Meditation for Living in a Broken World

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Hi, It's Jill Badonsky. A Muse's Daydream is back with meditations, creative inspiration, and probably, some humor. This is a meditation I published on Substack, a place you can follow my writing and be notified of new recording.

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Here's the transcript:https://jillbadonsky.substack.com/p/guided-meditation-for-broken-time

Music from Epidemic sound.

Written, narrated, and engineered by Jill Badonsky

Transcript

Close your eyes, or lower your gaze, unless you’re driving or chopping vegetables; in that case, just listen with the part of you that knows how to breathe all by itself.

Let your shoulders know they are no longer responsible for holding up the entire broken, divided world. They’ve been trying. They’re tired. Let them drop an eighth of an inch. That’s all. Just an eighth. Tiny counts.

Notice your breath.
No need to improve it.
No need to make it spiritual or elegant.
Just notice: air going in, air going out.

Inhale: “Here.”
Exhale: “Now.”

Let your jaw unclench. Your tongue can rest from composing arguments, explanations, and brilliant comebacks that never get used. Let your face soften like it’s clocking out of its shift as “Public Representative of Someone Holding It Together.”

The world is loud.
People are hurting and arguing and breaking things, sometimes including each other.
And still, in this moment, your nervous system gets to take a recess. You do not have to solve humanity while listening to this. You are temporarily off-duty.

Breathe in gently. Imagine you are inhaling from a tiny straw that reaches all the way into a pocket of peace somewhere inside your rib cage.
Breathe out like you are fogging up a window on a cold day to draw a heart.

If your mind is racing, that’s okay. Minds race. That’s their cardio.
Just say, “Of course you’re busy, mind. Thank you for trying to keep me safe.”
Then guide your attention kindly back to your breath, like walking a very excitable dog back to the sidewalk. No scolding. Just “this way, sweetheart.”

Now, imagine that somewhere inside you lives a small, wise, slightly eccentric Muse who has seen all of history’s chaos and still believes in beauty. This Muse has paint on her jeans, ink on her fingers, and a flashlight made of humor.

Invite her to sit beside you.
You don’t have to see her clearly. maybe she’s just a warmth, a color, a sense of “Oh, there you are.”

Ask her quietly:
“What tiny act of love can I offer myself in this moment?”

Listen.
Maybe it’s:

• unclenching your hands
• taking three deeper breaths
• putting a hand on your heart
• sipping water like it’s a sacred elixir instead of “just water”

Whatever you hear, let it be small and kind. The world is full of big, sharp things right now; your healing can be soft and miniature.

Breathe in: “I am allowed to rest.”
Breathe out: “I am allowed to not know.”

Imagine the news headlines shrinking down to the size of ants and wandering off for a while. Imagine the comment sections turning into compost for a garden you never have to weed.

In their place, see a simple scene:
A patch of sky.
A tree.
A cup, a candle, a cat, a scrap of paper eager for a doodle.
Something ordinary that feels like it might be willing to hold your attention without breaking your heart.

Let your breath move in and out of this scene. With each inhale, gather in the quiet. With each exhale, release what you cannot carry today: the arguments, the dread, the belief that you alone are the hinge on which the planet swings.

You are not the hinge.
You are a human.
That is enough.

Now silently offer this to yourself:
“May I be gentle with my nervous system.
May I find tiny islands of beauty in this divided world.
May I remember that even in the midst of brokenness, creativity and kindness can slip through the cracks.”

Take one more slow breath in… and out… letting your shoulders drop again, just a whisper more.

When you’re ready, wiggle your fingers and toes.
If your eyes were closed, let a little light in.
Look around and notice three things that are not arguing with you. A color. A texture. A quiet object just being itself.

Your Muse is still nearby. So is the noise of the world.
But for these few minutes, you practiced being a soft place in the middle of it all.

That softness is not weakness.
It’s creative resilience.
And you are allowed to return to it, again and again, one small, kind breath at a time. Begin again, anytime. 

Adieu,

jill
2026 programs