Today, as always, we walked through the ritual of starting our meeting. We introduced ourselves and named what was bringing us into the meeting today. After introductions, we launched into a guided meditation to get us all into a comfortable state of mind. The breathing, relaxing, and sensation of our feet pressing comfortably on the floor combines some of the elements of Somatic Therapy … that is a therapeutic practice that seeks to center us in our bodies and ground us. We always comment on our individual feelings about that guided meditation that we shared. Each of us tends to have a different take on how the meditation felt for us. Each or our meetings feature a new and distinct guided meditation, and because there are so many of these meditations available on the Internet, we learn that some always will fit better than others.
When we are relatively relaxed with each other and feel that we are in a safe space to share our experiences, we are asked to talk about any specific challenge that we had since the last meeting, or any specific success that we were able to enjoy. Something we seem to have nothing to say. Buty after someone has shared an experience, others follow with their own experiences. Sometimes the experiences are familiar and may touch back to things that happened years ago, and sometimes experiences, like landing a new job after a successful interview, are unique. With a feeling for how things have been going for us, we move into exploring some new healthy practice. Our group support leader chose guided reflection for us this week.
Guided reflection is simple, but also surprisingly helpful. We asked to reflect on our understanding of our recent stresses. Our reflection is guided by a structure that has us jot down the stress first, then, on a space to the right of this stress, we are asked to say what we think can be done about that stress. Then in a third box, we are asked to write down all of the swirling ideas that we might have about what to do. This helps us “trap” a swirling thought onto paper, where we can come back to in again and maybe rethink some of our options. Pretty simple stuff. Not Really. We are tunneling into things that really bother us, and may have been stressing us for a long, long time. Naming the stress gives us a little bit of control over that stress. We repeat this process four or five more times naming additional stresses. Reflecting, we then list the three things among all of the options we have come up with to respond to our individual situation. We might feel as if we have to do everything on our list, but we cannot. Picking three provides a manageable list of challenges to take on.
If our guided reflection ended here, we would be sitting among our stresses. This is uncomfortable. The guide pulls us up from reflection on our stresses by asking us to make a list (again four or five items) for which we are grateful. We make another list of the things that we are praying for but are not directly under our own control. We move from our reflection on our stress to a revelation on goals and hopes. This is a place of action.
The specific guide reflection sheet we used today ended with a check list of things we might consider doing to help us “fight fear.” The list included Pray, Go outside, Take intentional deep breaths, Exercise, Turn off our screens, Eat a healthy meal, Visit a friend, or perform an Act of Kindness. Of course, we are not limited by this list. It is there as guide only.
We closed this session with another guided meditation, which isn’t our normal closing. This meditation was something new for us because rather that the familiar flowing sensation of the meditation, we were given an almost mechanical, or drum beat, cadence that carried us through the guide’s message. Some said that this meditation felt like motion that we were actively taking rather than the more familiar sense of motion that we giving ourselves up to. We talked a bit about experiences with “moving meditations” and drew parallels with Buddhist rituals and with walking labyrinths. We closed the meeting, always leave remembering the feelings we had while were together more than all of the specific things that were said. But then this is expected when things feel normal.