Interbeing: Guided Meditation for Healing and Unity (64)

Hi everyone and welcome back to how the Wise One Grows. So, as you're listening to this episode, will and Luna and I are on a cross-country road trip to Canada. Hopefully, the day that this episode is released, we are in Portland spending time with family getting out on the trails, but as we have been driving across third country, I am sure that I will be listening to many of these mindful moment meditations to help stay grounded through road trip life. So if you have any road trip suggestions, any Pacific Northwest or British Columbia recommendations, please share them with me. You can share them with me on social media or in the review section of this. I'd love to hear your travel wisdom. But for today's episode we have a powerful meditation that helps us reconnect to our interbeing. I came to understand this term through Titnathon's work. An interbeing is the concept that we are all connected. We are all interrelated and united, and in episode 63, michelle Cassandra Johnson spoke about her book we Heal Together and how healing can't be done only on an individual level. It's important to heal on an individual level, but in order to fully encompass healing, we have to heal with community, with those around us and with the natural world. And this conversation about communal healing really brought me back to this term interbeing, and the importance of coming back to the core connection that unites all of us. So that's where we're going to go with our meditation today reconnecting to our interbeing and our wisdom. And, honestly, interbeing is at the root of this podcast for me, because, as we listen to conversations with others, you might notice things like oh man, I've thought that before, or I felt that before, or wow, this really woke something up within me. And that's because we do have these threads that unite each of us, and that's one of the intentions of this podcast. It's to hold space for you to listen to not only the wisdom of others in the natural world, but to the wisdom within your cell, and to notice the interrelationship between yourself, the natural world and the people you inhabit this world with. If this podcast has had an impact in your life in any way, and if you have the financial capacity to do so, it would mean the world to me. If you would consider joining the how the Wise One Grows Dream team, you can join the dream team for as little as $3 a month and by doing so, you make this podcast possible Over time. It's my intention that by joining the dream team, not only will you support how the Wise One Grows podcast, but you're also going to support the people that we highlight in the work that they do. And if you don't have the financial capacity, you can still make a big impact by sharing an episode of this podcast that you love with a friend and on social media and leaving a review. This practice is based on Michelle Cassandra's Johnson's book we Heal Together and it's based on a practice on page 29 that brings us back to our interrelationship. Now let's take a moment to prepare for our meditation today by just situating yourself into a space that feels safe and supported for you. So, wherever you are, just start to notice where you are, right here, right now, by using five senses. So start with your sense of sight and notice where you are. Notice any objects around you Using your sense of touch. Start to notice where your body makes contact with the earth. Maybe it feels supportive to bring a hand to your heart or somewhere on the body. That feels like a compassionate gesture. You can gently soften your gaze at a point in front of you or rest your eyes if it feels safe, and notice any sounds that you can hear, notice if there's any smells that you pick up on around you Additionally, maybe even notice any taste. Let's begin by bringing awareness to the body. Take a moment now to scan your body from the tip of your head to the tips of your toes. We'll be right back and, without judgment, simply take note of the sensations present for you here. Start to focus on where in the body you feel the breath. As you inhale, feel the chest and the belly expand and as you exhale, let the chest, let the belly slowly sink back. Inhale and exhale Slowly. Begin to deepen the breath. Now begin to bring your awareness to the heart. Start to notice the sensations of your heart right now and imagine a web, like a spider's web, slowly beginning to spin out of your heart with every breath. So with each breath, the spinning of this web gets a little bit bigger. You can imagine that you are the spider weaving this web and as you weave this web, notice how, with every breath, it slowly expands from your heart. With every breath, these seemingly invisible threads continue to grow and encompass your shoulders, your stomach, your arms, your legs and as you continue to breathe, this web continues to grow, now expanding beyond your body and starting to envelop the things around you. Perhaps this web starts to include the grass around you, the trees, the flowers, the birds, the bees. With every breath, these invisible threads start to encompass more and more, beginning to envelop the people around you, perhaps including everyone on the street, everyone in the neighborhood that you're in, expanding to include all the people and the living beings in your city and your state. And this web, this spider, it just keeps on growing, enveloping the entire country here in the entire world and all living beings within it. And this invisible thread of this spider's web begins to expand even beyond what you can see in this physical world, perhaps even connecting you to ancestor, to a spiritual power. You can continue to weave this web as long as you'd like, allow it to include whatever is needed for you. Notice how, with every breath, this invisible thread continues to expand and connects you to all the things that are held within this web. Once you feel like your web is complete, take a few deep breaths here and the breath starting at the heart, at the center of the web, and expanding to encompass the totality of life within the web, as you inhale and as you exhale, coming back to the core, the heart, the center of this web. Take a few breaths like this, perhaps bringing a hand to your heart if it isn't already there, and take a moment to feel this connection to your heart, the core of your web, with every breath, feeling this connection expand to your community and to the life within you and around you as you move through the rest of your day, your week and your life. Allow the breath to be a reminder of this invisible thread of our interbeing. Inhale and exhale and you can slowly open your eyes as you return to this space.