Welcome to Meditations with Desi and I am Desi and this week's episode is designed for those of you who need a soft place to land and have some things that you need to get off of your heart.
And as always when people give me ideas for meditations I love to thank them because you help me.
So shout out to you Alex for this wonderful idea for this meditation and I hope that it's helpful for all of you listening.
Sometimes the struggle is finding the words.
Other times the struggle is having so many words and no one to give them to or to talk them to so they just sit in your chest and just sit in your throat and you become tight and you become closed off and everything starts to overwhelm you.
Whether it's good news,
Bad news,
Or news you don't really know how you feel about and you just want or you want to share how your day has been,
Your week has been,
Your month has been,
Your new year has been,
This meditation is for you.
I want you to use it as an opportunity to connect with me and say what you have been yearning to share from your heart.
In this moment I want you to think about your best friend,
Your big sister,
Whoever it is that gives you comfort.
I'm not today.
Mama Desi,
Auntie Desi,
Whatever it is that you need in this moment just know that I'm here and I'm here to listen to you and to give you space to say whatever is on your heart.
But before you start sharing I just want us to take a second to get grounded in our bodies,
To get relaxed so that when you share you have room to speak from a place of groundedness and not a place of anxiety and rushing to get your thoughts in because you and I we have time right now to talk about whatever it is that you need to talk about.
But before we begin you know I always like to pray with my friends before we meditate and you are my friend today,
My sister,
My brother,
My sibling,
Whatever you need you are that today.
So let's pray together wherever you are close your eyes get comfortable.
Divine Creator I thank you for this moment and I pray that everybody who listens to this meditation has the space to open up to express themselves and to unburden themselves.
It can be so lonely in the world when you feel like you have no one to talk to,
When you feel like you're alone and when you feel like your experiences are only happening to you.
I pray that this meditation offers an opportunity to the listener to know that there are other people in the world struggling,
Excited to share their things or whatever the case may be but they don't always have the community or the person right by them to share with.
So may that common community bring them comfort and bring them peace as they navigate whatever storms,
Whatever waters,
Whatever rainbows,
Whatever sunshine,
Whatever they are navigating and fielding through in this moment.
I pray that this is an opportunity for you to help them to unburden.
Amen and Ashe.
So I know we usually do box breathing which is my favorite breathing technique because it just gets me feeling really good really quickly but today I want to try something new and it's called equal breathing and this just means that our inhale and our exhale are going to be the same number all around and we're just going to let our breath continuously flow throughout this meditation but whatever number you pick stick to it pick something that feels good.
So whether you choose to breathe in for three seconds or six seconds or anywhere in between just keep the same number throughout this meditation.
My number will be three because I love that number and it also feels really close to my natural breath pace and three is also a number that represents a cycle life birth you know death all of these things um the trinity all the trinity I'm sure you can think of a lot of threes in this moment but that's my number and I want you to pick yours you can also pick three but whatever it is let us begin.
So we're going to do five cycles of equal breathing and I'm going to count for people choosing to do whether seven or six seconds but if you end up doing shorter or longer you end up ahead or behind me it's okay you can pause or just ride with us for a moment if um we're a little bit behind you you know if you complete your five add another one this is your breath so let's breathe in for one two three breathe out for one two three breathe in for one two three breathe out for one two three breathe in for one two three if you're still breathing if you're still somewhere in the middle of your continuous breathing it's okay just finish up and now I want you to allow your breath to return to normal whatever pace feels good as long as you remember to keep breathing into your belly we don't have any room for you to be having shallow breaths this is your moment it's about you giving you space to get the things off your heart that you need to and when we get excited or frustrated we have the tendency to breathe into our chest so I just want you to try to remember to breathe into your belly as we work through this meditation as your breath returns to normal I want you to begin to close your eyes and we're going to head into visualization I want you to start picturing yourself a bit of a distance from a house I have to think about 20 or so steps to get to this house let the image fill in for you I want you to notice what the house looks like in the distance I want you to notice the trees that are surrounding you I want you to notice the birds even the bugs that are flying by whatever imagery you can hold on to in this moment allow it to come into your mind I want you to also remember those feelings of comfortableness moments in your life if you can recall any where you just felt comfortable if you can recall any where you just felt comfortable you felt like you can say what you needed to say without being judged you can say what you needed to say without being unsafe you felt like you can say what you needed to say without people abandoning you and if you've never experienced these things in this moment we're going to try and conjure that feeling and imagine it what it would be like to have a person that you could share anything with that you could talk about all of the things that trouble your heart excite your mind and set your soul on fire as you walk and make your way towards this house I want you to feel that feeling or imagine feeling that feeling whichever applies for you I want you to picture what the path looks like leading up to the house is it concrete pavement is it a beaten dirt path is it cobblestone whatever feels comfortable I want you to picture yourself walking down that road or rolling down that road if you're in a wheelchair whatever way you use to move around I want you to picture yourself moving closer towards this house and as you move your weight closer to the house you notice all of these beautiful yellow flowers these flowers lie the path leading to the house they remind you of a flower that a friend gave you once to tell you that your day was going to be okay that they were there for you these flowers are leading you to a safe space I've often heard that the best way to love a wildflower is to leave it there for the next person to witness but these are wildflowers in your mind and I encourage you to pick one if you choose before you make your way inside the home but if you do not pick a flower I want you to make your way to the door and I want you to just grab the door handle imagine the door how it looks in detail the color of the door the material it's made of the color of the door handle and once that imagery has pulled into your mind I want you to turn the door handle and enter into this room that instantly reminds you of a home you've always dreamed of a space you've always dreamed of this place is cozy in every sense of the word the temperature is perfect it smells like your favorite scent your favorite scent all of the background sound is just at the right perfect pitch it's not overwhelming as you enter the door you get an overwhelming sense of relief it's like that feeling that you get when you come home after a long day and you are just so excited to be away from the monotony from the chaos of the world it's like that feeling when you're in the middle of the night you're a little warm and you stick your foot out of the blanket and suddenly coolness fills up your body and you can go back to sleep you are overwhelmed with relief as if you just emptied your bladder after holding it all day long and as you enter you see a familiar face you hear a familiar voice and that face is the face of me you see me there sitting waiting for you to come and join me sit down I say I have been waiting on you all morning all day all night I've been waiting for you all day all night I've been waiting on you a long time because I know you've been through so much you've done so much and now you have so much to say and today I have been yearning to provide you space to say what do you have to say so let's get right into it my first question is how are you doing how are you feeling right now so what's been on have you eaten today have you drank water and this is not a judgment statement not a judgment question I just want to know how you're doing yeah and how have you been sleeping lately do you find yourself sleeping through the night or do you wake up have you had any fun dreams bad dreams and how long has it been since you've hung out with another person has it been a while since you have had a chance to socialize or were you just with your friends the other day and you need a moment to yourself right now with me to talk about something whatever it is I want you to say whatever you need to say right now and I'm gonna stop talking and just give you space to speak and while you're speaking I just want to remind you to make sure that you're breathing into your belly we get so excited anxious or whatever the word is you can fill in and we forget to breathe deep and we forget to give ourselves oxygen so as you vent as you share just remember to breathe into your belly what's going on yeah hmm okay now before we continue I guess my next question is all of that that's been going on how is that making you feel about yourself or about your life or your current circumstances like forget how you know your actions or your perceived actions have made other people feel or what circumstances that have landed you in how do you feel about this hmm yeah I have to say after hearing all of that I think you deserve some really deep breaths you deserve to take a moment to take a moment so how about we box breathe together so let's breathe in for four seconds and then we're gonna hold our breath for four seconds and then we'll breathe out for four seconds and then we'll wait four seconds before we breathe in again and that'll be a cycle so let's breathe in for one two three four hold your breath for one two three four now breathe out for one two three four now let's wait four seconds one two three four now I want you to start paying attention to your body again I want you to scan your entire body and let's just start from our feet let's wiggle our toes tighten our feet clench our feet and then let's release them relax our feet and let's go up to our calf muscle let's squeeze our calf muscle tighten it tighten it tighten it tighten it tighten it now release it now go to your butt muscle squeeze those cheeks squeeze those cheeks squeeze those cheeks now release them and if you can squeeze your entire upper body for five seconds let's just make everything real tight up there one two three four five and release I want you to return your breath to normal let all of that tension leave your body as we breathe out and know that you can come here and talk to me anytime about anything I'm always here for you I'm always available if you just need to laugh to cry you know you have your friend Desi I want you to return your breath to normal and open your eyes whenever you're ready wiggle your toes wiggle your feet and come back into the room and I hope this meditation has been helpful for you I hope that this meditation has given you process to process in space to share things that you haven't had anyone else to share them with I hope that you have a wonderful day this has been meditations with Desi I'm Desi Hall and I hope you got what you needed
