A warm welcome to this practice,
An opportunity to get quiet and gain some clarity around 2024.
This meditation is less about identifying goals like go to the gym four times a week or get that promotion and more about connecting with a sense of hope,
Joy,
Optimism and possibility.
And getting creative in how you may weave these emotions,
Feelings and experiences into the year to come.
So allowing your eyes to gently close if it pleases you today.
Awareness landing on your breath,
Noticing the steady rise and fall of your chest,
The gentle expansion and contraction of your belly,
With each breath dropping from your mind into your body like sand drops down an hourglass.
Now in your own way,
Breathing into your heart and noticing how as you breathe in,
Your chest expands in all directions,
Front,
Back and side body all expanding with each inhale.
Really focusing on this sense of spherical expansion for a few breaths now,
Trusting that as you expand physically in this way,
You are also encouraging an emotional or energetic expansion too.
This expansion of heart,
Of body,
Of emotion and energy will help you connect more deeply with your desires and hopes for 2024.
Now imagining,
Picturing or sensing that within your heart or the centre of your chest is a small flame.
As you breathe,
Hues of orange,
Yellow and violet flicker and dance within your chest.
From within this flame,
A gentle heat radiates,
Leaving your entire body warm,
Waking you to your own sense of vitality and aliveness.
With each dedicated breath,
This flame is getting brighter and more beautiful.
Continuing to come back to this image if you become distracted,
Trusting that with each breath you are connecting to your inner spark,
Your essence,
The part of you that has been around since you were a child.
This part is always here,
Sometimes buried by the demands and responsibilities of adult life.
Really committing to each breath,
To connecting to your essence,
Your spark and noticing how this feels for you,
No right or wrong,
Just noticing.
Now allowing a happy memory from your childhood to emerge,
No pressure,
Trusting that whatever surfaces is just right and taking some time to really bring the details to life,
As you notice if it was night or day,
If you were inside or outside,
Awareness deepening,
As you notice if you were alone or with others,
As you ask yourself,
How did I feel in this moment from my past?
What felt possible?
What qualities did I fully embody?
Trusting in whatever wisdom is emerging,
Even if it doesn't make sense at the level of the mind.
What clues does this moment offer you about how you want to be,
How you want to feel in 2024?
It's not about replicating this exact memory or this moment,
It's more about reconnecting with the essence of you and creating more space for this in 2024.
Energy and intention can travel time and space,
So here in this moment,
Allowing the flame from within your chest to dance into your future,
Breathing deep into this inner flame,
Imagining yourself moving through 2024,
Feeling more connected to your inner spark,
Your childhood essence.
What would you do more of?
Again,
Trusting in what emerges,
Trusting in the natural intelligence of your meditation practice,
What other wisdom is here for you?
What else would you like to bring into 2024?
And now keeping this childhood essence,
This joyful spirit alive within you,
As you cultivate a sense of hope and connection for the year to come,
Inviting your left palm to face upwards,
Back of hand perhaps resting on your thigh,
And your right palm to face downwards,
Again resting somewhere on your leg,
Awareness landing now on your left hand,
Noticing the feel of your hand as it rests on your body,
The way your fingers are perhaps curled in slightly,
Really feeling into this gentle shape,
The curvature of your fingers,
Imagining that within the palm of your left hand is a feeling of hope,
Hope that your joyful nature will be expressed in 2024,
Hope that there will be moments of creativity,
Hope for your family,
Your friends and even strangers,
Cupped in your left hand a sense of hope for humanity and the planet,
Cupping this sense of hope with gentleness and ease,
Noticing how this version of hope isn't toxic positivity or blind optimism,
It has a grounded and empowered energy to it,
And on the in-breath imagining that this energy contained in your palm,
This feeling of hope is traveling up your arm across your chest and landing within your heart,
Focusing on your in-breath for a few cycles of breath now,
Beginning with a sense of hope in your left palm,
Air and energy moving up your left arm and filling your heart,
As you breathe in this way can you feel your heart opening,
Really allowing this hope to feel personal and unique to you,
As you ask yourself,
As I enter 2024,
What brings me hope?
And holding this in the palm of your left hand,
Awareness shifting now as you focus on your out-breath,
Imagining that your out-breath begins in your heart,
Travels down your right arm,
Hand and into the earth beneath you,
Each out-breath beginning in your heart,
Traveling down your right arm and leaving through the palm of your right hand,
To land deep into the earth below,
Allowing this breath pattern to represent connection for you,
As you ask yourself,
As I walk towards 2024,
Where in my life would I like to experience more connection,
Trusting whatever emerges for you,
Allowing this desire to begin in your heart,
To travel down your right arm,
Hand and land deep into the earth,
Each breath sending this intention for connection deep into the earth below,
Allowing the earth to carry this intention,
Trusting in her ability to bring it to life over the coming year,
Resting here,
Held in your childlike essence,
Your joyful nature,
Buoyed by a deep feeling of hope and connection,
Trusting that this inner state you have cultivated will weave its way into the year ahead,
For the benefit of you,
Those you love,
Humanity,
Nature and the planet,
Rubbing your hands together,
Really feeling into your own warmth,
The energy and friction being created and in your own time,
Placing these hands over your closed eyes,
Allowing you to move through 2024 with the lens of love,
Offering your body some gentle movement,
Opening your eyes.
Many thanks for sharing your practice with me today.
