Who Is On Your Boat?

Exploring themes of loss and gratitude and clearing out regret, this meditation takes you to a hilltop. Feeling safe and nurtured by the elements a ship comes into view with three people aboard.
Come and experience this meditation. Who will your people be? What needs to be said that you have not yet had a chance to say?

Transcript

Okay,

Welcome everyone.

And it's lovely to have a good few numbers on the meditation.

It's lovely to see everyone.

So let us just walk into our own meditation.

Let's just take a wee moment and notice your breath.

We can turn your eyes down or close your eyes completely.

And as we do that,

It's like recognize that you are taking responsibility for yourself and your own journey in this meditation that wants to,

That you are connected with everyone else who's sitting with you.

And we can just sense that connection with each other,

With our breath.

Just sense that breathing in and breathing out.

And perhaps as we breathe out,

Someone else is breathing in.

And as we breathe in,

Someone else is breathing out.

We are just joined together in this merry dance of breath,

This merry dance of life.

And let's use this time,

Let's use this time together for a little bit of nurture.

Let's allow ourselves to support ourselves,

To nurture ourselves at this moment.

But let's also use our imagination to be nurtured by the elements.

Let's imagine that we are in nature,

That we are standing at the foot of a small hill.

Our health is good,

The path is safe.

And we can easily walk up this small hill.

And as we do so,

We notice a number of things.

We notice a sense of feeling lighter as we go upwards.

We notice a sense of motion becoming lotion for our joints that maybe are a bit achy,

For our energy that is maybe a little sluggish.

In this magical journey up this hill,

We notice that things are flowing more smoothly,

More easily.

And we can feel that perhaps any burdens that we've carried for this day,

For this week,

Even maybe for years or forever,

Entire lives,

Things that we can't even remember having picked up to put on our shoulders.

This is a magical hill that we're traveling up and these burdens can lessen or even go so far as releasing completely for this moment.

And as we come up to this hill,

We stand at the top of this hill.

We feel safe.

There's not any big drops or anything unknown.

We can stand on the top of this hill and we can feel the wind on our faces.

It's a fresh breeze that allows our minds to clear.

It's as if the wind is clearing out any old ways of thinking that are ready to leave.

And maybe even as I'm saying that,

Some of the old ways of thinking are feeling particularly sticky.

They don't feel like they're feeling well.

Maybe you've been sitting with a nagging voice that you should have an attitude of resentment or unfairness.

Maybe that's been your bed-follow for a while.

And maybe after this meditation,

You can come right back and ask yourself just in this moment,

Would you like a fresh breeze to blow it away,

Just to give you the experience of a fresh day,

A new born,

A different way of seeing something?

Sometimes we get so trapped in old ways,

Our patterns,

This is how I always feel.

I feel this way because whatever stories we're telling ourselves,

We get so entrenched in this that we can't even imagine being any different.

So I'm making this invitation to you now as you stand on this hill.

You can just let the breeze refresh you,

Touch your face,

Allow you to feel enlivened.

Or you could take a deep,

Deep breath and allow that fresh breeze to penetrate the waves of your thinking and just invite anything that would like to detach or loosen,

Maybe even to be blown away altogether,

To do so.

Just notice,

Be curious about what feels sticky.

What would I do if I didn't have that sense of self-pity that sits there?

What would I do if I wasn't able to feed that anger I felt?

Or maybe as that fresh wind comes in,

A fire is stoked,

It burns so brightly.

You allow yourself to feel that emotion,

Perhaps as you've never felt it before.

You allow yourself to feel it and then it burns out and it's gone.

Just allow yourself to feel refreshed to whatever level feels right for you in this moment.

And then look out for your health with this sense of being revived,

Refreshed.

You look out and you're looking out across a beach,

Rocky outcrops and the sea,

Stretching out as far as the eye can see.

Let's imagine that a boat comes onto the horizon.

You're looking out for the sea.

When it comes closer and closer,

It's not a threatening boat,

It's not a.

.

.

There's no need to fear what it contains or for how close it might come.

It's a safe boat and the boat is safe.

And as it comes closer,

You will see that on board there is someone that you would like to offer an apology to.

Maybe there's been a sharpness of tongue or maybe there's been an action you regret or maybe an expression of love that you never made,

A cuddle that you missed.

And as this boat gets closer,

You see this person clearly in the boat,

Rests gently.

And this person,

As they're looking at you holds no judgement,

Holds no resentment.

They're curious as to who it is on the shore.

They're as curious to see you as you are to see them.

And you can,

As you're standing there on the hill,

You can place one hand on your stomach and one hand on your heart and you can offer up your heartfelt apology or sadness for whatever was done,

Whatever was missed.

And this person standing on the boat can receive it.

And they receive it with an apology,

Both of them.

And they thank you.

And as you do this,

It's almost as if the wind feels more fresh,

The tongue feels more gentle and more warm.

You notice that the sea is somehow sparkling even more than it was before and your shoulders feel lighter.

And this person goes back down to the boat and you notice another person coming in.

And part of you might be worried as to what this person is going to expect of you.

There's nothing to fear.

This is someone in your life who you have loved.

And this is someone who you wish to thank.

And maybe you've thanked them in real life.

Maybe you've thanked them a million times or maybe you've not thanked them at all.

But here you are right now standing on this hill,

Feeling steady,

Feeling safe,

Feeling comforted and supported by all these elements.

And you have a sense of joy bubble inside you as you have this chance to express your thanks.

And you can breathe in.

And as you breathe out your thanks,

Your gratitude is carried on the wind to this person.

And they can receive it.

And now they go down and the deck of the boat is empty.

This person comes up.

And it's unclear at first who this person is.

But you have a sense that you know this person.

You have a sense that you have something very important to tell this person.

And perhaps what you have to tell them is that it's going to be okay the more that you love them.

There's some message that you need to give to this person.

And for some of you this person may be a younger part of you.

And for some of you this person may be someone in your life who has passed.

And maybe for some of you it seems to flicker from one to the other.

Just allow all of that.

If it's flickering there's maybe two messages.

If it's clear then just take a moment and breathe into your heart.

And allow whatever is in your heart to come up,

Rise up,

You breathe in.

And on the exhale you can send this to the third person in the boat.

And this person receives that with an open heart and goes down below deck.

And there's part of you that feels quite tired now.

There's part of you that feels relief.

There's part of you that feels gratitude.

But there's a large sense of what needed to be said has been said.

And some sense of burden has lifted from your shoulders.

And you stand on this hill and watch this boat turn around and glide away back onto the horizon until it's too far away to see.

And you can sense yourself gathering yourself in knowing that you are soon going to be leaving this hill.

But for a few moments more you enjoy the breadth of this land,

The seascape that is before you.

You enjoy the lengthening of your lens as it reaches far out to the horizon.

You enjoy the twinkle in the sea.

Perhaps there's birds.

You can enjoy all of this.

Enjoy the wind on your face.

The sun on your cheek.

And now it's time to turn away from that horizon and to walk back down there easily,

Gracefully,

Still keeping this sense of lightness,

This sense of something good,

Something important having been accomplished,

A weight having been lifted from your shoulders.

And you come back down the hill.

It's easy.

It's not easy.

You come back down the hill,

Back down the path.

And as you do so,

You can just take two or three breaths.

Allow yourself to come to the bottom of the path and allow the breaths to help you come back into your room,

To become aware of yourself sitting in your space,

Your feet on the ground,

How you're sitting on your couch,

Your chair,

Aware of your hands in your lap.

Whenever you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

Well done.

Reviews

I remember this meditation from the group, loved this visualisation. Thank you 🙏