A Full Moon Meditation - Embracing Change
Full and New moons are great times to pause and take stock of your inner world. Each full moon has its own significance. This Full Moon in Aries holds the capacity for a big change in your internal and external world both of which are intricately interlinked. Surrender to the auspicious transformative energy of the time. Get steered in a direction that brings magical gifts in the form of awakenings, realizations, and manifestations. Try this ritual to harness the Full Moon energies. You will need your journal, pen, and a meditation mat.
Transcript
Om Shri Gurubhyo Namaha,
Om Som Somayai Namaha Welcome to this full moon ritual on embracing change.
Full moons are great times to take stock of your inner world.
Each full moon has its own significance.
This one carries with it creative bursts of energy for you to harness.
It holds the capacity for big change in your internal and external world,
Both of which are intricately interlinked.
If you have already been noticing signs of change,
It is time to examine them and embrace them.
Surrender to the auspicious transformative energy of the time.
Time to touch your intuition,
Unearth your latent true potential,
To get steered in a direction that brings magical gifts in the form of awakenings,
Realizations,
And manifestations.
This time can urge you to take risks.
This would mean something as simple as quietening your ego and following your heart.
It can push you to change course completely too.
Just be aware,
Trust the process,
Go with the flow.
Try this ritual to harness the energies of this full moon.
For this ritual,
You need your journal,
A pen,
And your meditation mat.
Be in a quiet room,
Away from all distractions.
We begin now.
Sit down in a comfortable meditative posture.
Close your eyes and become aware of your body in touch with Mother Earth.
Feel this connection deeply.
Feel supported and held by Mother Earth.
Now visualize a full moon,
A luminous full moon,
In your eyebrow center.
Gently focus on this image of the full moon and breathe in and out effortlessly.
Let this focus not be too harsh.
Simply stay here with a soft focus.
With every breath,
Feel the healing magical energies of the full moon flowing into you and filling you up.
These lunar energies are going to guide you along in your practice,
In your ritual today.
Breathing in and breathing out as you allow the energies of this full moon to enter you and fill you up.
Inhaling and exhaling.
Inhaling and exhaling.
Inhaling and exhaling.
Soaking in these lunar energies.
Pause now and begin to reflect on your life in the last one or two months.
Your life in the recent past.
Bring to mind an incident or situation that made you feel inspired,
That filled you with joy.
If that is not the case,
Is there something that has taken up a lot of your bandwidth?
Was there something challenging that has been taking up your mind's space?
Reflect on either of these and relive them momentarily.
Now,
Gently open your eyes,
Reach out for your journal and pen.
Open a fresh page in your journal.
Put pen to paper and write down what you just reflected on.
Either the incident or situation that made you feel inspired and motivated,
Filled your heart and had an outcome of deep joy or possibly fulfillment or exhilaration or enjoyment.
Or write about the situation or the challenge that took up a lot of your bandwidth.
Write for about two to three minutes.
You could pause the recording here and restart it once you have finished writing.
Read what you have written and then close your journal and keep it aside.
We now move into some breath work towards connecting with your inner world.
Sitting in a comfortable meditative posture with your spine erect.
Gently take your awareness towards your lower belly.
Take your awareness from the surface a little deeper inside into the deep lower abdominal space.
What do you notice when you arrive here?
This is your authentic core.
This is the region of your second chakra,
The sacral or the swadhisthana chakra.
Notice whatever comes up.
Be a witness to whatever emerges from this point on.
With your awareness in this deep abdominal space,
Begin to visualize that you are breathing in and out of this space.
As you inhale,
Visualize your breath going into the deep abdominal space.
As you exhale,
Visualize the breath coming out of this abdominal space.
Continue to inhale and exhale with an awareness here.
Count your breaths from 14 back to 1 as you breathe in and breathe out with your focus here.
Exhale 12,
Inhale 11,
Exhale 11.
Continue the count on your own till you reach 1.
Ensuring that your awareness remains in this deep abdominal space.
Let these be the last three breaths with your awareness in this space.
It doesn't matter where your count is.
Treat these as the last three counts.
Inhale and exhale,
Inhale and exhale,
Inhale and exhale.
Let the breathing continue naturally.
As your awareness remains here,
And you are a witness to any emotions,
Sensations or feelings that may have emerged as a result of your focus here.
So watch,
Make a note without being judgmental about it.
See if you are able to label your emotions.
See if you are able to intensely feel the sensations.
Or if there aren't any feelings or sensations,
That is fine too.
Are there any sensations that do not feel right for you?
Anything that you feel the need to release,
Let go of.
You can begin that process right now.
You can visualize these sensations,
Feelings or emotions that do not serve you well in this moment.
Leaving you through the out-breath.
With every exhale,
Start to release them.
Start to let them go.
It is a process,
It is a journey which you have started right now.
Release with your exhale.
Your awareness is in the lower abdominal region.
From the lower abdominal region,
Make a journey towards your heart center.
This is your heart chakra,
Your anahata chakra.
So take your awareness a little inside the heart space.
Closer to the spine.
How do you feel when you arrive here in this space?
This is the seat of unconditional love and gratitude and kindness and giving and receiving.
How do you feel the moment your awareness settles here?
Be a witness.
Begin to inhale and exhale out of this heart space.
As you inhale,
Visualize your breath going into the heart space,
Filling it up,
Expanding it.
And as you exhale,
Feel the breath leaving this heart space.
Getting familiar with how the breath moves in and out of your heart space.
You will now begin to notice the duration of your in-breath and your out-breath that is going into and coming out of the heart space.
You may attach a mental count to your inhale and to your exhale.
As you inhale,
You may silently count 1,
2,
3 or how much ever that is for you.
And as you exhale,
Do the same thing.
Becoming aware of what the count of your inhale and what the count of your exhale is.
Try to bring both the counts to a comfortable equal count.
You should not be straining your breath.
You could either increase the length of your inhale or that of your exhale.
Whatever works for you as long as your breath,
Your in-breath and your out-breath are equal.
You are breathing into and out of your heart space with an equal duration of your inhale and your exhale.
This is called a harmony breath.
Continue to observe your breath journeying into and out of your heart space.
Also become aware of the little pauses after each inhale and after each exhale.
These pauses may last only a fraction of a second.
It doesn't matter.
You only become aware of how once you finish inhaling at the end of that inhale,
There is a little pause before you start breathing out.
And at the end of your exhale,
Once you've emptied your lungs,
There is a little pause before you start breathing in.
Become aware of these pauses without trying to lengthen or shorten them.
You maintain an awareness of these pauses.
Maintain an awareness of these pauses while maintaining the equal duration of your inhale and your exhale.
Continue this for the next sometime for the next 14 breaths.
Count backwards from 14 as you notice your in-breath,
Your out-breath and the pauses between the breath.
Inhale,
14,
Pause.
Exhale,
14,
Pause.
Inhale,
13,
Pause.
Exhale,
13,
Pause.
And continue the count on your own till you reach 1.
Take these as the last 3 breaths.
Wherever your count is,
It doesn't matter.
These are your last 3 breaths.
Visualizing the breath entering and leaving your heart space.
Watching the in,
The out and the pauses between the breaths.
Now allow the breathing to continue naturally.
As you again become a witness to what might unfold right now after this breathing practice.
What do you notice?
What do you sense?
What do you feel?
What emotions are you able to identify and label?
Be an observer to all of this.
Having made a note of that,
Now bring to mind what you wrote down in your journal a little earlier.
The incident or the situation that inspired or motivated you or something that challenged you.
Bring that back to mind and relive the situation or incident as if it were happening right now.
As if it were happening right now.
So remember where it happened,
When it happened,
Who were the people around when it happened.
So recollect,
Relive,
Stay with it.
And know that while you are reliving it,
You are also observing yourself.
You are being a witness or a drashta.
And become intensely aware of how you feel about this in this moment.
Hold space for whatever surfaces.
Whether they are emotions or thoughts or memories or feelings or sensations.
Whatever surfaces is fine.
They are valid.
They are true for you.
You only need to hold space for them,
Be there for them.
The incident or situation that you have written about,
That you have brought to mind now is important.
It carries seeds of change.
The incident by itself and whatever comes out of it.
Whatever you feel about it,
The thoughts,
Memories associated with it.
All of it,
All of these carry the secrets of change.
All of these could be an inspirational direction for something new.
A life changing big step or even a smaller step that holds potential for bigger growth later.
So wholly welcome whatever is surfacing for you now.
The thoughts,
The memories,
Feelings,
The emotions,
Possibly perspectives.
Maybe even action points at this point.
Welcome them without any judgements.
Letting all of that be now.
And gently shifting our awareness to your eyebrows center.
Bringing back the image of the luminous full moon in your eyebrows center.
And as you gently focus on this image of the healing white luminous moon.
Imagine,
Visualize that you are breathing into and out of this eyebrow center.
And while you do that,
Ask the moon to guide you,
To heal you,
To awaken your intuition.
To awaken your intuition and in time completely surrender to the energies of the full moon.
Nothing matters right now except that you are in the presence of these lunar energies.
Your breath flows naturally without any effort from your side.
And you allow yourself to simply slip into a space of absolute stillness and silence.
You are in this quiet space.
You are watching this quiet space.
You are slowly becoming this quiet space.
Becoming the quietness,
The stillness.
The silence.
Be this silence for some time.
Gently guiding yourself out of the silence.
As you once again become aware of the luminous full moon in your eyebrows center.
Send a note of gratitude to this moon for guiding you through this ritual.
Gently now travel down from your eyebrows center.
As you allow the image of this moon to dissolve.
And you go towards your heart space.
Briefly reside in the heart space.
A sense of gratitude for whatever you experienced so far.
And travel further down into your authentic center.
In the deep abdominal space.
You could place one of your palms on the lower abdomen.
Just holding the lower abdomen.
Nurturing the lower abdomen.
This space.
Very slowly shift your awareness to the rest of the body.
Seated on the earth.
Become aware of your whole body.
From the top of your head.
Till your legs and your feet.
And become aware of the connection of your body to mother earth.
Feeling a sense of gratitude towards mother earth.
For holding you safe and secure throughout this practice.
Making some gentle movements.
And slowly dropping your head.
Allowing your eyes to open.
You now reach out for your journal and pen again.
And you start to write these words.
Put pen to paper and write as I say it.
I am being called upon to.
I am being called upon to.
Continue writing.
This is your prompt.
You write continuously without stopping.
For the next 3 to 5 minutes.
Do not stop writing.
If you feel there is a pause or a block.
Just repeat your prompt again.
Or you could just write.
I don't know what to write.
More importantly.
Do not take the pen off the paper.
Let the words flow.
From your being on to your journal.
I am being called upon to.
Write without inhibition.
Write from your heart.
Language doesn't matter.
Spellings don't matter.
Write honestly.
Continuously.
You could pause this guidance here.
And restart it.
Once you finish writing.
Read what you have written.
Slowly,
Mindfully.
Very mindfully.
Taking in.
Absorbing each and every word.
And as you read it.
Continue to be a witness to what may be surfacing within you.
If any insights have surfaced.
Hold space for them.
And dwell on them.
Now.
And over the next few days.
To see what you can cull out of them.
If any action points have surfaced.
Underline them.
And decide to start work on them.
From tomorrow.
If nothing has surfaced for you.
Then please repeat this ritual.
Tomorrow.
And if needed.
The day after.
Also be patient.
It is possible.
That you may just be at the first step.
Of uncovering something new.
You will have more clarity.
By the next full moon.
Be mindful.
Of all that comes your way.
From now on.
And continue your moon rituals.
Every new and full moon.
Gratitude.
For being a part of this practice with me.
Namaste.
Om Shri Gurubhyo Namaha.
