TED SWITZER

Texas, USA

Visualize your challenges as physical objects and decide whether to release them or let them transform you.

English

This is a guided meditation journey to help you find freedom from a burden in your life. It includes music, sound effects, audio cues, and an intriguing narrative with vivid imagery. You awake on a beautiful beach to find a mysterious wooden box and a note. "Put your burden in the box and carry it to the bonfire on top of the mountain..." So begins a journey of self-knowledge and personal freedom.

The Burden Box: A Guided Meditation For Releasing A Trouble

 The Burden Box, a guided meditation for release and self-care with Brian St. Paul. Welcome and thank you for trying this meditation. You're going to be releasing a burden that you are dealing with, so take a moment to decide which challenge you want to work on today. Most of us have more than one. Now find a comfortable position, either seated or lying down. Begin with your eyes open. Focus on a spot straight ahead and slightly above your eyeline. This could be a spot on the wall or on the ceiling. Just keep your eyes relaxed and focused on that point. In a moment you're going to take a deep breath in, and when you do you will imagine that you are breathing in relaxation. And then when you breathe out, you will imagine yourself breathing out tension and stress. You breathe relaxation in and tension out. Let's try that now. Take a deep breath in, breathing in calm and relaxation all the way in, and then breathe out. Breathing out tension and stress. You might begin to feel your eyes growing warm. Maybe they're beginning to tingle a little bit. That's fine. Take a deep breath in, filling your body with fresh air all the way to the top of your head, and then exhale and relax. Your eyes might begin to water as your eyelids grow so heavy and so relaxed, and the spot that you're looking at might be growing a little blurry. Let's take one more deep breath in. In your nose, filling up your stomach and lungs up to the top of your head through every bit of your body, and then breathe out and let your eyes gently close. Close your eyes. Feel yourself sinking down into relaxation. Down. Down. And with your eyes closed, you're surrounded now by darkness, but it's a safe and comfortable and healing darkness, like the darkness of a deep and restful sleep. And you can imagine your eyes beginning to glow gently with warmth and relaxation. Your eye muscles feel so warm and loose and relaxed. Now listen closely to my voice. You're sitting in a small wooden rowboat in the middle of a peaceful blue ocean. The sky is clear and free of clouds, and there's a warm ocean breeze blowing across your skin. You might feel a few saltwater droplets on your face now, as you smell the briny, sharp scent of saltwater. The Sun is directly above you, and it casts its gentle, soothing warmth over you. The golden light begins to warm the top of your head, relaxing all the muscles in your scalp. You feel the muscles in your scalp grow warm and loose. The muscles of your forehead and brow loosen and relax. This warmth from the Sun now flows over your face, and you can feel the muscles around your eyes, cheeks and jaw. They release any tension they might be holding. They just go loose. Your face becomes completely warm and loose. The muscles around your eyes feel completely relaxed. The sunlight now spreads to the muscles that hold up your jaw, and they now feel loose and relaxed. Your jaw might even be hanging open slightly. The warm sunlight continues to move down over your neck and your shoulders. You feel it releasing and unlocking any tension there. Your shoulders just drop and hang loose. Your body feels warm and completely relaxed. And now you feel this soothing warmth spread further down, reaching your chest and your upper back. You can feel your chest and your back growing warm, and as they do, your breath deepens, and any tension in your chest and in your back melts away in the sunlight. The sunlight now travels like warm honey down your arms, loosening the muscles as it goes all the way down to your fingertips. Notice now how your entire upper body feels completely warm and completely loose in the sun. As the honey-like sunlight reaches your hips, and your thighs, and your knees, you feel the muscles in your legs release and relax, and your legs become heavy and comfortable. Finally, the sunlight reaches down to your calves, your ankles, and your feet, relaxing them and leaving your entire body feeling warm and heavy and at ease. Take one more slow, deep breath in. You can smell the salty ocean air fill in your lungs, and slowly let it out. Your rowboat comes to rest on the beach of a small tropical island. The waves are lapping gently on the shore, and their soft rhythm is making you feel more and more relaxed. You feel the warm sand under your bare feet, and the way that it fills your instep, and the spaces between your toes. This warm sand massages the muscles in your feet, softening them and making them feel so good and relaxed. You notice just in front of you there's a faded green beach blanket spread out on the sand, and on the blanket is a square brown wooden box with a note on the front. The box is about two feet high by two feet wide, and it looks sturdy and strong. There's a leather strap on top for carrying it, and the wood is smooth and worn down from much handling. This box has been used and carried many times before. There's a short handwritten note attached to the front of the box. It's written on old yellowing paper, and the message is short. Put your burden into the box, and carry it to the bonfire on top of the mountain. You look up past the line of palm trees, and you can see a modest-sized mountain with a line of smoke whispering from the top. That must be the fire. A path ahead of you winds through the palm trees, leading in the direction of that mountain. But you return to the note. Put your burden into the box, and carry it to the bonfire on top of the mountain. Imagine your burden now as a physical object. Visualize a physical object that would represent your burden. What does it look like? Does it have a color? Does it have a smell? What shape is your burden? Is it smooth, or is it sharp with points? And what does it feel like as you imagine holding it in your hands? Now place your burden gently into the box, and close the heavy lid. You heft the box onto your back, and you walk forward down the path, deeper and deeper into the palm tree forest. The air feels wet and smells earthy here, and your feet now step on damp leaves and soft black soil. There is a small splashing stream ahead of you, and the water droplets begin to tickle your face as you reach it. The stream cuts across your path, and the trees are too dense on either side to pass, so you will have to cross the stream. But how? The crevice is too wide to step over, and the rocks along the ledge are just too slippery to try, and you can't jump because your box is too heavy. How will you do it? You place the burden box in the crevice, and it forms the perfect bridge. You step across the gap safely, and then pull the box back up with the strap. It was good that you had the burden box. Has your burden ever been a bridge to you, taking you places you couldn't have gone without it? Are there people in your life you would not have met without your burden? You carry the box in front of you as you proceed down the path. Your steps are soft and light on the forest floor. Soon the path turns upward and becomes steep. You walk more slowly now, inching up the mountain with the heavy wooden box. The air is becoming more cool and crisp, and there's a cleansing breeze that blows through the tops of the palm trees now. Breathe it in with a deep breath in through the nose. Fill in your stomach and your lungs and every part of you with this crisp cool air, and then breathe out. You've arrived at a sheer rock wall. The path continues up the mountain, but the wall is just too high to climb over. There are no stairs, nor are there any vines to grab hold of. What will you do? You place the burden box against the rock wall, and it forms the perfect stair. You step up onto the box and then onto the ledge, pulling the box back up with the strap. It was good that you had the burden box. Has your burden ever made you bigger or stronger or more powerful in some way? Are there skills you never would have developed without the challenge of your burden? Has your burden ever made you taller and given you a better view than you had before? You continue climbing the path. It's becoming steep and rocky now. You're almost at the top. The wind is getting stronger as you leave the protection of the palm trees. You're moving higher and higher up the mountain. Ahead of you is the ridgetop of the mountain. You have to cross it to continue to the bonfire, but here in this part of the ridgetop, the walkway is unprotected from the wind, and the gusts are particularly strong. The wind could easily blow you from one side to the other. There are no trees and no rocks here to protect you. You are alone, just you and your burden. What do you look like standing there with your burden? You begin to walk across the ridge and the wind pushes against you. It presses in from the left and then the right, but the weight of your burden box keeps you solidly grounded to the ridgetop. The wind cannot move you. Your heavy box keeps you balanced as you cross the narrow ridge. It was good that you had the burden box. Has your burden ever grounded you and kept you balanced? Has your burden ever kept you safe or protected you? You have reached the bonfire. It sits in the center of a low stone wall that protects it from the wind. The fire is roaring. You can feel it warming your face. Behind you, you can look back down the mountain and see all the way back to the beach and to every part of the path that you took. You see the times when your burden took you places you would not have been able to reach without it. You remember when your burden helped you see things you could not have seen otherwise and you know that your burden has in some ways made you stronger and it has sometimes kept you grounded and balanced. You have one last question to answer and then you have to make a decision. The question, how has your burden made you who you are? You place the heavy burden box down in front of you. Open it and take out your burden. What does it look like now and has the journey changed it? Feel gratitude now for the many ways that your burden has helped you grow and become the person that you are. You now have a decision to make. You may place your burden with gratitude into the bonfire and leave it behind you or if you choose you may keep your burden now transformed into something new and let it become part of you. This decision is yours and it belongs to you alone. It will soon be time to leave the island but you may return anytime you like. We all have burdens that we have to endure but sometimes those burdens are gifts in disguise. Take one final deep breath in, breathing fresh air in your nose, down your throat, filling yourself up from your bottom to the top and then breathe it out. Five, you're coming back to the room, back to your body. Four, you're becoming aware of your fingers and your toes. They're beginning to tingle. Three, you can feel the air from the room now on your skin, prickling your skin just a bit. Two, you feel Two, you feel cool water running down the top of your head. It's down your face. It's running down your back. And one, you're awake and feeling completely refreshed. Welcome back.