Settle yourself in and let's begin.
You may close your eyes when you're ready.
You may sit down or lie down,
Stand or walk.
Wherever you find yourself is just right and enough to meet this moment.
Draw into the peace of stillness and quiet.
Open your ears and your other senses,
The experiences around you.
You can't turn off your mind or your brain and you wouldn't want to.
But you can reorient your attention to the immediate and the sensory instead of the cognitive and the distant.
Find your body,
Find something within you that you are grateful for.
Your heart's ability to pump blood,
Your stomach's ability to churn food and give you nutrition,
Your mind's ability to create the strength of your muscles.
Start with a moment of appreciation for what you have and go deeper.
Slow down your breath fractionally more.
Imagine reducing the pressure and speed of your heart.
Give yourself room to exert less and settle into a deeper quiet that is not silent and a deeper stillness that is not completely still but always full of vibration.
You can't stop or vacate your thoughts and feelings.
You can let them drift and unspool and not dwell in any one place for too long.
And when you do,
When you fixate,
Just return to my voice,
Your breath,
The sensations in your body,
An awareness of your context and environment,
Maybe even the smell of your soap.
If or even when this guided visualization causes you anxiety,
Just return to your breath knowing that you are safe.
Imagine your toes at the edge of a water line,
The ocean,
A river,
A lake.
Is it cool or warm?
Are your feet still dry?
Notice the texture of the ground in your mind's eye.
Enjoy the experience.
Walking in or just waiting for the tide,
Let the water come up to your ankles,
Soft and gentle.
Water is a powerful source and force for good and learning and also contains inherent dangers,
As is true of almost the entire natural world,
But perhaps never more so than with water,
Its paradoxical nature.
Breathe.
Notice your body.
Experience in your imagination the water getting up to your knees.
What is its temperature,
Its flow?
You could even imagine what's in the water.
Fish,
Shells,
If it's freshwater,
Frogs,
Otters.
How do you feel?
Delight,
Anxiety,
They're all appropriate feelings.
And if you begin to get agitated in your mind,
Just come back to your physical space.
Breathing,
Settling into the quiet and the stillness of your form.
Venture deeper up to your waist.
What's it like?
Fun,
Exciting,
Dangerous,
Curious?
You don't even have to put words to it.
You could just notice the sensations that arise in you if you imagine yourself at waist height in water.
Notice your body,
Both in your mind's eye in the water and in this immediate moment.
Present in stillness,
Deeply breathing,
Functioning with heart rate and metabolism and strength.
Confidently venture a little deeper into the water,
Up to your middle chest,
Below your shoulders.
It's a lot of water and a little bit uncertain,
Hard to see to the bottom.
What feelings come up if you imagine being that immersed?
Is there a lightness,
An uneasiness,
A joy?
Each and every feeling is appropriate in your imagination.
And any fear will pass just as water washes over us.
Breathing,
Steadying your steps,
Resolving your mind to encounter fear safely.
Entering the water all the way to your shoulders.
It's a lot.
There is some inherent danger and risk.
But without risk,
We'd never create anything.
We'd never be or become anything.
Risk is important.
It's a challenge.
It's okay.
You're in the water with a faithful understanding that you are safe and a generous awareness of the experience and all that it brings.
If this imagining starts to cause you unquiet,
Distress,
Return to your body,
Breathe slowly,
Come back to my voice.
You are ultimately safe and excited.
That's good.
Take one more step.
So the water floats around your lower lip,
Almost endangering you.
But know that the danger isn't real or imminent.
It's a fear of your own making.
You are safe.
You're in control.
And the world is embracing you in this water.
When you get to the limits of your fear,
The water begins to descend.
And with each deeper breath,
You can envision the water descending,
Drawing away from you.
Maybe as you breathe and the water descends,
You will miss it,
That encounter with risk.
Breathing in and out,
Letting the water descend as though out of a bathtub,
Slowly and certainly.
And the level of your fear descends.
So breathe in and out,
Letting the water go down.
Maybe you miss it a little.
Breathe in and out.
And where the fear was,
Only you will remain.
Breathing in and out as the water descends.
And with the next five deep inhales and slow exhales,
Let the water complete its cleaning of you and its disappearance.
