For this meditation on uncovering your deepest longing,
Begin by finding yourself in a relaxed but alert position.
Allow yourself to bring awareness to your breath,
Sensing your breath coming in and out.
Maintaining your awareness of your breath,
Expand your awareness to include both the breath and the entire body,
Including all the body sensations externally and internally.
Now bring to mind an image that your body and mind are a deep well filled with water.
The water represents your desires and longings,
Many of them hidden beneath your conscious awareness.
Imagine also that you have a small stone that you are holding above the well.
This stone represents your conscious awareness,
Your mindfulness.
Now imagine that you drop the stone into the well.
As you do,
As the stone falls,
Allow your desires and longings to come into awareness.
Try not to filter your sense of your desires.
Allow whatever comes into awareness to be there.
You might be aware of a part of you that's grasping for what you desire.
Notice this grasping if it is there.
Notice how your body and mind experience this grasping or clinging to what you desire.
If you can,
See if you can relax the mental and physical grasping,
Still staying with the desires,
But letting go of the need to make them be a certain way or even to have the desires fulfilled.
Now let the stone that is your conscious awareness sink deeper into the well of your desires and longings.
Do you have any deeper desires?
What do you notice that may be more important?
Letting your deeper desires come into awareness.
It might help if you pay attention to the torso of your body.
Letting sensations of the body guide you in reminding you what is more important.
As you let the body relax more,
You may find that it gives you signals about your deeper desires.
You also might find that you have images or words or phrases that come to you.
Now let the stone that is your conscious awareness fall to the deepest part of the well of your desires and longings.
Allow the body to relax as deeply as it will.
Bring attention to the inner core of your body.
Allow to come to into your consciousness a sense of your deepest desires,
Your deepest longing.
You might ask yourself the question,
What is most important?
What am I most longing for?
What is my deepest desire?
Again,
This information might come to you as images or body sensations or words or any combination.
Even if the information that comes to you is unexpected or surprising,
Stay with this sense of deepest longing and allow it to be there without pushing it away or grasping for it.
Sense the quality of your body and mind as you contemplate your deepest desire.
Allow yourself to breathe in and out of the experience however you perceive it.
From this place of deepest longing,
We will now explore envisioning behaviors in various aspects of our lives that serve to move us in the direction of fulfilling our deepest desires.
We will not be generating a list of shoulds,
But rather sensing into what behaviors will truly serve us and then forming intentions that we move in the direction of these behaviors.
We begin in the area of health and wellness,
Sensing your deepest desire,
Your deepest longings.
How does that manifest in the areas of health and wellness?
We might consider the food or nutrition that we take in.
We might consider our physical activity,
Our sleep,
Our meditation.
In living in alignment with our deepest desires,
What behaviors might we hold in the area of health and wellness that support moving towards the fulfillment of our deepest desires?
From this place of our deepest longing,
Now begin to explore what that might look like in the area of interpersonal relationships.
What kind of behaviors,
What kinds of frames of mind should we strive towards or intend towards or inclined towards with family members,
With friends,
With co-workers,
And with people we don't even know,
And perhaps even with the world at large?
From this place of witnessing and observing our deepest longing,
Sense into how that might play out in the world of work.
What kind of work will support the fulfillment of our deepest longing?
How much work?
How might we bring ourselves to the world of work?
From this place of our deepest longing,
Let us begin to explore what that looks like in the world of recreation.
In what ways do we have a sense of recreation?
Where is an appropriate balance for us?
And what inspires?
From this place of our deepest longings,
We might inquire as to how that may manifest in our growth.
We might consider,
In what ways am I drawn to grow?
Where is the balance?
How much time and energy can I devote here?
And noticing if in some way I hold myself back or spend too much time in the area of growth.
And finally,
From this contemplation of my deepest longings,
Become aware of how that may manifest in the spiritual realm.
In what ways do I see engaging spiritually,
If at all,
That serves to move me toward fulfilling my deepest longing?
As we reflect on these areas of health and wellness,
Interpersonal relationships,
Work,
Recreation,
Growth,
And spirituality,
Bring to mind one or two or perhaps a few intentions.
How do I want to be in the world so that I am moving toward fulfilling my deepest desires?
You might imagine yourself behaving or having a frame of mind that manifests these intentions.
Let these intentions sink into your being so that you will be able to remember them as you move through your day-to-day life.
You might even imagine breathing in and breathing out of your intentions.
Being aware that my deepest desires may take a long time to fulfill,
Nevertheless,
I must start to behave in ways that serve me if I ever wish to fulfill them.
And I recall that as I get closer to fulfilling what is most important,
As I move along this journey,
I will experience more and more happiness and freedom with each step.
