Assertive Kindness Meditation 10

Transcript

Welcome to the final meditation in your practicing assertive kindness series.

As always, take the time to find a posture that works for you. Perhaps you’re sitting on the floor or on a chair. Or maybe you prefer to stand with your feet hip distance apart, firmly rooted. wherever you are.

When you’re ready. Take a deep and full breath in. Fill the body with the breath. And with new energy when you’re ready to breathe out, do so slowly make the breath out a little longer than the breath in.

Again, at D full breath and then a long steady exhale. Meditation traditions pay great attention to the breath. It’s sometimes said to be the carrier of life force. And it is sometimes said to be your spirit itself.

The breath is perhaps the most powerful tool for peace and contentment and for kindness and we carry it with us all the time. Everywhere we go. Take one more really deep breath. Feel the chest expand and the abdomen expand.

And then breathe out slow and steady. And let the breath return to a natural rhythm. Gentle and controlled, supporting you with ease. Remember that worry that many of us have. That being kind will make us vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

You have already begun to set boundaries. And through your meditation practice, you are developing your ability to hold your boundaries with confidence.

Something that your breath can do for you is give you time. Time to remind yourself of your boundaries or time to draw new ones if you find yourself in a situation when you need a boundary. But you don’t yet have one in place.

Or time to move your boundaries or make them firm time gives you the ability to pause and make a conscious choice and your breath gives you time. You can do it right now. Take a deep breath in this time filling the belly with the breath first.

So the belly blows up like a balloon. Then the chest fills with the breath rising all the way up to the collarbone. When you can’t breathe in anymore, breathe out that Test foods first, and then their belly falls.

Again, breathe in, belly rises. Then chest rises. And breathe out chest food, belly full. Inhale, belly rises, chest rises. Exhale, chest full, belly fools. Take a few more breaths like this at your own pace.

And return their breath to a natural rhythm. Whenever you feel ready to do so what happens when you breathe like this? does it create space in your mind? Or does it change your emotions? Does it simply slow things down a little bit. Just one breath like that. A slow, full conscious breath can give you a moment of pause in any situation.

And in that moment, your body and mind can slow down. So you can become more aware of how you’re feeling and what’s really happening.

In that pause, you can remind yourself of your boundaries. You can create a new boundary, you can make a choice about how you want to react to the situation you’re in. Even if that choice is, hey, I need to step outside and take a break from this because I can’t make a calm choice right now.

You breath is always here for you. And it is always supportive. When you choose to change the state of your breath, you also choose to change the state of your energy, your lifeforce, your spirit.

So if you want to be kind, but you also need to be assertive and hold your ground.

Take a breath. Choose to pause. Give yourself the time and the connection with yourself that you need in order to respond with assertive kindness.

Kindness does not to mean letting others walk all over you. Kindness means doing your best for others. And for yourself. Sometimes the kind thing to do is to say no.

To explain why the thing you’re being asked to do, would cross a boundary that you have to protect. Take one more of those deep, full breaths. Inhale belly rises, chest rises. Exhale chest fools, belly fools and let it go. Let go of control of the breath. The body is relaxed.

Finally, allow a gentle smile to pass across your face.

Thank you for sharing your meditation practice with me. Your practice is complete.

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