So let's do a practice,
And in a way it's kind of a purification or an unthreading of that knot,
Of the pattern.
We can start to pull at the threads and that whole pattern can collapse.
So let's do a little practice today around that,
Which is very kind,
It's a self-compassionate practice.
Good,
Good.
Alright,
Let's get ready for our practice.
Sitting comfortably,
If you're in a cushion your legs are nicely crossed,
If you're sitting on a chair,
Two feet firmly on the ground,
Your hands can be on your knees or in your lap,
Your chin you can drop slightly,
And if you like you can close your eyes.
We're going to do a little visualization so it might help if your eyes are closed,
But you don't have to close your eyes.
So we begin by feeling gratitude,
Gratitude for being alive,
For being able to breathe,
For giving yourself the time to be here today.
You can feel grateful for that,
For your good intentions,
Your wonderful thoughts,
And your skillful actions.
Let's breathe in through the nostrils and out through the nose,
Breathing in,
And exhale.
And once again breathing in,
And slowly exhale.
And last one in through the nose and out through the mouth,
Breathing in,
And now slowly release out the mouth.
That's great.
Now sitting on a normal breath,
I'd like you now to imagine that you've been walking through a very dark forest,
Or a jungle rather,
And you've been on a path,
And the path opens up eventually to a clearing and you realize you've arrived at the beach.
And it's a beautiful beach,
The most beautiful beach that you've ever seen.
And you notice a glorious hot air balloon.
And there's a pilot that may be an old friend or a teacher,
And they're smiling at you and they're encouraging you to hop on in.
So you run across the sand with the excitement of a child.
You climb on in the basket and your teacher friend welcomes you,
Embraces you,
And then begins to fire up the hot air balloon.
It's in full glory,
So colorful and so beautiful with whatever pattern you want to paint it with.
But yet as they fire up this balloon,
It just won't lift.
And your friend tries harder and harder,
But the balloon will just not lift.
And you realize the reason why it's not lifting are because of the sandbags that are grounding this balloon.
And as you look down,
You see these sandbags.
And these are things that you need to let go of,
And each sandbag has a name.
It may be guilt,
It may be sadness,
It may be a habit,
It may be a relationship.
It's a heavy burden that's holding you down.
So we decide we're going to release the lighter one first and see how that goes.
Maybe one or two that you can think of right now.
Imagine that you could just drop it down from the basket.
The sandbags make a soft thudding sound as they hit the beach.
And the balloon then slowly starts to lift.
You're getting good at this.
You let go of another sandbag.
What is it this time?
Maybe not the heavy ones,
Just the lighter ones.
You see it fall down to the earth,
You're starting to lift.
You're starting to float.
You're doing great.
Your friend is firing it up now,
And the balloon is really full.
And you can feel the heat from the flame.
And as you get braver and more excited,
You release more.
There are a few left,
And slowly,
One by one,
You know which ones they are.
Let them go now.
Release them.
As you climb higher and higher,
There's a feeling of freedom and beauty as you look down at the ocean,
At the jungle,
At the beach.
And the sky and the ocean meet at the horizon.
You let go of the last one.
There's nothing left now to let go of.
You're looking out at the ocean and the sky.
Imagine the freedom now of the blue sky mind.
A gentle breeze blowing,
Just like your breath.
Just settling on your breath.
And feel the lightness of the floating through the sky,
The blue sky.
Easing your mind into the breath,
Feeling so spacious and relaxed.
From here we can go anywhere we want to,
With our friend and our big hot air balloon.
Dissolving the image and the visualization.
Now let's just drop the chin down to the chest and take in a beautiful deep breath,
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth,
Breathing in.
And slowly release.
Take a moment now just to acknowledge how you feel.
Do you feel any lighter than when you logged on?
Lifting your chin and opening your eyes.
