Healing Relationships Meditation Exercise
Healing relationships
Are your relationships painful? More painful than you suspect they need to be?
Are you constantly triggered by your partner and disappointed with them or are you not able to attract a relationship into your life that works?
You can use this guided meditation to
~Heal the wounds in an existing relationship between you and your partner, family member, friends, or anyone that you are having a painful emotional experience with.
~Go into the past to heal a painful experience in a relationship that you are still carrying. This can be with a person that you are currently in a relationship with and you are still carrying the hurt from a past situation or with someone that you have not seen in years and may never see again.
~Stop enabling those that you love that have addictive behaviours and be unconditional loving with boundaries.
~This is not a fix for abusive relationships but I encourage you to do this meditation for clarity and self love. If you are not sure that you in are in an abusive relationship then I also encourage you to do this meditation for clarity and self love.
It will assist you in opening your heart to yourself which is the foundation of healing and it will help you to understand and have compassion for yourself moving forward.
I have created this meditative exercise in response to the overwhelming number of clients that are deeply suffering in their relationships whether it is someone they have known for a long time or it is a pattern of broken relationships.
Either way, at a deep level we know that the common denominator could be ourselves but we don’t have a clue how to fix it.
At the root cause of our suffering are our thoughts. These are thoughts that we believe and they simply are not true for us but they are so ingrained into our subconscious mind that we don’t even know that we are thinking them. Any thought that is not congruent with our true nature causes discord within us and emotional suffering and these thoughts and feelings shut us down, they close us from new experiences.
What are the signs that you are not open to a new and more fulfilling experience in relationships?
~You keep having the same negative experience with someone over and over again
~You are triggered by their behaviour very easily.
~You have decided that they will always behave or react a certain way
~You are trying to attract a new partner or experience but the situation keeps blowing up and going sideways in the same way.
Even if we think you are fairly aware, if we are having the above experiences then we are not entirely aware of our belief systems.
Again, we are not doing it consciously. We are not choosing to have our heart open or closed, we are reacting emotionally to experiences out of habit because of the thoughts we have without even knowing that we are doing it.
We close our heart because that is how we learned to automatically judge others when they are not behaving the way we think they should. We have beliefs that dictate how we think people should behave and then we judge them when they do not align with our beliefs. With that judgement comes the closed heart caused by our negative emotions. We learned to take care of ourselves by shutting down and judging but we are actually hurting ourselves and crippling any opportunity for fulfilling relationships.
We are hurting ourselves because:
~We are the ones that have to live in our bodies filled with the painful negative emotions
~When our heart is closed we cannot grow and evolve. At the very centre of our evolution is the ability to have compassion and an heart open where it was not open before. Remember, an open heart is first and foremost for our own benefit. Having an open heart does not mean that we are a pushover. We can have an open heart and have great boundaries. An open heart can feel like many things, we can can have feelings of anger and sadness and still have an open heart when we can sit with them and have compassion for those feelings.
~We will continue to suffer because what we are experiencing cannot change until we change and decide to take a different approach to relationships and life.
Our relationships start to look very different the more we can openly Be with others in each new moment, appreciate them for their differences, and openly expressing what we need without projecting past experiences on to them.
These projections are like looking through cloudy filters and these filters are applied by experiences from our past that we carry into the present moment. Sometimes those filters are so cloudy that what we see is not the truth of what is happening at all and meanwhile we think that all is lost. We love this person but they do this…. Or they say that…… but at the root of the issue we are actually a cloud of negativity with a closed heart and that has become a habit for us.
It only takes one person to be connected for love to enter and then this makes it possible for the other to follow. This takes bravery. We have to be brave to let go of being right and to see where our thoughts and actions are not coming from love and to see the other for who they truly are in that moment.
This is not about pretending that everything is ok. It is quite the opposite, this is about understanding the root of the issue from within you and healing it. It is possible to live and speak your truth, ask for what you need, and to have an open heart. This is the foundation of personal freedom and of deeply satisfying relationships.
There are two parts to this hurt: the thoughts we have about the other person and the emotions that come with that. The two and intrinsically connected. Relationships however, are the markers of our personal growth and evolution. They have the ability to show us ourselves like no other experience. I believe the key to healing our relationships lays in our commitment to going within ourselves and compassionately being with our emotions to integrate them and questioning our thoughts and beliefs that create our world. I have been using emotional integration and inquiry in my sessions for many years now and this meditation is a combination of my own practices as well as the inspiration of The Work by Byron Katie and The Presence Process by Michael Brown.
There is a moment in this work where the light comes on and we have this realisation:
I have been blaming my failed relationships and crappy life on other people and actually, I am at the root of the problem.
What if, your constant negative thoughts about the situation are actually creating the problem and the other person is only responding to, and mirroring your negative them thoughts and emotions. Wayne Dyer has a quote that simply says:
“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
I have personally been experiencing this phenomenon in my own life. When I become aware of my negative, judgemental, mean-mindedness and emotions that go with the thoughts I realise that it has been me that has been doing the wrong, and when I sit and feel into the situation and where the other person is coming from I am totally just behaving horribly. And sometimes they were not acting in integrity, I can see that they are just afraid and it is only making the situation much worse when I acted from fear and a closed heart and I was not responding from a place of love and seeing the situation clearly where I could set healthy boundaries and helpful to the other person.
Personal growth and fulfilling relationships depend on our willingness to look within, get uncomfortable and vulnerable, and compassionately take responsibility for our thoughts,behaviours and deeply feel our feelings. These thoughts and behaviours are not usually something that we are even aware of. We are operating on autopilot and reacting in the same way that we have learned so we sometimes need assistance in bringing them up, seeing them, and then choosing a different path that reflects what our soul really wants in our life. And our relationships will get more and more dramatically painful until we do this work. These painful experiences are a gift to us so we can see where we need to love ourselves and others more.
Most of us automatically blame the other person for the suffering in our lives. To blame others for our suffering is to be a victim. When we are a victim we take no responsibility for ourselves and our life and relationships do not change for the better, in fact they get worse until we wake up and look within at what we are creating.
We do not have control over what is outside of us but we can have full control over what is inside of us. It is the combination of our thoughts and feelings that create our world and we can have control over those if we choose to.
If you are currently dealing with someone in a relationship that has addictions it is imperative that you do the work to love yourself unconditionally so that you can make clear choices and set boundaries that is in everyone’s highest good while holding true loving space for the other to heal. Remembering them in their true energy is important while setting loving boundaries.
If you are currently dealing with someone in a relationship that is abusive toward you, it is also imperative that you do the work to love yourself unconditionally. The work includes doing the emotional integration work and also understanding the thoughts and beliefs that are not loving toward yourself. From this place of clarity and self love it is much easier to take care of yourself and set boundaries that are necessary for everyone’s well being. You can be discerning and make good choices and take steps that are in your highest good and everyone involved. You are no longer enabling this others person’s behaviour but you are being unconditional loving.
When we are not open to something then we are closed to it.
Unfortunately we have become accustomed to being at odds with ourselves and we live in the pain of those emotions on a daily basis, or, we have become very good at numbing ourselves to our emotions and we do everything we can to suppress and control them when they surface.
We have shut down and most if the time it is unconscious. We are used to living in hell and having the same negative thoughts playing in our head over and over again.
In this meditative exercise we will look at the two parts of this issue that keep us locked into the patterns of suffering:
First are the charged emotions that we carry at a deep level from our past experiences that come up when we are triggered by similar situations. We want to always be aware of what we are feeling as they are an indication of what we are thinking.
We will learn to become aware these emotions and to respond instead of react to them. We will also learn how to start integrating emotions from our past that are stuck in our bodies.For more information of this work I highly recommend the book The Presence Process by Michael Brown.
In the second part of the meditative exercise we will look at the thoughts that we are believing and creating suffering for us. I partially use The Work by Byron Katie for this self-inquiry process. It is a wonderful resource and I highly recommend her process
Much love to you on this amazing journey!
Sandra
Healing Relationships Meditation Exercise
You will need a pencil and piece of paper for this exercise.
Sit comfortably.
Take a deep breath
(PAUSE)
Begin to take regular breaths in and out of your nose
Notice your body
Relax your body more with each breath
Continue to breath and focus on your breath for now
(PAUSE)
(Step 1)
Think of the person that you wish to heal your relationship with or a person that you last had a painful experience with
(PAUSE)
Now think of a particular situation and a time and place with this person where you were hurt by their behaviour.
Where are you?
Are you Sitting? Standing?
What is the other person doing?
What is the situation?
(PAUSE)
What do you need from that person you are not getting in that moment?
What are they doing that is hurting you?
Write this down. Keep it simple and short
BREATH
(PAUSE)
How does this situation make you feel?
You have strong emotions in this situation and that is fine, it is part of what makes us human, but it is how we respond to our emotions that will either perpetuate the issue or shift for the better.
We will now respond to our emotions by integrating them. Integrating emotions means to feel them fully instead of pushing them down or controlling them. By doing this you will begin to have clarity and more wisdom about relationships and you will be more present with others without reacting the way you used to.
Take your focus from your mind to your body, for now, let go of the situation. We will come back to it.
Breath.
Focus on where you feel the discomfort in your body. Somewhere in your body you are uncomfortable. There may be emotional and physical discomfort and that is fine. Where exactly in your body do you feel uncomfortable. Take a deep breath and continue to focus on the area of your body where you are feeling the discomfort. Do not allow yourself to be distracted, keep focusing, breathing and relaxing.
Put your hands on that part of your body. Breath. Allow the discomfort to fully be there without resisting or pushing it away and relax. This can be extremely uncomfortable but you are safe. What you are feeling is energy of your emotions and by responding to it in this way you are allowing the charge of the emotions to come to completion. As you sit with your discomfort whether emotional or physical you may find that it changes or moves. Your may find that you physical pain has an emotional connection. Follow where it takes you in your body and be with it.
In this moment you are loving yourself in the deepest possible way. You are holding and supporting yourself. This may feel foreign to you as most of us were taught to ignore, suppress and control our emotions and feelings therefore abandoning ourselves. Our relationship to our feelings is our relationship to ourselves. How we treat our feelings is how we treat ourselves and how others treat us. We can only be loved as much as we love ourselves. Our suppressed emotions only get stored to be easily triggered again and again until they are integrated.
pause
While you are processing this exercise over the next while you may see images of your past or from your childhood. This is normal and it is information that can be helpful for you to understand why you have been struggling with relationships. You may see where your true nature of love and openness was not encouraged and how that has affected your relationships. You may start having memories that you have forgotten.
Sit in the energy of the emotions for as long as you need to. You can pause this video to continue this process if you need to. Through this process of being present with yourself you will feel compassion for yourself and your suffering and your heart will soften and open.
Now, go back to the situation with the other person. See yourself there again. Do you look or feel different?
Pause
Breath
(Step 2):
Now, Notice the other person
Look at them, Really look at them.
(PAUSE)
Look at their face
(PAUSE)
and look into their eyes.
And Be present with them
(PAUSE)
What do you see?
(PAUSE)
What was happening for them in that moment?
(PAUSE)
Before this, were you seeing them clearly? What were you not seeing in them?
Also, If they are acting from a place of fear, anger or sadness then, in this moment can you have compassion for them?
(Step 3):
So, Let’s continue to look at this situation from a different perspective
Continue to breath
Look at yourself leading up to this situation, what kind of thoughts and feelings did you have about this person?
(PAUSE)
Have your thoughts and emotions been mostly been positive and supportive or mostly negative?
(PAUSE)
Have you been seeing them fresh every day, every moment or are you bringing the past into all of your thoughts and interactions with them?
(PAUSE)
If you are having a negative experience with someone then you most likely have been stuck in negative loop of thought patterns and emotions before this situation even happened. How much of your time and energy did you spend ruminating over how they have hurt you or what is wrong with them? Are you assuming how they will behave before you even see them?
(PAUSE)
If you are trying to attract a new relationship, what have your thoughts and feelings been about new relationships? Do you have positive thoughts about them and look forward to the future with good expectations? Or do you think a lot about the past and how you have been treated by others?
(PAUSE)
What if there is no difference between being outrightly negative toward someone to their face or perpetually thinking negative thoughts about them? What if both bring the same results?
We all have negative thoughts and feelings. It is normal, but we are being unkind to ourselves and others if they go on unresolved and most often the resolution comes from within.
We expect others to treat us with love and respect but in our thoughts we do not treat them with love or respect, and more importantly we are not treating ourselves with love and respect.
You may not have been seeing yourself or this relationship clearly but through a cloudy filter, and you have been believing thoughts that are not true.
If they were acting from fear, anger or frustration then if you react to them with more fear, anger or are you making the situation better or worse? It only takes one person that is connected and vulnerable to start shifting the situation and the most important aspect of healing our relationships is healing our relationship to ourselves. Being closed to yourself or others is again, not self love but self abandonment. You can be open and vulnerable and have great boundaries. This is actually the most self loving place you can be.
So what is the truth? What would our true thoughts be?
The answer is easy to find if we want to find it and this work takes bravery.
We can find the truth when we question our painful thoughts.
We will start with an example.
The example of a painful thought is “He does not love me”
If this thought causes you suffering then something about that thought goes against your true nature. Any thought that contradicts your true nature is painful.
Let’s find the truth.
To do that we will turn the thought around a few ways and see what resonates within us
The truth is either that:
He does love me
PAUSE
I don’t love me
PAUSE
I don’t love him or
I haven’t been loving toward him
PAUSE
Try those on. At least one if not all of them will feel true for you.
(PAUSE)
Now, go back to what you wrote on your piece of paper and read the thought that you wrote.
If you have more than one just choose one for now and you can go back and do the others.
Read the thought out loud.
(PAUSE)
Now, turn the thought around a few ways and see what resonates with you.
(PAUSE)
You can pause this recording if you need more time.
As you shift, your relationships will shift too. Whether the current relationships can stay or will transition out of our lives will become obvious as you become clear, open and vulnerable. If this is a longtime partners there is a good chance that they will catch up with your expansion, but we have to give them the opportunity to do that. If they don’t choose to evolve with an open heart then you will attract a more fulfilling relationship when you are ready.
See how your mind and thinking up until now has decided that the other is completely at fault. You can see now that the other was simply a match to the thoughts, feelings, emotions and energy that you have been embodying. See that What you have been experiencing outside of you originates within you.
PAUSE
Now, go back to the original situation with the other person.
Take a deep breath.
This time, imagine that you are in that same situation and you are relaxed and open.
(PAUSE)
You are present with them and you are seeing them clearly without any stories or projections from the past.
(PAUSE)
What would you like to say to them?
If there is something that you desire from the other person imaging yourself now simply asking for it. And allow them the freedom to say yes or no without your judgement.
When we are feeling negative emotion we can be sure that we believing thoughts that are not true. The more we practice emotional awareness and integration and we question our thoughts the better our life and relationships will be.
We can practice being open and present with others in our meditations so that we get better at staying open when we are with them. We also pay attention to our emotions so that we know when it is time to do our work of integration and inquiry.
This meditative exercise is a combination of:
~my own practice that I use in the sessions with my clients
~the emotional integration process in the book “The Presence Process” by Michael Brown
~And the thought inquiry process called ‘The Work’ by Byron Katie
I highly recommend both of these resources as powerful tools.
Thank you for joining me in this exercise. Many blessings to you and your relationship with yourself and may you have more fulfilling relationships.
