Today's meditation is a guided meditation.
It's called the secret garden and it requires a little bit of imagination.
But don't worry if you're one of these people that just can't visualise.
You can always just have a sense of presence of being in the garden.
My name is Lucy Stone and this is Meditation Rocks.
Guided meditations are a really nice escape from the everyday world.
And just for 9 or 10 minutes you can be transported to somewhere that you love or maybe somewhere completely from your imagination that you've never been to before.
Not everyone can visualise pictures so don't worry if you do not have clear imagery when we're doing this meditation together.
But you might feel like you're there,
If that makes sense.
You may have a presence that you're standing in this garden with the things that I'm describing to you all around you without clearly seeing them in your mind's eye.
Also,
Visualisation can take a bit of practice for some people.
So the more that you do it,
The clearer the imagery might become.
And we all have good and bad days when the images are clear or not so clear.
So don't put any pressure on yourself at all.
So you might want to get somewhere comfortable whether you're sitting in a chair or a yoga mat or maybe you're already in bed and you're going to be transported to a very special garden that is just for you.
So get yourself comfortable.
And we try and keep our posture active in meditation.
So even if we're lying down,
We try and not quite fall asleep but we are allowing our body to be supported by the chair or the bed and just bringing our arms down by our side or hands into our lap.
And if it's comfortable to close our eyes,
We do this or we just soften the gaze on the ground or in the ceiling if you're in bed.
And just take a few moments to arrive here for this meditation.
Parking,
Whatever's happened today,
Letting go of to-do lists and inboxes.
Everything can wait for the next nine minutes.
This is your time just to escape and to relax.
So just taking a few moments to allow the volume of life to turn down.
Whether it's sounds and distractions around you,
Perfectly normal.
Whether it's thoughts,
Perfectly natural.
It's about how you respond to these thoughts and these distractions that marks us out as having our meditation experience.
So just begin to allow thoughts to pass on by,
Sounds and distractions to fade.
And a really good technique is just to focus internally on our breath.
The rise and fall of the breath within the body.
You can almost trace the inhale and the exhale like a circle or an oval.
And as you breathe out,
Begin to find some softness within the body,
Releasing any tension you might be feeling.
So I want you to imagine now that we are standing at a gate which leads to the secret garden.
And as you open the gate,
It creaks and the gate closes behind you.
And as you turn and face the garden,
You're in awe of its beauty.
The wonder of the natural world all around you.
And you are standing on a soft carpet of grass.
And you can feel that grass beneath your feet.
And you decide to go and explore your garden.
You can see all around there's a wall and borders filled with flowers and shrubs and bushes.
And as you look a little closer,
You notice all of the tiny details and the colours,
The shapes and the scents that come from these flowers,
Shrubs and bushes.
And as you walk around,
You notice the insects which are living amongst the flowers,
The butterflies,
The bees.
You notice the pattern on the leaves.
And you take some nice deep breaths to enjoy the fragrance that's all around you.
And you feel lucky to be here amongst all of this beauty.
And through the middle of the garden,
There's a path.
So you start to crunch as you walk on the stones and pebbles.
Up the path into the garden deeper.
And you start to feel a coolness in the air as you begin to be under the shade of some of the trees in the garden.
And as you look at the tree trunks,
You see the pattern.
And you run your fingers over the trunk and feel the roughness and texture of the bark.
And as you look up,
You see the tall and the wondrous beauty of the trees,
The branches,
The leaves.
You see the birds sitting on the branches.
You hear the birds singing and chirping to one another.
You hear all different birds song.
And you feel lucky to be here.
As you look up through the trees,
You see the sky and the sunlight is glistening through the branches.
And you feel lucky to be here in this garden.
You look over to one side and see a bench.
You decide to go and have a sit for a little while on this bench.
As you look around all of this wonderful detail and beauty in the garden,
Just take a moment to absorb everything you see in your garden.
Take some nice deep breaths so that you fully absorb all of the fragrances,
The fresh air,
And fully absorb this garden today.
In the distance you hear a trickling of water and you realise there's a little stream which bubbles through one corner of your garden.
And the sound of the rushing water is soothing and calming you.
You can see the water glistening like glitter over a few little stones and pebbles in the stream.
Just take a few more moments here and allow your body to be absorbed by the peace and stillness and beauty of your secret garden.
Take some nice deep breaths in and out.
And now it's time to leave our garden,
But you know you can return to it at any time.
It's completely in your imagination and in your heart.
And slowly allow the breath to return to a comfortable rhythm and flow for you.
Allow the image and presence of the garden to fade and bring your hands together if that's comfortable and just give the hands a little bit of a rub to create some heat.
And then just hovering the hands over the eyes.
Feel the warmth and darkness and blink your eyes open when you're ready,
Bringing your hands down to your lap.
And I hope you enjoyed that little moment of escapism into the secret garden today.
Guided meditations aren't for everyone.
Sometimes it takes a while to get used to enjoying them and some people absolutely love them because they're completely transported to a different world.
So I hope you had an enjoyable experience today and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and I'll speak to you again very soon.
Take care.
