If you’re overwhelmed by the pain, uncertainty, and suffering in the world right now, there is a process for finding courage, peace, acceptance, and connection.
Many of us are bearing the weight of the world’s suffering right now. How can we acknowledge the immense suffering in the world, including our own—and yet tend to our hearts, minds, and bodies in a way that enables us to take compassionate action?
This week, mindfulness teacher and author Wendy O’Leary shares a guided practice that offers refuge and reminds us of our true and loving connection to one another.
There are three main parts of the practice. First, stability or grounding. Second, settle back, soften, and relax. and third, One for me, one for you Practice, which is based on giving and receiving compassionate practice from a mindfulness self-harmony program.
A meditation for when the suffering in the world feels overwhelming
Read and follow the guided meditation script below, pausing after each paragraph. Or listen to the audio practice.
- I invite you to get into a comfortable sitting position. You can close your eyes or look down slowly and soften your gaze. Whatever works best for you.
- Begin by directing your attention into your body, Allowing it to slowly go in and down as it reaches your sensation of your feet on the floor. If your feet are not on the floor, consider wherever your feet are attached. That experience of touch and pressure. Or you may feel the contact and pressure of the back of your feet on a chair or cushion. Grounded and connected to this felt experience of being rooted, supported and grounded here on earth. As you feel the somatic experience of these contact points, feet or seat. Rooted, grounded, stable and steady. Connected and supported by the earth.
- From this place of stability and stability, think of someone you know who is going through a difficult time. It could be someone you know personally or more generally someone or a group of people you know who is struggling right now. On a scale of one to 10, choose an example of someone who is somewhere in the middle. So not the most difficult situation.
- When you allow them to enter your full awareness, check in with your body. Often, when we focus on difficulties, ourselves or others, there can be a habitual tendency to contract, tighten, and even lean forward. Check to see if this is true for you. Fight this tendency. I invite you to gently lean in physically or energetically, just a little. settled back.
- Now, invite the body to soften and even expand, creating space to hold whatever is. So we are not forcing anything here. It’s a very gentle invitation to kick back and relax. If it feels helpful to you, you can place your hand on your heart center as a way of nurturing and calming the body, heart, and mind. Settle back, soften, soothe.
- Now begin to gently bring your attention to relaxation with the breath, feeling the flow of the breath moving in and out of the body. Just this breathing in and just this breathing out. Connect with this experience of breath, moving through the body like a wave moving across the ocean. And to bring to mind the person or group of people you know who are suffering.
- Check with yourself to see what will best help you live through their struggles. So it can be, for example, patience or calmness, strength, acceptance. Whatever you feel will help you best. Inhale, offering yourself up, and then slowly release on the exhale. If a word doesn’t come to mind, that’s okay. You can simply think to yourself, an inhale for me, and a slow release on the exhale. One for me, and a slow release.
- If this feels right to you, you can now consider what they need. It may be exactly what you need, or it may be something different. And again, if a word doesn’t come to you, you can think of one for yourself.
- Continue to take the breath you need, and offer them the breath they need. One breath for me and one breath for you to carry together. One for me and one for you.
- When you feel ready, open your eyes or watch as you stop this practice. As we practice it more formally, it becomes accessible to us in our daily lives, making these methods more available for us to use when we come in contact with suffering in our lives.
Thank you for practicing with me and may all beings benefit from our practice.
