I remember a friend reminding me a little while ago of a time when we were back in college. I think I was turning 20 and I turned to her and said “I should be married by now”. Nearly 10 years later, still no ring in sight, I am in constant struggle with my own failure as a woman in not being married. I am not the love of someone else’s life. I am not the queen of my own domain, as society paints wife-hood. Instead I am displaced in a holding period, as if I’m not meant to build a life because if I do I will miss the chance of having my ideal life being created. As if another person does indeed come trotting in on the white horse to give me the life written and talked about by everyone else. I just have to wait for my time and it’ll come.
Then there are the people today giving advise about giving up waiting and living your own life; it mostly entails just do what you love and then you’ll meet someone and blah blah blah, happily ever after. What nonsense and yet we all feed into it. If it’s not a love interest, it’s a job opportunity, a business partner/investor, or simply “happiness” and “wholeness”. But to find wholeness within ourselves we must first accept that we have a hole. We must mourn the life goal that could not be brought to fruition, whether it be from the past or in the here and now.
It has been since the beginning of this past Cancer season that I have been dipping into the goals that weren’t meant to be. Instead of quickly moving onto what goals are more appropriate I have instead begun to ask myself “Am I ok that this didn’t happen? Am I ready to let this go?” And then I sit and wait for the answer without judgement.
The goal of asking these questions isn’t to be ok with every loss a la “positive vibes only”. Instead, it is to let our pain selves be heard. It is when we have fully heard, accepted, and embraced the pain that we can then move through it and release it.
Goal Mourning Meditation:
Sit in a tall comfortable seat and place your hands on your thighs, close your eyes, and begin inhaling and exhaling for a count of 4.
Feel your breath moving through your chest all the way down into the base of your belly.
As you continue to breathe begin thinking of a goal, dream, or even old lifestyle that feels dead in the water to you.
Something you know in your heart you must let go of but you haven’t had the strength to.
Now hold that goal gently and ask yourself “Am I ready to let this go?”
Without judgement allow any thoughts and emotions come to you.
Feel into those thoughts and emotions, what do they like feel in your body?
In what areas of the body do you feel them. Send more breath to those areas, see them being filled with a bright green light.
Continue to ask yourself “Am I ready to let this go?”
It doesn’t matter what your answer is, just hold space for it. Continue to breathe at a 4 count and see the bright green light filling up your body until it surrounds you in a peaceful glow.
Say to yourself, I accept you. I accept you.
Repeat this till your mind finds stillness in the words. I accept you. Feel the light around you, holding you in love.
When you are ready, begin opening your eyes and breathing normally. Say to yourself one last time, I accept you.
You are loved. You are accepted.
Namaste.
SUKHA YOGA HOUSE 