Hi,
And welcome to this mindfulness meditation for inner strength and resilience.
This exercise offers a way to deeply reconnect with your inner strength and cultivate resilience to better weather the storms in your life.
To begin,
Come into a comfortable position,
Preferably seated on the floor or a chair,
Sitting in a way that's both stable and dignified,
With your upper body balanced over your hips,
Your shoulders in a comfortable but alert posture,
Your hands on your lap or on your knees,
And when you're ready,
Allow your eyes to gently close.
Bring your awareness to your breath,
The actual physical sensations of breath,
Feeling each breath as it comes in and goes out.
Allow the breath to be just as it is without trying to change or manipulate it in any way.
Allow your breath to flow easily and naturally with its own rhythm and pace,
Knowing that you're breathing perfectly well right now and there's nothing for you to do.
Now begin sensing the support that you have from the chair or the cushion below,
Paying attention to the actual sensations of contact between your body and the surface beneath you.
Allow the body to be still,
Maintaining a sense of being complete and whole in this very moment.
And as you sit here,
Begin to let an image form in your mind's eye of the most magnificent or beautiful mountain that you know of or that you've seen or that you can imagine.
Allow it to come into greater focus.
Notice how massive this mountain is,
How solid,
Unmoving,
How beautiful.
As you observe this mountain,
Note its qualities.
There may be streams and waterfalls cascading down the slopes,
Perhaps trees,
Or maybe there are meadows and lakes.
With each breath,
As you continue to sit,
You become more like this mountain,
Alive and vital,
Unwavering in your inner stillness,
A centered,
Grounded,
And unmoving presence.
As the mountain sits,
It experiences how night follows day and day follows night.
It remains still as the seasons flow into one another and as the weather changes moment by moment and day by day,
Calmness abiding all of the time.
The mountain remains at all times its essential self.
Clouds may come and go.
Tourists may visit or not.
The mountain's magnificence and beauty are not changed one bit by whether people see it or not.
It simply sits.
At times the mountain is visited by violent storms,
But through it all,
The mountain sits,
Unmoved by the weather,
Unmoved by what happens on its surface.
It remains its essential self through all of the seasons,
Through the changing weather,
And through all of the activity ebbing and flowing on its surface.
As we sit in meditation,
We can learn to experience how it feels to be the mountain.
We can embody the same unwavering stillness and groundedness in the face of everything that changes in our own lives.
And although it's true that we experience storms of varying intensity and violence in the outer world and in our own minds and bodies,
By becoming the mountain in our meditation practice,
We can connect with its strength and stability and adapt them for our own.
We can use this energy to support our own energy and to encounter each moment with mindfulness and clarity.
The weather of our own lives isn't to be ignored or denied.
It's to be encountered,
Experienced,
Felt and honored for what it is.
And in holding it this way,
We come to know a deeper stillness,
Wisdom,
And we're able to cultivate inner strength and resilience.
When difficult situations arise,
It can be helpful to reconnect with the strength inside of you.
You can close your eyes for a few moments and return to this visualization of being the mountain so that you can reconnect with the mindfulness,
Compassion,
Strength,
And wisdom inside of you.
You can remind yourself that you are capable of meeting the situation with strength,
Resilience,
And wisdom.
As we come to the end of this meditation practice,
Begin to bring your awareness back into your body,
Perhaps beginning to wiggle the fingers and toes,
Or rolling your shoulders,
Or giving the spine a nice stretch upwards.
And when you're ready,
You can open your eyes.
Thank you so much for joining me in this practice today.
Take care and have a great day.
