A Meditation on Reconciliation

Reconciliation is the path to making peace with yourself and with the world. To live and die with a heart free of resentment, bitterness, and ill will would truly be a supreme accomplishment in life. When you practice reconciliation meditation, you open the door to that possibility.

Three stages of reconciliation

This is a three-part practice. The first aspect is to direct reconciliation toward yourself, making peace with all the ways you have felt deficient or inadequate. These feelings often accompany anxiety, with the sense of "If only I weren't so anxious." This can make it especially difficult to be at home and at peace with yourself. The reconciliation practice can create a bridge to truly feeling that you are enough as you are. The second aspect is reconciliation with those you have hurt. The third is reconciliation with those who have hurt you. To be clear, this is a meditation practice and all the work of reconciliation happens within you. While the practice may eventually lead to contact with other people to make amends for the ways you have hurt them, that is a separate choice and not part of this practice itself. And of course, while you always have the power to forgive those who have hurt you, you have no control over whether others will seek reconciliation with you. Yet you can work within yourself, using this threefold practice, to open a hardened and anxious heart, offering yourself some of the deepest healing and freedom possible.

By choosing to tune in to how you perceive yourself and your interpersonal interactions, you are freeing yourself from fixed ideas about who you are and what you can become.

By choosing to tune in to how you perceive yourself and your interpersonal interactions, you are freeing yourself from fixed ideas about who you are and what you can become.

Meditation Exercise: Reconciliation
 
Reconciliation Meditation

Read through the entire script first to familiarize yourself with the practice, then do the practice, referring back to the text as needed and pausing briefly after each paragraph. Set aside about twenty minutes for the practice. You can do it sitting, standing, or lying down. Choose a position in which you can be comfortable and alert.

Mindful check-in: Take a few moments to pause and check in with yourself, noticing what you are feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally. This may be the first time you are stopping to check in and get a sense of how you are doing. As you feel into your body and mind, simply allow whatever is there and let it be. There is no need to fix or resolve anything. Just acknowledge what is present in your direct experience.
Conscious breathing: Gradually become aware of your breathing, inhaling and knowing that you are breathing, exhaling and knowing that you are exhaling. Simply take your life one breath in and one breath out at a time. Being present.

Opening the heart: Now gently shift from your breath to feeling into your heart and reflecting on the preciousness and fragility of life. As you feel into your heart, try to hold it with great care and tenderness, opening to yourself with self-compassion. Let this be a moment to make peace with yourself and end the war of self-aversion. Feel how, like all beings, you are imperfectly perfect, just as you are.

Opening to reconciliation: Open to the wisdom of hindsight that can understand how all of your past, with all its joys and sorrows, has brought you to this moment. Everything has been part of what brought you here, now. Open to deep reconciliation with your past, knowing that your wounding and lack of awareness contributed to your sense of unworthiness, inadequacy, whatever has closed your heart to yourself.
Practice self-compassion: Let this be a moment to open your heart to deep self-compassion and love for yourself. Say gently to yourself: “May I be at ease and at peace. May I open to deep compassion for myself as I am.” Rest in this reconciliation with yourself for a few minutes.

Expand compassion outward: Now begin to expand this feeling of reconciliation, extending it to those you have hurt, whether through words, actions, or thoughts. Open your heart and, within yourself, make peace with those you have harmed in some way. Use your hindsight to reflect on how your actions were fueled by fear, anxiety, lack of awareness, or the need to protect yourself. Feel your heart becoming lighter and more at ease with the pain you caused others as you understand where you were at that time and the pain you were feeling within your own heart. Extend reconciliation to those you have hurt. Rest in this sense of reconciliation with those you have hurt for a few minutes.

This article was originally published at Mindful