Hi,
My name is Michelle Joy and this guided meditation has been designed as a light movement meditation with a strong focus of stepping out of depression.
However,
In saying this,
If movement is not where you're at today,
You can simply visualize the steps.
It'll still be very beneficial for your mental and emotional wellbeing.
All too often we get stuck in a certain state of mind or a certain mindset or an emotion.
This guidance is to assist you to shift out of your old mindsets and unwanted emotions into a better space.
The aim isn't to just step straight into pure bliss and joy and happiness unless that's where you're at today.
The aim is more for you to step into or be open to a better state of being,
Better than what you are in your current emotional state.
Naturally,
The more that you practice these suggestions,
The easier it will be and the more effective it will be.
And for those feelings of pure happiness and bliss and joy to be easier to work towards and also easier to achieve.
And so I hope you enjoy.
If you choose to do this meditation as a movement practice,
Please stand in a comfortable stance,
Making sure that you have about a meter of open area around you.
If you prefer to be seated or laying down,
This is completely fine.
Just make yourself comfortable.
And to avoid any confusion,
I will be guiding this meditation as if you were all standing.
So just visualize what I'm saying.
If you are laying down or sitting or anytime,
If you feel that it's uncomfortable to stand and you want to move it into a seated or laying position,
That's completely fine.
It's your purpose.
So closing your eyes,
Knowing that you can open your eyes at any time,
Especially if your balance isn't so good today.
To start with,
I would like you to tune into the present moment and really delve into how you truly are feeling in this current moment.
Don't worry about the past later on,
Just how are you feeling in this moment?
Be honest with yourself.
We're not going to stay here for too long,
But I want you to identify with those feelings and those unwanted emotions.
Notice how your posture is,
How are you holding yourself,
How your physical body feels.
What's your breath doing?
Is it shallow?
Is it deep?
Can you feel your heartbeat?
Is your mind racing or is it calm?
So just tuning into all the different sensations,
Feelings,
Thoughts.
And I'm just going to leave you for a moment just to really tap into them.
Really tap into those less desired feelings and what they might look like and feel like for you.
This might come easily to you or it might be slightly challenging and that's completely fine.
Each day is different.
Just give it a go.
It gets easier with time.
Also while you're tuning into yourself,
Please don't overanalyse or criticize yourself or make any harsh judgments on yourself.
This is just an exercise as a way of checking in with yourself.
You're just observing where you are in this present moment.
All right,
Guys.
Now I want you to bring your awareness back to my voice and shift your attention to the positioning of your body.
Moving your feet so that they're hip distance apart and parallel with your knees slightly bent,
Feel your pelvis,
Your hips under your rib cage and your tailbone at the end of your spine lengthening down towards the ground.
You can almost imagine a faint line from the end of your tailbone and that lines just drawing down continuing from your spine down towards the ground and the end of that line just lands evenly between your feet,
So the middle of your feet and in between both feet the left and right.
As your tailbone continues to melt down towards the ground the rest of your spine has the sensation of feeling that it's growing up towards the base of your skull and your head.
You can start to feel your head lifting or floating up towards the sky,
So getting that sense of elongating your spine both grounding and also lifting up towards the sky.
Creating some space in between the vertebrae,
Feeling your body grow,
Your arms are relaxed by your sides and you feel your shoulders kind of roll up and back.
So they're rolling up and over your rib cage and they slide nicely down the back of your torso behind you,
Opening up your chest.
And you take a nice big deep breath in,
Filling your lungs with air and completely letting go of that exhalation with a sigh.
Just repeating this a couple of times or keeping your new posture.
This posture might feel a little bit foreign to you at present but just see how you go with it and just keep on working with it and we're just aiming to have these sensations,
Aiming to have this new posture,
Easing into it,
Not forcing it,
But you start to feel that opening of the chest.
You can feel your chest bone starting to lift up your sternum,
Lift up towards your nose with every inhalation and it just softens back down on the exhalation.
Your shoulders instead of potentially hanging off the front of your chest,
They're sitting on top of your rib cage and sliding a little bit back and they feel more supported there.
Just stand there and take a few more deep breaths and feel the expansion of the rib cage.
Imagining all those unwanted feelings,
Emotions that you tapped into before and see if you can visualize them as a big cloud or maybe it might look like some mist or some smoke or some type of energy or color but I want you to get a sense of those feelings and if you can put a visualization to it,
Awesome.
So whatever just comes to your mind just go with that and for the ease of this meditation I'm going to label it as a cloud,
A cloud of unwanted feelings,
Almost like a stormy cloud and this cloud is you can feel and see within you and just slightly around you.
Now I want you to look beyond that cloud,
See if you can see little glimpses through the cloud and notice that just a little bit in front of you and to the sides of you,
The sky's just a little bit fresher,
A little bit lighter,
A little bit brighter.
So at present you're almost standing in a storm cloud but yet you can see the better weather just a little bit past you,
Maybe just a glimpse.
And once again if visualization isn't your strong point just have a sense,
Just imagine,
Just go with it,
Just try.
And now I want you to take a small step towards your right,
Just towards that lighter space and then go another small step in the same direction and then another one,
See if you can feel or start to see that lighter space,
That lighter energy or light.
It's getting a little bit more closer to you,
You're getting a little bit more closer to it on the right hand side and if you're able to see if you can take a few more steps in the same direction to your right,
Every step that you take you start to feel that lightness,
That lighter space you can feel starting to creep in to your right hand side of the body.
And maybe you might be able to completely stand in that lighter space and have a small gap or maybe a large gap from you and the unwanted feelings on the left hand side.
Maybe take one more step and see if you can achieve that.
And just pause and take a deep breath,
Let go of the exhalation.
Some days it might take a little bit longer to step into or feel that lighter space on the left hand side.
Some days it will be easier,
Let's take a step back now.
Just focusing in on that lighter space.
And if you feel like that cloud is following you a little bit more,
See if you can just push it away and take another step back from it.
So you're creating a little bit more distance,
It might be millimeters,
It might be inches,
It might feel like meters,
But just slowly stepping back,
Focusing more on that lightness,
That soft glow of this new space around you or the better weather around you.
Take another step back,
If it's safe to do so,
Pause and take a breath.
And now we're going to step to the left,
Repeating the same process as what you've just done.
It's starting to become a little bit easier with every step that you take.
However,
You're still moving slowly,
But you're getting the hang of this.
You're getting the feeling,
You're getting the sensations,
You're opening yourself up to feeling this lighter space.
That's now to the right,
Behind and slowly coming more and more onto the left side of you.
Feel free to take another step if you choose to the left and just off to your right hand side in front of you,
You can see that cloud,
But you're starting to have more and more distance away from that cloud.
So you can still see it,
But it's fading,
You're getting more distance from it.
You can start to feel that lighter space,
That lighter energy.
Notice how you're kind of feeling here.
And then pause,
Take a nice big deep breath in and let go.
And take a step forward,
Still moving slowly,
Continuing the process.
Taking one small step at a time into your light and into the lighter space.
Feel your breath getting lighter.
See if you can take a few extra steps going forward.
Everything that you see in front of you now is just a beautiful open space of light.
You may want to add into this visualization,
But just go with that lighter feeling.
See if you can introduce a positive emotion with it.
Taking one step forward and then pausing for a moment.
And maybe taking three steps to the right.
So it's almost like you've done a 360 around the old you,
The old space.
Or however many steps you feel you need to balance out your circle.
Taking a couple steps forward once again.
And just pausing there,
If you've got the space you can keep on walking.
But if you like you can just pause,
Taking a deep breath.
And just tuning into how you're feeling and where your emotions are at the moment,
Where your mind's at.
Your heartbeat,
What's the rate of it now?
Does it slow down,
Do you feel like you can breathe easier?
Have you been able to quieten your mind a little bit?
You know that the old self is behind you and you don't need to turn around to look at it.
You simply just look forward.
Keep looking forward and opening your mind and know that you are safe.
Might feel a little different to what you're used to and that's completely fine.
It's a great thing actually because we don't want the same old emotions and mindsets and thoughts.
We want the different,
We want the new.
Yes they might be foreign or you might remember feeling this before.
Let's make these the new normal for you.
But just taking it gradual,
Taking it nice and slow.
This is a perfect opportunity for you to think of how you might want to feel now,
How you might want to feel in the future or just having a sense of those bitter feelings to come.
We can expand on that on another guided meditation to help you generate the new feelings of manifestation and abundance and pure joy and all that kind of stuff.
But we'll just take it one step at a time.
Just appreciate where you are at the moment feeling better.
Better than what you did before physically,
Mentally and emotionally.
Enjoy this new and different feeling.
Maybe you want to start to feel the possibilities of what could come for you or just be present.
I'm going to leave you for just a short time just to embrace where you're at in this very moment.
This is whatever you want to do for a moment.
Now it's okay to have your ups and downs and those old feelings and that old cloud might come back again,
Might not but it might and know that that's completely fine,
Know that you've got these tools to help you to step out of the depression or out of the unwanted feelings and emotions know that at any time even if you don't do this as a physical stepping meditation that you can close your eyes and just tap into your breath and visualize yourself stepping out into a better place even if it's just slightly better five percent increase of better if you do that several times throughout the day or the night think of the possibilities just take it moment for moment try not to be hard on yourself and just keep on working with it so every time you kind of catch yourself just close your eyes breathe take these tools visualize yourself stepping away from those unwanted feelings and emotions but more to the point see if you can tap into and focus and draw on those new different good feelings positive feelings and then when you're ready you may open your eyes and take a nice big deep breath completely letting go of the exhalation knowing that things can and will get better with a little bit of conscious effort take care
