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Happy Hour: Loving Our Aching Body & Heart

Introduction

Hello and welcome everyone. Glad to be with you practicing together, whatever the shape of your body might be at this point, feeling well or unwell. I realize there is one topic I had in mind, but I am so touched with Marie-Christine coming and having been unwell, so I want to actually talk about self-compassion, especially when you're not feeling well. That's what I want to talk about, and maybe it may be supportive to everyone, because we can never have enough self-compassion.

Whether you are physically right now... maybe there's some challenge. Maybe the whole body is not feeling well, maybe there is a part of the body—this backache just keeps bugging you—or maybe there's a pain in your heart. Maybe there's something ailing your heart, because physical pain and emotional pain are not so different, really. We think they are, but the way to work with them with care, with compassion, is very similar. In fact, working with physical pain skillfully is a way to practice how to be with emotional pain.

So with that, I'll say a few words. Maybe the first thing, if there is some challenge right now—a challenge or difficulty in your body and in your heart—is to relax around it. Just relax around it. It's here. It's the truth of this moment. It's what's happening because of causes and conditions, so many of them beyond your control. This is what's here. This is what's present right now in this moment.

And number two, as you relax, as you open up to it, treat yourself and treat whatever is showing up with kindness. Practicing kindness. Practicing kindness. Practicing kindness, holding with kindness.

So the practice really is simple: keep relaxing, opening to, and being kind. Being kind to whatever arises. Whatever pain, challenge, difficulty... as if you're holding a beloved child, or a pet, a dear being.

Guided Meditation

I guess we'll just slip into our meditation, because my setup really has been the words of settling into the way of being. If you often transition from a chair to a cushion, or to different postures, this is a good time. We can transition right now to a posture. Let's relax. Maybe you need to lie down right now.

And how can I make this practice period a nourishing one? How can I see this as a resource, not as something that I should do because I want to be better, but something that I want to be? A way I want to be. Not even something I want to do. How can I be? How do I want to be? With ease, with care, with love.

To be here for myself. To be here for myself, and therefore for others. If we fill our own cup with kindness, with love, with care, we become more available for others when the time is right. No use running ragged trying to serve others. Take care. Take care of this heart.

Just landing in the body, sitting, and breathing. And keeping watch. Keeping presence for ourselves.

"Sweetheart, I'm here for you. I'm not abandoning you—your body, your heart, and your mind." Calling yourself dear, darling, sweetheart. Try it on for size.

"There, there, darling. You're tired. Yeah, it's okay."

Breathing with the ache, with the fatigue, if there is any present. With the physical ache or heartache, or anything that's metaphorically aching in this human condition in this moment. Holding it with care. Breathing, breathing, breathing with it, around it lovingly, gently. No more is needed.

Teaching ourselves the lesson in gentleness with this breath. This breath, a teacher in gentleness. Tend to it well. Learn its ways.

And if thoughts arise—stories, plans, memories, preoccupations—it's okay. Be kind to all of you. Can you thank the thoughts? "Thank you." And set them free. Later, later. Set them free. Let them fly away like birds, doves, or swallows. Little birds. Set them free. Set your heart free.

And let the breath teach you a gentle lesson in tenderness. As if each breath is stroking your hair. Stroking the ache in your body, the ache in your heart if there is one. Each breath stroking lovingly, tenderly.

Relax, relax, relax the body with each breath as much as available. And as if you open your heart, your embrace far and wide, as if you're embracing the beloved, a dear, dear being. In your mind's eye, embracing your own aching body, aching heart lovingly. "Oh sweetheart, this is challenging. This is hard." Acknowledging this is hard.

And it's okay. No need to fall into grief: "Why me? This will never end." No need for any of that. No need for second arrows^[1] to further injure ourselves. Just meeting what's happening right now with care. That's all.

I'm meeting whatever is alive, present, with care.

When we hold something, the amount of energy left in our hands is equal to the weight. If we don't meet what we're holding—if it's something heavy we hold up, there's more energy in holding. If it's light, very little. Our hands don't sink into the earth, and they don't push up. We meet the appropriate response, appropriate uplift energy in our hands.

In the same way, the level of care and love, attention, meets whatever is here right now. Meets it, holds it. It doesn't sink down under the heaviness. It meets. It's appropriate. The appropriate amount, appropriate response. Doesn't sink into despair, it meets with kindness, and it doesn't push up or throw away. It meets and holds.

And in this meeting, in this appropriate response—not pushing away, not falling, sinking—a sense of delight can arise. With meeting our challenge, meeting the pain, meeting a physical or heart pain, a sense of delight can arise in this mastery of meeting with care, meeting with kindness, with acceptance. This is how things are right now. Which is very different from resignation. Resignation is listless, it's hopeless. Acceptance is upright. It meets the moment. It meets what is with care.

Explore for yourself with each breath.

Relax the body, relax the heart. Here, here, with each breath. Soothing, calming. Meeting what's here. There's tightness, holding, relaxing, caring. Even if it's something you don't like, can you be kind? This is born of causes and conditions. It's here for a reason. Acceptance means acknowledging what is.

Every moment we learn, we teach ourselves to treat ourselves, our bodies, our hearts, with kindness, with acceptance. Self-acceptance. Instead of aversion, resistance: "I hate this." Every seed of kindness we plant in this practice, in this moment, is onward leading. Leads to future moments of kindness for ourselves and for others.

So practice with yourself, on yourself, the art of gentleness. Soothing practice on your body, practice on your own heart. Who had better opportunity to practice on yourself, to learn kindness, care, love? So we don't go around essentially begging others to care for us, to love us. "Love me, love me, love me. Tell me I'm wonderful," we silently shout to others.

No need. I practice. I learn how to be kind, how to love myself in this moment. There, being here, here. Now, now. It's okay. It's all okay that's happening in your body and your heart. There, there. Kindness.

Good, well. With each breath I wish myself well. I hold myself with care. May I be well. May this body have ease. May this heart have peace. May my body and heart be happy and well. Whatever phrases of care you like and are appropriate in this moment, wrap yourself in them like a blanket of mettā^[2].

May I be well. May my body have ease. May my mind, my heart, have joy and ease, float and gladness. May my body be free from pain. May it feel light. May it feel loved.

Allowing this feeling of care, mettā, warm-heartedness, let it expand. Expand, expand, expand outward, engulfing you. Permeating all of you, every cell. Expanding beyond, expanding, radiating expansively. Expand, expand, expand. Expanding on its own, let it go, let it expand. Rest. As if it permeates your body, the space around you, the space of your heart, the space of your life, the space of your mind.

And let this expansiveness of gentleness, kindness, care for hurting bodies—your body, others' bodies, or hurting hearts—let this care be radiated to every hurting body or heart it meets. This light, radiating light of care, brings succor, brings soothing and peace to all the beings who, just like me, have been hurting. All of us, all of us. Wishing us all well.

As we're bringing this practice to a close, may all beings everywhere have ease and well-being. Be free from sorrow and difficulty in their bodies and their hearts and their minds, including ourselves.

Reflections and Q&A

Thank you all. Thank you for your practice.

So we have some time for any reflections, questions, shares, aha moments, what worked, what didn't. Complaints. It's all welcome. You can raise your Zoom hand if you like, or type in chat.

Jesse.

Jesse: Thank you for this practice today. I love the phrase of using whatever phrases to use them as a warm blanket of mettā and wrap up in them. Last week you had recommended, or once a while back, just the importance of safety. I've been using the phrase "may I be safe" for a while. And then I love how phrases sometimes just naturally arise in my mind. A couple of weeks ago, I was just saying "may I be safe" over and over for months, and then a couple of weeks ago it changed to "I am profoundly safe and all is well." And that's my new phrase. I don't know how it got there, but it's been really helping me and it really does feel like a warm blanket of mettā. So thank you for this.

Nikki: Thank you so much for sharing your practice. My goodness, it's so beautiful, Jesse, what you just shared. For the benefit of everyone and also to be held witness, is so profound. You practice something for a while naturally, not pushing it: "Yes, may I be safe, may I be safe." The heart at some point says, "Okay sweetie, I'm full. Okay, I feel safe." And then the phrase changes to what you said, "I feel profoundly safe." Wow. I am so touched and delighted and moved, and celebrate your practice. This is how it happens, right? It shifts, it changes. We graduate, quote-unquote, from one stage to the next, and it's so gentle, it's so sweet. Yay, thanks for sharing this, Jesse. Anything else you want to say? I'm just taking so much delight in your practice report.

Jesse: Oh, it's been great. It just felt very natural and very organic, and I still feel fear on quite a few occasions, but I feel like I have this extra strength medicine, you know, for any task that feels challenging. It's been a fruit of the practice, so we appreciate the sangha^[3] and your guidance. Thank you.

Nikki: Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that. Yay, it's beautiful. I see [someone in chat] says, "Thank you, Jesse, what you said is strengthening." Yay, Jesse, thanks for sharing your practice and supporting others. Oh, Claire says, "Just what I needed at the end of a difficult day." Oh, Jesse, I'm just loving how your practice report is supporting others. There's this goodness in the sangha, it touches me deeply. Yeah, thank you all. Thank you, thanks for sharing, thanks for practicing. Yay.

Any other reflections, questions, comments, complaints?

Maybe as I wait for anything else to come in, I'll share with you that I feel so much lighter actually. Myself, this practice... I mean, it's clear to you how excited I am and thrilled I am about practice, otherwise I wouldn't be teaching and practicing. It continues to profoundly amaze me. Not that I don't know the power of it, but it's so fresh, it's so amazing. Before actually leading this guided meditation, there was a lot of pain in my body, and inspired to support Marie-Christine, as I led this practice, there was so much more ease in my own body now. And towards the end, the body now feels fluffy and light and easy, and all the pain and hardness and tension just feels... through the healing power of mettā, at least for this body, has been eased. So that's my practice report. There you go.

Okay Deborah, you're on.

Deborah: Okay, I haven't been here for a while and I wanted to say that it's really great to be here because it sort of bolsters... well, it just bolsters. But I wanted to say that a lot of times I have to not listen to the side of me that says, "Oh, these sayings that you say to yourself are silly." You know, I wake up in the morning and I say to myself, "I'm safe, I'm loved, I'm included." You know, these three things I say most mornings, and sometimes I think it's hokey, but the truth is it makes a difference to hear your words and speak these kind statements to myself. It really does make a difference.

Nikki: Indeed, exactly, it makes a difference. I mean, you just can't listen to the cynical voice, right? It's the story of the two wolves—the indigenous story of two wolves, the unwholesome one and the wholesome one. Which one is going to win inside you? I'm telling the story piecemeal because I'm guessing that all of you have heard it, but the wisdom is: the wolf that you feed, that's the one inside that's going to win. And so every morning you are feeding the wholesome, the kind wolf of "Yes, I am safe. I am kind. I am included." Yes, you're feeding that instead of "I'm excluded, poor me." It's that simple. And yeah, there are so many research studies in psychology... like yeah, of course it makes a difference. And here you have this amazing lab to experiment on your own. So we know it makes a difference, we know it works.

Thanks for that reflection, Deborah. Thanks for sharing your practice. I love your practice, maybe it inspires others to do that every morning when they wake up, to feed this wholesome aspect of oneself.

So dear ones, let's turn to practicing in small groups together. And the prompt I'd like to invite you to consider for reflection and to be held witness is, inspired by the reflections shared, what are the helpful phrases or self-talk that you nourish, or you would like to nourish? What have you been nourishing, or would you like to nourish?

So let's share that with each other. And if you haven't had one yet and today's your first day at Happy Hour, what would you like to nourish at this point? This is the deposit, the feeding of the wholesome wolf.

So I will create the rooms, it will take me a moment. And also what I want to say is, yes, we'll go in alphabetical order according to first name. Please share something if you wish from your own practice; you can also offer silence if you want. And then the next person will offer a nugget, the next person will offer a nugget, it'll come back to you and you'll go around and round a few times, not asking questions or directing the group, just sharing honestly as little or as much as you like to share from your own practice.

So here we go. It's gonna take me a moment to do this. Okay, I have the rooms. No, I don't have the rooms, it's taking a minute. Oh wait, okay, here we go. I'm gonna create the rooms. Give me one moment here. There we go. Okay, alright. Rooms are ready. Oh no they're not, okay hold on, people keep moving. Alright, I think the rooms are ready now. Is that right? Hold on one second. Yeah, they're ready. Okay here we go, I'm gonna open them up. Enjoy each other.

[Breakout groups converse]

Okay, the rooms are closed, everybody's back, and we have just about a minute. How was it? What did you discover from this practice? I see a lot of smiles coming out of the rooms. So especially if you haven't commented tonight or in a while, love to hear from you. Go, go, go.

Oh, Neil says, "That was so sweet." Oh, that's nice. You want to say more, Neil? Or does anybody want to say anything about what happened, what you discovered?

Murray, am I saying your name right?

Murray: Yes, that's fine, thanks. We had a nice conversation. It actually reminded me of something that I hadn't connected with this, but I was saying that I just came back from a holiday in Indonesia, and we noticed on all the beds in hotels in Indonesia that they have the long bolster pillow. And so I got sort of Googling about that, and they were saying, "Yeah, look, most Indonesians and Southeast Asians sleep with a bolster pillow and they hug it at night." You know, like it's a very common thing. And then I posted on my group and people were commenting back from Southeast Asia saying, "Oh yeah, I can't sleep without a bolster, you know, we have to have one." And so I'm shopping now for a bolster for my bed. Anyway, it just made me think about this, about loving-kindness and looking after yourself, and, you know, kind words, kind actions.

Nikki: Sweet, sweet. So a bolster is a kind of a reminder, or there's a connection to care, self-care, and loving-kindness. Oh nice, nice. Thanks for sharing that. Well, that's a lovely note to end on tonight. Self-care, loving-kindness, and taking care of oneself. So thank you all for taking care of yourselves, your hearts, your bodies, and each other by practicing.

Thank you so much. May you all be safe, happy, well. May all beings everywhere be free, including ourselves.

Thanks everyone, take care.