Hello hello, this is Sabrina Amina and I am bringing you the feelings pod.
If you're listening for the first time, I'm so delighted that you're here and if you're
coming back again, thank you.
I'm so grateful that you're here.
This episode is on grief and gratitude and I've been moving through so much grief.
I don't remember for how long, it's been a while, but I've learned a few things about
grief and one of the gifts of grief is that it doesn't exist alone, it doesn't exist
in isolation of other emotions.
The wonderful thing about all of our emotions is that you can experience profound grief
and profound joy.
It's part of the magic of this human experience.
You can also, when I allow myself to be with my grief, I just, and the genocide in Gaza
has just given me a whole new level, a whole new experience of what it means to be with
grief.
Moving through grief for me has really been a process of reminding myself and remembering
that although there is grief and despair and melancholy and desperation and hopelessness,
there's also this deep gratitude and growing awareness I have of the gifts in my life.
I think it's so important to remain connected to our awareness and acknowledgement of these
gifts and allow ourselves to be with the deep grief but also find moments when we can fully
be with our gratitude and joy and witnessing suffering and experiencing suffering.
It's easy to kind of fall into a pit of despair and over this past year I've really relied
a lot on my community, my friends, my daughter, my work, my home.
I've leaned on mother nature and her gifts and the magic of movement and allowing myself
to move through grief with something, a new process I've been learning called, not process,
but new healing modality called body temple dance.
I encourage you to check out art of loving on Instagram.
As we kind of navigate the darkness of grief, it's like when you find the ability to move
and make an attempt to navigate the darkness, I've been bumping into a few things like
dance and I had the privilege of going to a retreat recently with my teacher Adriana
Rosolo and Harsha da Wagner and I got to dance through my grief and a lot of conflicting
emotions came up.
I felt guilt that I have such great privilege that I can go on retreat and dance my worries
away.
I don't really dance them away, I just kind of sit with them and dance with them and cry
about them and talk about them.
I have this privilege, I have that space, I have that great gift in my life and I think
with those kinds of gifts, it's also my responsibility to not drown and despair, to not only see
grief but also to see the truth.
The Palestinians, my Palestinian brothers and sisters have been reminding me of how
to find hope and joy and connection and love even in the most desperate of times.
So I dedicate this episode to Palestinians and the Palestinian liberation movement.
I don't understand why Palestinians are having to pay such a heavy price for their freedom
and for their liberation and for justice and for the right to exist.
But what I know for sure is I have to be able to move through grief in a powerful way and
the way to do that is not to forget that there is so much available to me where I am presently.
Yeah, so it's just a little short reflection today.
Thank you for hearing me, thank you for tuning in, thank you for the gift of your time and
attention, so we'll do a short little body scan practice today.
Find a comfortable seat, notice where you are in time and space and just soften into
this moment, allow the eyes to close and wherever you are just position yourself in a way that
feels maybe 10% more comfortable than you are right now and start to bring awareness
and attention to your breath.
You don't necessarily have to do anything to the breath, just noticing it.
I had a beautiful yoga class this morning and the invitation was to notice what it's
like to be breathed.
You can actively breathe or you can be a witness to the breath.
Choose your own adventure.
And as we settle into this moment, feel the weight of gravity keeping you in place in
this moment.
Feel the weight of your body.
Notice where your feet are, notice any sensations in your toes.
Bring awareness to the top of your feet, to the bottoms of your feet.
Notice your ankles and stillness is great and movement is great.
Notice what the body is asking for in this moment as you bring awareness to your shins
and your calves.
Notice your knees, allow the breath to move through you.
Allow your whole body to be nourished by deep breaths, deep, slow, mindful breaths as you
bring your attention to your thighs and your seat.
Notice where your sit bones meet, the cushion beneath you, the ground beneath you, the chair.
Bring your awareness to your hips and your belly.
Take a deep breath here, pause and let it go.
Notice your solar plexus, it's the space just above your belly button and just below the
heart space.
Take a deep breath in and let it go.
And if you like, you can bring your hands together, rub them together, bring a little warmth
between the palms of your hands, rubbing your hands together, noticing what it feels like
as you're creating that friction.
And when you like, you can gently place the hands over the heart and breathe in here and
let it go.
Bring your attention to your neck and your shoulders.
Noticing the length of your arms, taking a deep breath in, bringing your awareness back
up the arms to the shoulders again.
If you'd like to invite a little movement here as well, you're welcome to do so.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Bring your attention to your neck and jaw and just allow yourself to really soften any
tension that might be present.
And it's nice to massage the jaw a little bit with the tips of your fingers.
Notice if there's any expression in your face and just let the muscles in your face soften
completely, let all expression leave your face.
Bring your attention to your third eye, that spot right between your eyebrows.
Breathe in.
Let it go.
Bring your awareness to the crown of your head.
Notice your scalp.
Notice any hair on your head.
Take a deep breath in.
Let it go.
And as we close our practice, imagine a bright white light radiating from your center and
it envelops your whole body as it radiates outward.
You're creating an energetic protection that allows you to maintain this softness, maintain
this ease.
Or if you just simply feel like you need a barrier of protection as you move through
the day, just imagine this light surrounding you, allowing anything in that you need today
and just kind of reflecting away anything that you don't need.
My name is Sabrina Amina.
Thank you so much for listening and practicing with me today.
Have a wonderful day.