This meditation comes from an episode of the Advice and Meditation podcast,
Ask a Wayfinder.
To listen to the entire conversation,
Look for episode 7,
Making Progress During a Pandemic.
There are any number of metaphors we could use to explore the process of feeling stuck or getting unstuck.
And I've already used a few in my response.
And so when I sit and think about our meditation today,
I keep coming back to this amazing visualization of an empty room.
An empty room is kind of like what the pandemic has put us in.
Stuck in our houses,
Surrounded by walls,
Forced to sit with what is.
The empty room can feel like a cage.
But the empty room is also a very fertile place.
It's a place that is waiting to be filled.
It's asking for your presence.
And it's holding you to allow you to dream.
And when I tap into what we all need in this moment of pandemic,
When we're all wondering,
What will the future bring?
What can I do in the future?
What am I grieving about what won't happen in the coming months?
I want us to just get comfortable in this empty room.
To see the hard part and the beautiful part.
And when I think about how the empty room can help us get unstuck,
I think it's important to also survey the room we're in.
And make sure it's actually empty before we begin to fill it with the things we want in our lives.
So finding a comfortable seat,
Closing your eyes.
I want you to take a few deep breaths,
Preferably in through the nose and exhaling out through the mouth.
Just to bring you in touch with the body,
To settle the mind,
And to ground you in the present moment.
Finding where your awareness is located in your body.
For most of us that would be in the head.
But for some of us it's a little lower.
It might be in the heart or in the gut.
Just finding that center of awareness.
And dropping into it.
I like to meditate in the heart space when I'm working with creativity.
So wherever that center of awareness is in your body,
Now that you've become acquainted with it,
I want you to see if you can shift it and allow it to move to your chest,
To your heart space,
Behind your sternum,
Just settling into the core of your body.
Just feeling how that feels for a moment.
First tapping into any sensations you might be feeling.
Is your breath easy?
Is it tight?
Do you feel heavy,
Light,
Warm,
Cold?
Just feeling into your heart.
And if you could imagine your heart space,
This place in your chest,
As a room,
What would it look like?
Would it be like a Victorian living room with a bunch of curiosities and curios and patterns and texture and furniture and books?
Or would it be more of a Swedish modern design with clean,
Sharp angles and reflected surfaces?
Is it a big room?
Is it a small room?
What's the lighting like?
Imagining your heart space as a room and really tapping into the essence of who you are and how that appears,
How that manifests in this room.
In some ways,
You may find this exercise delightful.
You may be super excited to see the things in your room.
In some ways,
This might be challenging.
You may see things in the room that you wish weren't there,
Things that you wish you had let go of.
Things that seemingly have to be there,
But you don't like them and you don't want them.
Imagining that all of the beliefs you hold about yourself are here in this room,
Represented as objects or shapes in any way that it comes to you.
And in this room,
There is a little closet.
And in that closet are the dreams that you've deferred,
The dreams that you've pushed away,
The things that you've pushed out of your awareness because you can't deal with them right now,
Or whatever reason.
They're not out on display.
They're not getting your attention.
Open that door and let those be a part of your room.
And now,
No matter how you feel about this room,
Whether you love it or you hate it or you're confused by it or you're troubled by it or you're excited by it,
It's time to clean out the room.
It's time to start slowly but surely moving things out,
Pushing them aside,
Getting them out of the space,
Opening it up,
Pulling all of it out,
Out of every nook and cranny,
Every book off the bookshelf.
You're taking it all out.
Objects full of memories,
Ideas about how things should look,
Things from childhood,
That dress you love but you never wear.
We are mentally cleaning out the room in your heart space.
Have no fear.
There's nothing here that is intrinsically you,
So you're not losing anything.
You're just opening up the space,
Allowing you to see this room from a different perspective,
Allowing you to be in the room,
Perhaps for the very first time,
Without anything in it.
Slowly but surely it takes shape.
And now I want you to just step into the empty room in your heart space and take it all in.
Feel the walls supporting and holding you.
Feel the potency of possibility.
Feel all that space ready to be filled with you,
With new ideas,
New beliefs,
New dreams,
New directions.
What color do you want the walls to be?
What shaped the ceiling?
You get to start again.
And once you've really indulged in this marvelous,
Empty,
Exciting room,
It's time to bring three things back in.
They could be things that were already in the room,
Or they could be new things that you've just come up with.
But you're only going to bring three items into the room.
And these items are going to represent dreams that you want to pursue,
Things that light up your joy compass and give you a sense of excitement about the future.
So what will those three things be?
Once you've chosen your three new items,
Place them wherever you would like in the room.
And set an intention to allow them to be there and to be part of your life.
Maybe even in the smallest way.
These are your priorities.
You will give them love and attention,
And you will allow them to be there because you chose them.
Going forward,
You might revisit your room.
You might swap out items.
You may gradually add one or two more.
As your dreams mature,
You'll know what to bring in and what to invest in.
But take your time adding things back in.
And whenever you do,
You must once again make a promise to put those in the forefront of your life.
Just spend the last few moments enjoying the new energy of this space,
Allowing it to resonate throughout your whole being.
And devoting yourself to pursuing your dreams.
And trusting that if it's important to you,
You'll find a way.
.
