Close your eyes.
Feel your lungs fill and release as you slow your breathing down.
See if you can settle in to a four-count breath.
Four-count in and four-count out.
Feel your body soften.
Take a moment to feel your weight on whatever you are sitting or lying on.
Notice the points of contact that are supporting you.
Breathe into that restful position.
Notice the invisible pressure of gravity that is allowing your limbs to rest quietly at your sides.
Let the pressure of gravity cover over you like a weighted blanket.
Starting from your forehead,
Coming down the bridge of your nose,
Relaxing the corners of your mouth,
Your jawbone,
Your tongue.
Release any lingering tension in your neck.
Feel that weighted blanket heavy on your chest,
Across your stomach,
Down your hips,
Your legs.
When you get to your feet,
Let them fill with a warm sense of relaxation.
And imagine a vacuum at your feet,
Sucking away any lingering tension or stagnant energy from the day.
Now imagine the support beneath you,
Slowly melting into liquid,
Gently flowing like a lazy river.
Can you notice a branch reaching out to you,
Climb out of the river and onto a beach?
Feel a sense of childlike wonder and happiness as you take in your surroundings.
Find a tree and climb to the top of it where you will find a large lake.
Just the right size for your body to lean back and be cradled,
Rocked in the wind.
Allow the leaf to float you down to the ground.
When you reach the sand,
Feel yourself sink deeper and deeper into the sand as it covers over your body into a comfortable position.
Turn your attention to a moment from your day when the demands of someone else were too heavy for you to hold on to your truth and be our authentic self.
Notice where in your body you feel the tension from that experience and place your hands on that spot.
Deeply four counts in and four counts out,
Allowing the tension to move and leave.
Now think back to your first memory of sacrificing your own perspective or identity because of the demands of someone else,
Maybe an authority figure or a peer.
Allow those feelings to move around in your body.
Now,
Allow yourself to imagine your time in your mother's womb.
When God was fashioning all the pieces of your body and all the elements of your personality,
Feel the love and tenderness of your Creator giving His full attention to who you would become and who you would be.
Feel the joy of your Maker as you came into the world whole and perfect just as He designed you.
Imagine yourself growing with all the love and caretaking that you needed,
All of the support and words of affirmation spoken over you until you reach that moment,
The first memory when you sacrificed yourself and instead imagine how you would act,
What you would say,
The strength and conviction that you would hold in your body with a sense of defeat nowhere in sight.
Allow yourself to act differently in that memory and notice how your body is feeling as you watch yourself embody strength and purpose.
Imagine the eyes of your Creator watching you now in this moment as you relax your body and reflect on the value and worthiness and deep soul purpose that He instilled within you when He composed you in your mother's womb.
Now imagine His love and protection covering over you like that weighted blanket of gravity from your forehead down your body to your feet and notice that vacuum at the bottom of your feet and allow it to suck out any remaining tension or doubt in your innate worthiness as a creation made in the image of your father.
Take as long as you need to feel that weighted blanket covering over you,
Protecting you and preparing you to re-enter your life with a single-minded conviction that what you believe and what you feel and what you know is valid and worth holding on to regardless of the thoughts and feelings and the actions of the people you love and the authority figures in your life.
