Hi.
I wanted to offer a heart awakening practice through using imagination.
Imagination is a extraordinary tool that we have at our fingertips and when we compare imagination with intention and breath we truly can change our biochemistry.
So I hope that this this offers you a shift through using imagination and if it doesn't and or if you're new to imagination I appreciate you giving it a try.
Particularly as adults we sort of let the muscle of imagination atrophy a little bit.
So I appreciate you kind of entering this practice with an open and curious mind and also just whatever resonates with you let that land and drink that in and whatever doesn't just let that go.
Right some stuff will connect us and other things might be a little off and that's all right.
So finding a comfortable seat and if it feels comfortable to you to bring a hand to your heart and a hand to your belly you can do so or just rest your hands in your lap and just begin to feel your body breathing.
You might feel the rise and fall of your chest or the expansion and deflation of your belly.
I'll invite you to soften the shoulder,
Soften the jaw,
Lean back inside your body.
Just become aware of this body that you're inhabiting.
This home of yours.
Feel the skin surrounding you and all that is is just becoming aware of this skin and then seeing if you can imagine just sort of stepping inside of your skin.
Yeah being inside this body.
Breathing and then begin to find wherever you feel your breath most strongly.
Might be the rise and fall of your chest or it might be the back of your throat.
Maybe it's your nostrils.
Wherever that is rest your awareness there like let that be your anchor.
And you can keep your hands up if that's comfortable to you or you can just let them softly drop as you as you have now become aware of this body being breathed.
Let gravity do its work.
Let your sit bones become heavy and on an inhale inhale up and up the crown of the head to kind of extend the spine up because we are settling in the body and we're also awake and alert and aligned in the spine.
Beautiful the in-breath and the out-breath.
Your awareness will flutter.
It'll go to thoughts of the future,
Thoughts of your next meal or tasks at hand or the past.
That's okay that's what minds do.
A nice visual a nice use of the imagination is to imagine it like a butterfly.
It flutters around easily leaving its perch and then just imagine this butterfly coming back to the anchor you chose wherever you're feeling your breath most strongly and the butterfly lands on the breath at that place.
So the breath continues to move just like a leaf moves in the wind but the butterfly stays stable on the leaf.
So your awareness like a butterfly lands on the breath the breath continues to move in and out and you're landed wherever you feel your breath most strongly and you just stay there or return there over and over again.
Beautiful.
If the mind is wander that's okay.
Just invite the butterfly to come back and land on your breath the in-breath and the out-breath and now I'd like you to just begin imagining that this breath is a warm reddish breath.
You just use your imagination and if red or another color comes to mind what we're inviting and using our imagination for is also calling on a feeling of kindness and gentleness in our breath.
So imagining that the breath is reddish and warm kind and you inhale it into the heart.
You just imagine take your breath inhaling it down and into your heart through the ventricles of the heart surrounding the heart.
I kind of often think of like Disney Wind like in the cartoons the wind being at a swirly thing so just imagine your breath swirling into and around your heart.
It might feel good to you to bring a hand to your heart.
Just using this imagination you can begin to feel that the heart is softening opening and if it's not this is just an invitation for it too.
It may not and that's okay.
It is so easy for us to become armored and throughout our life things happen to us or messages from the culture come at us that result in small little blockages or laying small little bricks of a wall around our heart and so wherever you are in your journey of this heart opening let yourself be right where you are and the invitation is to inhale reddish warm loving breath into the heart swirling around the heart and inviting it to soften.
On the exhale I'd like you to begin just on the exhale softening the shoulders softening the chest continuing with the warm reddish inhale and on the exhale softening.
Beautiful we're just simply bringing awareness to this heart that's inside you.
Now I just like you to imagine or begin to imagine the energy of your heart and all that means is that you just sort of notice this heart beating in your chest and as you notice it it just sort of invite it to share its energy.
Is its energy strong?
Is its energy loving?
Is its energy regarded?
Is its energy uncertain?
And you just listen this was listening to whatever the heart is communicating.
And then we begin to inhale again that warm loving breath and we express gratitude for our heart no matter what it has communicated no matter what it has communicated to you we say thank you.
Thank you to my heart for all that it holds and all that it does for me.
The ways in which that it's trying to love me and the ways in which it's trying to love others.
They're just connecting to the heart and expressing gratitude.
Inhale red loving breath warm and nurturing and exhale to soften.
Inhale red loving breath warm and nurturing and exhale to soften.
Beautiful.
And bringing hands palms together in front of your heart and just simply bow bow to your heart in reverence.
May I listen and nurture my heart.
Big breath in and a long slow exhale to let the practice go.
Can gently and slowly blink your eyes open wiggle your toes and stretch if the body needs a stretch anywhere that it might need a little movement.
And then if you have a journal or a pen and paper handy just taking a moment to jot down whatever message you received and I wish you well.
Take good care.
