to loosen.
Lola Wright: Take a final deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Allow yourself to feel a sense of appreciation for your practice, for your willingness to still your body and your mind, for the intention to prepare consciously before going into this holiday season.
Lola Wright: Taking a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you’ve closed your eyes feel free to open them as it feels comfortable. May this practice give you greater access to the truth of who you are. May you rest easy in knowing yourself as enough and may you trust that each being you encounter is doing the very best they can at any given moment.
Lola Wright: I wish you a practice of peace until we meet again. I invite you to invoke this practice of breath at any given moment.
Lola Wright: I’d love to know what you thought of this special meditation episode. Email me at podcast@bodhicenter.org or find me on Instagram and Facebook @lolapwright. If you don’t already follow Bodhi, I’d love for you to do that too @BodhiChicago. As always, all of Bodhi’s programming is made possible by our wonderful contributors. If this work is meaningful to you, I’d love for you to text the word GIVE to (773) 770-8577 or visit bodhicenter.org/giving. This is produced by Katie Klocksin with editorial guidance from Bodhi creative producer Tyler Greene. I’m your host, Lola Wright. Music for this episode is provided by Blue Dot Sessions.
