Madeline Hoffman

Denver, CO, USA

Explore your inner landscape through imagination to gain clarity on your boundaries and sense of safety.

English

This meditation walks you through a simple visualization, and provides space to receive any downloads related to the visualization that are personal to you. It is oriented around boundaries, safety, and control. Is it intuition through the mind's eye or imagination? Is there a difference? This is also a part of a larger meditation series incorporated in a Reiki Level 1 and 2 practice. (23)

Utilizing The Imagination For Clarity

Hello, my name is Eden and I am a therapist, Reiki teacher, and meditation guide. Now whether you've found this meditation through one of my Reiki courses or just through the web of life, welcome. These meditations are intended to deepen your relationship to your intuition and gifts, and facilitate an understanding of your own internal landscape. Each meditation is also a tool that can be offered to yourself or a client, so I invite you to notice what shifts within you before, during, after, beyond the meditation, cataloging the effects with words and feelings and sensations, just letting yourself take note. Allow it to be personal and universal. Let's begin. And today, we are going to work in the imagination that is really this link between our mind, our thought, and our intuition. And yes, this is a place where we can just make things up. And this is also a place where your intuition lives. And truly, if you are present and trusting and grounded, then your imagination is your intuition. So just remember here as we walk through this little meditation to release any feelings of doubt, of imposter syndrome, of self-judgment, recognizing that yes, the imagination is the place where we make things up. And you could be imagining one of a trillion different options, different things. So whatever comes up for you actually deserves weight. It deserves weight. So go ahead and find a tall spine, feet planted on the ground or crossed in front of you, whatever is most comfortable in your body today. And gently tucking the chin so you feel the spine elongate all the way through the back of the head. And rooting down through the hip bones, the pelvis, feeling that length. And just taking a few slow, deep breaths down into the belly. No rush here. And letting go of any tense muscles that are forcing the breath down and out, releasing all those tiny little abdominal muscles holding everything in. Let those go. So that this deep, low breath can flow more naturally in and out, with more space through relaxation. And then gently letting that focus go, just finding the place where your calm lives in your body and settling in there. Releasing any mental tension, any more physical tension, and just being for a few breaths. Letting yourself slow down. And then in the mind's eye, in this imagination, we start to invite in a picture of a fence. A fence, letting whatever comes up first be perfect. Can you hold on to what just came up? And just allowing yourself to picture it in your mind's eye in even greater detail, almost as like you are approaching it after it appeared. You notice the material that it's made out of. You notice the height. The color. Maybe it's painted, maybe it's dull, maybe it's metal. What can you notice about this fence? And maybe you notice any landscaping around or where it's been planted. Maybe there's a gate. And you walk right up to this fence, taking it in, noticing. And you recognize now that you are looking to get through the gate to the other side. You want to open the fence somehow. And so as you stand here, looking at this gate, or even just the fence, if there is no gate, just gently ask yourself, what do I need to open this gate? What does this gate need from me, this fence need from me in order to let me in? And just letting a word or a phrase pop up or appear or come to you. And whatever came to you, how can you now offer that feeling, that thing, to yourself right now? Maybe you let yourself embody that thing, feeling it flowing through you, if it's an emotion or a sensation. Maybe you let the mind accept the thing that just popped up, noticing that the body can relax around it. Just in some small way, offering that phrase to yourself now. And reaching for the gate or the fence and now just allowing yourself to pass on through, having offered yourself that thing. Being on the other side. Deep breath in, long, slow, yummy breath out. And a fence tends to represent this boundary, this protection. It can represent this desire for safety and control. So just noticing also what feeling came up for you as you saw that fence, as you approached that fence. What feeling moved through you? Was it curiosity or doubt or fear or nostalgia or something else? And how does that feeling inform your relationship to your boundaries, to your sense of safety? Again, letting something in, letting a download in. Maybe even if this still just feels like an imaginal thread that you create now between this fence, this feeling, your internal boundaries and any other ideas, just let it be a creative act. How does what you pictured and how you felt inform this metaphor of the mind? Your relationship to boundaries, to safety, security, control. How easy was it to pass through to the other side? Noticing. This is just a microcosm of the power of our imagination, of our mind's eye, of giving stock to the thing that we do picture because it will always be personal to you. Because anything that moves through you is yours. And we will never picture the same exact thing if the invitation is open. So there's weight to that because it informs each of us about our mind, about our history, about our patterns, about how we see the world. The imagination is a gateway into deep understanding and healing while also being this really soft entry point. Instead of going into a specific memory or difficulty, we just work in the imagination and use it as an inner standing, an inner standing. Deep breaths in, long, slow, relaxed breaths out. And knowing that you can offer that emotion, that answer that moved through you to yourself at any time during the day in front of you. Whatever helped you open that gate is accessible to you at any time. So taking as much time as you need here to integrate this, to let it be a part of your day to inform you as you move forward. Creating boundaries, reminding them to be flexible, feeling safe and secure without a need to deeply control. And whenever you are ready to rejoin this day, gently blink the eyes open.