A guided meditation teaching two self-inquiry questions: "How are you doing right now?" and "How can I most support myself?" Practice these minute-to-minute or hour-to-hour to build emotional awareness and offer yourself practical compassion throughout the day.
How are you doing right now? So as I ask you this question, take a couple seconds and really ask yourself, how are you doing right now? Just notice, is it just a description? I'm feeling happy, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling bored, I'm feeling inspired. But whatever your description is, give yourself a few more seconds to just drop into the experience and feel a little bit of the nuances and just allow yourself to spend a couple of seconds feeling where you are. And the reason why that's so important in what we're going to be doing next is because it's one of the two central questions that are most important in my life experience to ask ourselves on a daily basis. Now, in our culture, we weren't taught in elementary school and most of our parents didn't teach us that asking yourself, how are you doing? Is a critical question. Because if we're not in touch with how we're doing, we really don't have the raw materials, we don't have the contact point to actually care for our own lives. It is one of the great human tragedies that we haven't been supported in our culture to take a great interest in our inner experience so that we have a chance to get the clues and cues as to what it is that we need to satisfy our lives on a daily basis. So the first question that I'm encouraging all of us to ask is, how are you doing on a minute to minute basis, an hour to hour basis, on a daily basis, whatever your capacity, whatever your curiosity is, to really allow that question to percolate as something that's a part of your spiritual or psychological practice. And when you ask yourself how you're doing and you have that contact point, don't be satisfied with just an intellectual description. Actually take some seconds and savor the experience, recognizing in a certain way that's more of who you are than what you do or what you accomplish, that's really a sense of your own internal reality. Now, why is that important? Because it really is the guiding point to what will satisfy and fulfill and inspire you in your life. Which leads us to the second most important question, which is, given that I know now how I'm doing, or at least I have a beginning idea of how I'm doing, how can I most support myself? How can I actually give guidance to myself or care for myself in a way that will be meaningful and supportive of this day. Now, imagine yourself during your ordinary day, recognizing when you wake up in the morning, I want to take an instant in how I'M doing because I recognize that's going to give me an idea of how I can maximize my day and be most fulfilled and then include the second possibility. No matter how I'm doing, I always want to care for myself and support myself. So I want to ask myself, how can I be most supportive? How can I be most nurturing to myself? Today, these two questions. Questions Are the foundation for the most healthy, emotional, psychological life and the most spiritual, heartfelt and compassionate life, both of which are the foundations for a greater, peaceful world.
