Guided Visualization: Transforming Turbulence into Tranquility

Can you imagine turning your deepest frustrations and grief into a source of peace and strength? This episode takes you on a transformative journey through the power of visualization meditation. First, we guide you through a stormy lake, using the energy from your pent-up emotions as a force to paddle against the current. As you confront and move through these turbulent waters, the scene gradually shifts to a serene environment, symbolizing the shift from chaos to tranquility. This process helps us understand that our feelings, while valid, do not define who we are, and we can trust the natural flow of life to carry us to a place of serenity and comfort.

Next, feel the exhilaration of windsurfing with our guided wind visualization meditation. Picture yourself turning a simple piece of cloth into a sail, catching the wind, and gliding freely across the water. This exercise reconnects your mind, body, and spirit, transforming negative energy into pure joy. The mantra, "my breath is my anchor, the wind my gondolier," serves as a reminder that you can return to this state of relaxation and mindfulness anytime. Concluding with a countdown and a stretch, you'll emerge from this episode feeling open, relaxed, and ready to embrace the natural flow of life. Join us for this unique and liberating experience.

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Chapters

• 0:24 Energy Transformation Through Visualization Meditation
• 14:43 Transformation Through Wind Visualization Meditation

Transcript

Lisa Hopkins: 0:24

Hey there, sometimes we get a lot of pent-up energy. Sometimes it's anger or frustration or grief, whatever it might be, it's important to know that there's a way to transform this energy through physical motion and through reconnecting with your mind and body. So today I'm going to do a visualization that may help you release and transform your energy into something more productive and to recognize that, even when there's darkness, there is light. And well, just to give you a tool. So what I'd like you to do, again, this will be a guided meditation, a visualization. I want you to tap into something, maybe that you're holding on to, something that you'd like to let go, a feeling that doesn't sit right with you, whatever it may be. I just want you to tap into that and then, when you're ready, go ahead and make yourself comfortable and start to connect to your breath, breathing in on four, three, two and one and exhaling on four, three, two and one. Let's do that a few more times. Breathing in, simply saying to yourself, breathing in, holding for a little minute at the top and then just letting go as you exhale all your breath until it's totally drifted out of your body. And with each new breath, as you focus on your breath. You're breathing in new energy, ready to receive this visualization. So, whatever it is you chose to focus on during this practice, I want you to think about it now and how it makes you feel You're safe here. So I want you to allow yourself to fuel and build the feelings in your body that have been evoked, the anger, the frustration, any of the negative energy that you've been feeling inside. I want you to embody it for a second, and then I want you to hold your breath, hold it all in, squeeze everything as tightly as you can, squeeze your face and your eyes and your lips, everything your fingers, curl them up, every muscle in your body as tightly as you can, and release, release, mmm. Hmm. I want you to start breathing normally now, gently settling into your rhythm, and I want you to imagine that you're sitting, floating, on a paddleboard.

Lisa Hopkins: 4:56

You're not planning on standing, you're simply sitting, supported like a floating yoga mat on a beautiful lake. Floating yoga mat on a beautiful lake. The lake is stormy, though, and the sky is threatening. The current is working against you. You feel the waves splashing over the bow as you row further out towards the mountain, and you start to notice that the harder you paddle, the better it feels. It's surprisingly easy. You have so much energy, so much blocked up energy that needs to come out. And so, even though the waves are crashing over the front of your paddleboard and the sky is threatening to open up and rain and storm, you feel powerful and strong and you row and you row and you row Much like tightening your face and all your muscles. Your energy is powerful and now it is being directed against the waves, in the opposite direction of the force of opposition. It feels good as the water splashes on you. You're not afraid. You don't even know where you're going, you're just going.

Lisa Hopkins: 6:43

You keep rowing and rowing, and rowing and rowing, you keep rowing. Eventually you see some lily pads and some lotuses blooming. You notice that there aren't as many as there were in the summer, but there they are in all their beauty, like little eggs opening up their yellow yolk to the sky. But there's no sun in the sky, there's only dark clouds. So you row further. As you get closer to the reeds, it becomes a little calmer and you start to relax a little bit. You lay down your paddle and you take a deep breath and you look for something that you maybe hadn't seen before, noticing a bug on the surface of the water or the leaves beginning to change color. You're alone, but not lonely. You're almost at peace.

Lisa Hopkins: 8:45

Take a deep breath in here and, as you exhale, imagine that you're gently reclining on the paddleboard now Feeling steady enough that you don't need to fight the waves. You lie back and you look up at the sky. There's a clearing way above where you can see blue patching through, and there's a glint of sunlight. The more you breathe here, lying floating, supported and suspended by your paddleboard, you start to relax. Your mind is starting to empty out. As you bring yourself into this moment, just floating, you smile as you notice a pattern in the sky, the clouds and the shape they're making, and you remark on how magnificent and beautiful this planet is that we live on. You feel humbled as a sense of gratitude washes over you, even in the depths of what felt before like insurmountable feelings. It's not that your feelings are not valid, but there's a knowing here that they're just energy and that they are not all of you, that you are not your thoughts. You gently trail your fingers in the water, feeling the coolness penetrate and cleanse. You close your eyes and you drift. The clouds have parted a little further now and the sun is becoming stronger and the warmth of it you feeling on your legs, your chest.

Lisa Hopkins: 12:19

You open your eyes, you notice that while your eyes were closed, you were drifting gently, drifting back home, that there's no need to paddle now, that you can simply be along for the ride, no effort needed, simply being. You think to yourself. My breath is my anchor and the wind is my gondolier, the invisible gondolier steering you back home. My breath is my anchor, the wind my gondolier. You're feeling trust, you're feeling serenity, you're feeling expansiveness, movement without effort, floating gently. The wind has not let up, but you've changed your direction.

Lisa Hopkins: 14:43

Imagine now that you have a towel or a shirt or something that you pick up like a sail to catch that wind, and you start to glide faster as the wind catches your sail and suddenly you've created some kind of windsurfer and you're flying and you're free and you're going faster in the direction that you call home, guided by the wind, yes. But then you remember that you are the wind. You feel almost childlike as you dart along the water with your makeshift sail. My breath is my anchor, the wind my gondolier. You smile and suddenly you feel joyful.

Lisa Hopkins: 16:19

You realize that you are smiling, that what began as a battle and pent-up energy has now been transformed into some kind of alchemy, into joy, joy that is not attached to anything except the moment, and you drink that in and you allow it and as you breathe now, you feel strong, not strong because you need protecting or strong because you need to fight. Strong because you need protecting or strong because you need to fight, strong because you are you. You have reconnected your mind, body, spirit, connection and transformed negative, debilitating thoughts and energy into something beautiful. Start to come back now to the sound of my voice, bringing this beautiful, new, transformed energy to where you are now, and just take a few deep breaths here, noticing how you feel. And just take a few deep breaths here, noticing that you feel more relaxed, more open, less stressed. Remember, you can always take yourself back on this visualization, on this visualization Repeating after me my breath is my anchor, the wind my gondolier.

Lisa Hopkins: 19:49

I am the wind. I am the wind. I'm going to count backwards from ten, nine, eight, seven, six, six, five, four, three, two and one. Go ahead and open your eyes and stretch your arms over your head. This has been about 20 minutes. You can do little shorter versions of these, anytime you like, and just by repeating my breath is my anchor, the wind my gondolier you will be brought back to this sensation. Namaste, my friends.