By Karen Maleck-Whiteley
Is anyone else out there feeling a little like a tumble weed lately? You know the feeling – buffeted about by powers that seem beyond your control, bouncing from task to task, having trouble getting your feet under you for any length of time? It seems that many of my clients are feeling a bit this way right now, and so am I. Sometimes it feels like it is hard to hold on or hold yourself together when you have taken on too much, or when events which you have no control over occur.
Personally, I have been dealing with the two businesses, my mother’s finances and doctor appointments, deciding to home school one of our children, my oldest child starting to drive, and my car breaking down to the tune of $1500 this week. If you have read some of my articles in the past months, yes, I am still in overload. Sometimes life is like this for a more prolonged period of time.
This week, I have been using a couple of visualization tools to help me connect, slow down, anchor, and feel more stable. I hope they will help you too.
To try these tools follow these simple steps:
1) Read the visualization ideas below and select one to try.
2) Get in a comfortable sitting or lying position and close your eyes for a few minutes.
3) Do the visualization you selected for a few minutes.
a. Focus on details for your senses (feeling, sight, hearing, smell, and even taste). The more you add detail, the more effective it is for your mind.
b. Use what works best for you. You are in charge and can change the scenario if something else feels more effective for you. You can use any of these, combine parts, or make up another, if you like.
4) When you are ready to come back to your day, take three deep breaths, open your eyes, and stretch.
5) Notice how you feel.
Three Stabilizing Visualizations:
#1: Imagine You Are a Tree
Walk through the woods until you find a beautiful spot that feels good to you. Where there are ancient trees that you feel you would like to be near and learn from. Notice the trees welcome you here. Pick a spot that has good, healthy soil, and stand very still with your feet apart in a strong, stable stance. Notice you can feel the energy of the earth beneath your feet, and that it can come up into you. It may have a feeling, a color, or a light. No matter what, it anchors you in this spot, and allows you to start to have the feeling of growing your own roots, just like the trees nearby. As your roots continue to grow down and out, you can feel more and more anchored and stable. Notice that they can go very deep, and that there are places where they intertwine with the other trees nearby. Once your roots are feeling good and strong, let yourself grow upward and outward into more of a tree shape. Stretch out your arms, and let them grow leaves. Notice the life around you, attracted to you. Notice how strong and tall you feel. How stable and permanent. The wind may blow, but you simply bend a bit. Enjoy the feeling of “being” a tree for as long as you like. If you want, you can ask the other trees for their advice on what you are facing at this time. Let them answer you in a way you can hear. When you are ready to return to your day, step out of the tree you have become, and leave it there in the forest as a reminder of how strong and sturdy you can be.
#2: Strengthening-Creating Your Center
Scan through your body and notice what you are feeling physically. Concentrate on your breathing, and let the parts of you that are more relaxed start to loosen and unwind the parts that are tighter. Now focus on your center. Identify where that is for you (Is it in your stomach? Your lower abdomen? Your chest?). Notice how it feels and identify what color it is right now. Now picture, imagine, or visualize that you are connected to the energy of the universe from above. It comes down through your head, and it has it’s own wonderful color. As you connect to it, it flows down and in, all the way to your center. This energy enhances your own center energy, or it can even change or push out negative energy if it is there. Just watch and feel and let it work. You can also connect to the energy of the earth below you, and allow that to flow upward through your feet and legs, to your center. It also has a color and a feeling, and it combines with the energy from above to brighten and stabilize your center. Once these energies have combined, you may find that your center has a whole new feeling and color, and is much brighter. Now let that new center energy and feeling move outward and fill up your entire body, pushing out any negatives, stresses, or uncertainties. You can breathe them out, or see them flowing out through your fingers and toes. Do this for as long as you want, or watch the colors in you for as long as you like before you return to your day. Know you can connect to these energies now whenever you want to, even without closing your eyes.
#3: Seeing the Connections
Breathe and relax for a few minutes. Now start to focus on the fact that you have connections to people that can ground you and keep you here in the present. Think of who some of these people are. They may be current family, friends, co-workers, or even people or entities elsewhere such as people who have gone before, angels, wise advisors or guides. Now notice that as you think of them, you can see or feel that you are indeed connected to them. There is a cord or string, or strand of energy that is flows between you. You can notice where on your body each of them connects. You can feel their positive energy, love and support flowing in to you, filling you up. You can send them yours in return – your thanks, your love, your wishes and support for them. Spend a few minutes checking the connections to these people and strengthening them by sending whatever feels right to send to the other people. You can do this one person at a time, or all at once. Feel their responses, and notice that they make you feel less alone, less ungrounded. In fact, you can remember have this grid of people that make you feel and know just where you are in the world, just how connected you are at any time.
The Value of the Five Minute Ritual
In addition, keep using the Five Minute Stress Management Ritual. When you practice it at intervals throughout the day, it is like having a stabilizing rudder on your boat. It allows you to get back on course when you are veering towards reactions you would rather avoid. If you have not learned it yet, order our Five Minute Stress Management audio CD, which will teach you how to do it.