Peace Meditation on Time, Spirit, and Safety

A Piece Meditation on Time, Spirit, and Safety by Giel Luichjes

Watch Giel Luichjes’ recording of the meditation, or read his transcript to the meditation below. His full reflection on the ‘Spirit of the Times’ and the ‘Spirit of the Depths’, including discussions on safety and vulnerability, can be read in another blog by Giel here.

Introduction to Peace Meditation

In May 2022 I had the honour of guiding a ‘Peace meditation’ for the European Psychosynthesis Associations (EAP). The war in Ukraine is triggering a lot of people and filling them with worry, disgust, pain, and other emotions and feelings. They hold a weekly peace meditation that can be joined by everyone. I wanted to support this initiative and felt compelled to widen the scope at the same time, as the way we respond to these situations testifies of our capacity to generate a lot of will, and as seen from a psychosynthesis perspective, we are also curious about this balance with love.

A Peace Meditation: the text

This is an invitation to a reflection, to get in touch with your love and will as you experience that inside yourself. Before you continue, please make a choice to engage. Are you wilfully choosing to reflect? 

Now take some moments to orient yourself in the space where you are right now consciously. See if your body wants to stretch, and then settle into your chair, make yourself really comfortable and let gravity pull your shoulders down a little more, your feet a little heavier to the floor. If you’ve chosen to walk, when you are on the move, find yourself in the way that works for you.

Settle into the body more and find a way to become as aware as you can be. Perhaps you would like to use your hands to bring in the presence of your body as fully as possible. Touch yourself with your hands by gently stroking your legs, stroke both your arms as well as your chest, belly area, your back, your face and rest of your head. Literally get in touch with yourself.

See what is needed to set yourself free of visual distractions.

Take three more deep breaths and with every breath, make the outbreath longer than the inbreath.

Now take a few moments to reflect on the experience of “I” inside yourself. Connect to the still place inside you that is observing, present, like a candle that is always burning inside you, until your last breath blows out this candle.

Perhaps use the image of the flame of the candle if it speaks to you. Feel in your body when you connect to the inner silence of the flame. 

If you wish, you can also choose an image or memory of a moment in your life where you felt most safe. Choose an image or memory of feeling safe and let that image become clear to you. Notice your feelings that relate to that memory, that moment in your life where you felt really safe. 

And then allow yourself to feel what it feelt like to feel safe. Stay with that feeling for some breaths. Experience it in your body.

And then imagine that with every in-breath you receive new air, oxygen, that feeds the cells in your body. Feel what that feels like, to receive….To receive nurturing, aliveness. How does that support your experience of your inner peace?

And then, with the out-breaths, feel what you want to let go of. What does not support your inner peace? Are you willing to let go of identifications, thoughts, and perceptions you hold onto, even though your inner peace is not supported by them? 

Are you willing to support your inner peace? Are you willing to let go?

Notice if you get in touch with any resistance inside yourself. Perhaps feeling powerless, helpless, sadness or frustration and anger when you reflect on this. Invite the resistance in. Allow it to be present without engaging with it too strongly. Allowing yourself and all that is part of you, what is present, to be there….. And notice what happens if you do so…. 

See if you can reconnect to the candle flame inside of you, the image or feeling that relates to you feeling safe. Imagine yourself connecting to your inner peace as much as possible. Connect to your experience of feeling safe with your whole body. It helps when we feel safe, to be available to oneself, to others, and to be in connection.

What more do you need to feel safe? Trust that you know what you need to feel even safer. Allow that to emerge inside you. Imagine giving this to yourself right now. To feel even more safe. Use your inner peace and feeling safe to engage with this reflection right now. 

Opening the heart

And now I’d like to invite you to expand your enquiry and ask yourself: what do I need to open my heart? Start with your needs to open your heart to yourself. What is your way of opening your heart? What is supporting you to do so?

Notice how you can allow the flow of the heart energy to flow through you. Notice any bodily sensations. Perhaps you notice sensations even outside of yourself. However the experience is – not forcing it, just inviting it in – notice how you experience it in your body, what feelings come up, and what you are aware of.

Stay with this. Allowing the heart energy to flow through you. And imagine this heart energy to be an endless resource. Allow yourself to connect to it. Imagine you come from that same resource, the force and power of Eros, and imagine how your life energy might transform and you and you’ll be returning to this essential resource again when this life for you is over. 

When your mind wanders reading this, drifts away, how can you gently guide yourself back to the energy of your heart?

Reflect for a moment that it is your heart that wants to live. It beats, whatever the circumstances; it simply wants to live. Like the breath, your heartbeat is a faithful companion in life. Your heart is a reminder of your aliveness. And talking about aliveness…. Think of nature in the time of Spring: how the force of nature cannot be stopped. How nature comes back to life whatever the circumstances. It wants to live, to grow, to move on, to invite in all other parts of nature, to engage with each other, to interact. All elements of this are part of an interconnected, self-sustaining system. It is like us humans: we want to live, to transform and engage with each other, at least, most of the time.

Imagine how this intrinsic force of nature is always present. Imagine that force vividly inside yourself as well. And realise that we are nature, too. Whatever we do, whatever happens, we want to live.

Gratitude & Connection

And when you feel grounded enough in your body and connected to your heart, notice how safe you feel right now, in your room, in your town, in your country. Notice the privilege you might have, just from being born in, or from living in, a part of the world with much privilege; of being relatively safe, relatively free, of not being in a threatening conflict of war, of hunger, of the loss of your home or work. See if you can connect to your gratitude for your current situation in life, for those circumstances that support your safety. Even when there might be other issues in your life, like a health situation, relationship issues, or other challenging transitions, connect to all that is there that supports your being alive and safe in this world….

If you notice you begin to feel less safe, when your mind takes over and thinks of circumstances that make you feel less safe, reconnect to the flame inside you, your image, your feelings that support your inner peace. Your feeling safe. Reconnect to your heart and the energy of your heart radiating through, and perhaps outside of, your body.

I’d like to invite you to stay with this practice for a few moments, to really and only connect to your heart’s energy, allowing that to flow through you and – if it happens – outside of you. Perhaps you close your eyes for some moments.

And then think of people physically near you. People or other living beings you live with. Send them the energy of your heart. Think of the people in your street, including those that you do not know, or might not even be so fond of.  They all have a heart, want to live and want to live in peace.

The source of the energy of the heart has no limits, no limitations, and it cannot be wasted… because everyone needs love, connection, belonging, safety… Allow your energy of the heart to float freely to all living beings near you.

Then, if you’re willing, imagine being able to send the energy of your heart to all people who live in unsafety at this moment….. Of course those people surviving in war zones in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle and Far East. Everywhere where people might feel unsafe or have been born into unsafety. Imagine letting your heart energy flow to them. They all wish to be met in the energy of the heart, in peace, to belong and to feel safe.

All you can do is to let it flow, to allow it to emerge inside yourself, and to let it radiate. Imagine the even bigger flow of heart energy that could reach all living beings who are living in unsafety, if more people chose to reflect on this regularly…

Also think of situations where people live in unfree worlds, where there is no system of justice protecting vulnerable people in their human rights. Where your gender can be a threat. Where someone’s gender identity, sexual or romantic interest might put their lives at risk.

Include everyone who is unfree to be themselves, send to them your heart energy that emerges from inside yourself and that flows to them, into the world where it is needed. You probably will not know most of them. Just think of all people having a heart, longing to be loved, to feel safe and to live in peace.

Let’s keep the flow going for those whose liberty has been taken away because of war or under circumstances where they have not had a fair trial. People having to survive in refugee camps, prisons, labour camps, or re-educational centres, and who have no way to do justice to themselves. See if the energy of our hearts can reach them, too … Stay connected from inside yourself, from the heart and the energy, the heart generates from your place of safety…

Then bring to mind people who cannot live according to their heritage, their body ableness, skin colour, or belief system, including their religion. Who might be suppressed and oppressed because of who they are, how their bodies are, or where they were born? 

Can you allow the energy of your heart to flow to all those people we do not know, though we know they exist, and we know they live in unsafety…?

Are you willing to share your inner peace through your heart to those that need this? 

Let’s stay with this process for a few minutes in silence. Moving back and forth, connecting to yourself, your heart energy and where this energy can flow freely to all that benefit from it, given where and how they are now.

Returning

And then gently notice if you are still connected to your body. Bring your attention back to yourself and notice how your body is doing right now? And how are you feeling? Notice your feet on the ground, and if you’re sitting, your legs resting on your chair, couch, a cushion, the bones of your skeleton supporting your sitting posture. Reconnect to your breath and heart once more and just notice what that experience is like for you, right now.

And then gently bring your attention back into the bigger world again. Look around you, notice how you feel and see how you can be and stay with where you are in your safe place now, breath in the air. Let’s trust that our joint intention, awareness and reaching out with our energies, can touch others in some way that in the end might benefit all….

Thank you for having taken the time to engage with this.

Notes

Article by Giel Luichjes, Trust Trainer. Giel has a special interest in existential psychotherapy and social constructivism in trying to understand complex social phenomena and more down to earth: the dynamics in human relations. He links psychosynthesis to contemporary scientific insights, other psychological models and meditation to the body and the soul. 

Read Giel’s accompanying article, The Space between Time and Depth.