Healing After a Breakup

Hi, and welcome to session one of this 10-day course on breakups. So whether you recently went through a breakup or you're a bit further along on your journey, I think there's one thing that we can all agree on and that's that breakups are hard. I remember after my first breakup, I swore to myself I would never love anyone else again. Sound familiar? So throughout this course, we'll be using meditation as a way to navigate this period of our life that comes with such intense emotions and many ruminating thoughts of what if, how come, what's next, and now what. And something I want you to remember is that healing is not a linear process, so it's normal to experience the highs and the lows, the happy days and the sad ones, too. What we're doing here is creating a greater capacity to hold all that we're feeling and thinking and hold these things with a sense of clarity and compassion. "Why?" you may ask. Well, a mentor of mine once told me that connection is a biological imperative for human beings, which means this is a basic need for us. As humans, we desire to feel connected with the people around us. But what happens when the person that we feel most connected to is no longer around? While we may try to distract ourselves from the pain of their absence or turn towards other unhealthy coping mechanisms just so that we can get by, but with meditation and with the noting technique that we'll be using in this course, we're meeting this experience of heartbreak with curiosity, compassion, and presence. So again, this means we aren't running away from what we're feeling or trying really hard to make sense and understand what happened, we're really just allowing all of our thoughts and emotions to just be here and get curious about what they have to offer us on this healing journey. So let's begin by just getting comfortable. You can be sitting upright or lying down. Softening the eyebrows, the muscles around the eye eyes. Unclenching your jaw. Just allowing the lips to part slightly. Releasing the tongue from the top of your mouth. And now, just relaxing the shoulders. And when you're ready, taking a few deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. And on the next exhale, just gently allowing the eyes to close. Drawing the focus inwards into the body and onto the breath. Noticing the soft curve in the spine, feet connected to the floor. And then noticing any sounds around you in your space. And then just gently bringing the focus back into the body and just beginning to scan down. So starting from the top of the head and working down towards the soles of the feet. Just noticing what parts of you feel a bit tense and where it feels more relaxed. And then just gently noticing your mood or any emotions that may...