Articles tagged with: visualization

River Swimming Visualization Meditation

Maneuvering Through the Obstacles of Life

by Curt Remington

Like swimming boulder-filled rapids, life can be tough! A whitewater safety course taught me some important lessons, ones that apply to swimming rapids and to making our way through life. Now you may wonder why someone would want to swim in a whitewater river. Sane people don’t really want to, but it sometimes happens, when your kayak or raft flips over. Most of us would rather avoid many of life’s difficulties too, but some are unavoidable lessons that we need to deal with the best that we can. Learning to swim in life’s turbulent waters can help immensely. If you are constantly struggling, just to keep your head above water, it can be hard to get to where you want to go. As Paul Coelho said, “you drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.”

Curt kayaking a river

Curt kayaking a river

There are four ways to swim a river:

  1. Look downstream in terror, then thrash around, maybe even trying to swim upstream to get away from all those scary boulders you’re being hurled towards. This technique will exhaust you in a hurry and certainly won’t help you reach safety or happiness. People that go through life this way probably haven’t chosen a practical course of action and may go from one emergency to another.
  2. Float downstream without a care, and get swept under a big submerged tree (strainer) or bashed into boulders. This can result in injury or drowning and is usually a bad idea. You can usually find this type of swimmer at home, laying on the couch. This is a relaxing way to go through life, but you can’t get much done from the couch. It may make it hard to pay the bills or to accomplish great things.
  3. Decide on a logical destination, then swim frantically downstream to get there as fast as possible. I often use this technique in life, and it is not the best idea. It uses a lot of energy and can leave you feeling stressed out and tired.
  4. The swimming technique that works best in a river, and in life, is to pick a logical course that takes advantage of the river’s currents and eddies (watch for opportunities). Commit to your chosen path, then let the river do a lot of the work for you. When it’s appropriate, swim some powerful, efficient strokes and arrive at your destination safely and happily, often more quickly than the person who used technique number three. You might still bump against a boulder or two along the way, but that’s part of swimming a whitewater river, and of life.
Snake River, Idaho

Snake River, Idaho

How do we swim more like Number Four?

  • When an opportunity comes along that will bring more fulfillment into your life, face any fears and take action. This could mean changing careers, starting a business, furthering your education or initiating a new relationship.
  • Make a plan and work towards that plan. This one might seem obvious, but an awful lot of people seem to wander through life with no direction. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there.
  • Remember that some of life’s hardships (boulders) are opportunities to learn. No matter what we do, life won’t be perfect. Instead of focusing on the hardships, focus on what’s positive in life. The law of attraction says that we attract more of what we focus our attention on.
  • When you’re moving along with the current, go ahead and float a while. Too much effort causes stress, and it can actually be a block to creativity and accessing psychic abilities.
  • Have fun! Be sure that you take the time to do things you really enjoy doing.
  • Meditate! It gives your mind and body a chance to relax, to be in the present, so you can go with the flow and not be thrown off by the hazards we all tend to come across along the way. Through meditation, you can also access your intuition and psychic abilities, so as to better recognize good opportunities. Meditation helps us connect with our higher self, that wiser spiritual part of us that already knows the best way to do things.

My inspiration for this article came to me as a psychic (clairvoyant) image, while I was meditating, looking for a new visualization exercise. It came as a message that I need to quit swimming like number three, inefficiently racing downstream with too many projects going at once. What came to me is described below, as a meditation that you can try at home.

MacDonald Creek, Glacier Park, Montana

MacDonald Creek, Glacier Park, Montana

River Visualization Meditation

Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit. Take a few deep breaths, and close your eyes. It’s always helpful to start with grounding and running your energies. Once you’re relaxed and ready, imagine a clear, clean river flowing in front of you. Raging whitewater doesn’t sound very relaxing, so I recommend that you imagine a gentler river with soothing currents to carry you downstream. Most of the way, you can float on your back.

If there are obstacles ahead of you? What do they represent? Let go of any fear, and take a few smooth strokes to get around them. Observe all of the detail. What does the shoreline look like? Is it lined with boulders, canyon walls or sand? Are there buildings or wildlife? Where would you like the river to take you? Go ahead and visualize the destination you’d like to get to. Float as long as you’d like, swimming occasionally to stay on course. Once you’re ready, gently finish your meditation or imagine climbing out at your destination to end your river trip.

secrets

Love (Heart Chakra) Meditation

Focusing on the Heart Chakra

by Curt Remington

Feeling love, activating your heart chakra, is a wonderful way to improve relationships and experience more joy and happiness. This is very beneficial for the people around you too.

Heart Chakra Meditation

Curt & Mary Remington in Mountains

Once you’ve reached your quiet and comfortable place, take a few deep breaths and relax.  With your thoughts quieted, visualize a very important person in your life.  This could be a spouse or sweetheart, child, parent or close friend.  Holding their image, contemplate one or two traits that are unique and positive about them.  Maybe they’re very generous, creative, funny or loving.  If positive characteristics are not coming up, remember that person is only human and move through their traits until you find a positive one.  Everyone has some.  As you’re contemplating that trait, feel your fondness for that person.  The feeling is probably coming from the area of your heart or fourth chakra.  After feeling the warmth for that person, find someone else important in your life and do the same thing.

 

 As you move from person to person, sense a growing golden glow radiating from your heart, like sunshine.  Let the rays of this warmth shine for as long as you like, touching the important people in your life.  If you want, you can then expand it farther so it reaches others, that you don’t know, like everyone in your neighborhood, town or even expand it to the world.  If everyone did this, we could make the world a brighter, more loving place.  When you’re done, take a few more deep breaths and realize that you can continue to radiate some of that caring light as you go on about your day.

Flying Visualization Meditation

Pretending to Fly Can Be a Good Thing

by Curt Remington

 

You Can Fly!

Soaring Bald Eagle

Soar Like an Eagle

Have you ever wished that you could fly? Well, you can! Your spirit has known how to fly all along, and it probably does so at night, while you’re asleep. Have you ever had a vivid dream of flying, or you suddenly jerked awake from a dream of falling. You were probably having an out-of-body experience. If only we could remember all the exciting adventures our spirit has had. I believe that we will, once we permanently leave our current body behind. Until then, you can use this visualization meditation to spend some time away from your body, experiencing a wonderful spiritual state.

As a nature lover, I use this technique to fly to the mountains. You might decide to soar amongst clouds, skim cornfields or slalom through skyscrapers.

Flying Visualization Exercise

I recommend that you sit in a comfortable chair, in a quiet room. Laying down may sound appealing, but you risk falling asleep. If it works better for you, than go ahead. Once your situated, close your eyes, and take a few deep clearing breaths, releasing any tension as you exhale. Grounding and running your energies will help clear your energy system and get you into a meditative state. A simple breath meditation, or relaxation exercise may be all you need to warm up.At this point, I’ll share my own experiences. Please experiment and modify the technique to find what works for you, based on your own preferences and location.

Mt Baker, Washington

Top of Mt Baker in North Cascades, WA

Once in a meditative state, I visualize myself floating up out of my body and out through the window, which doesn’t have to be open. Stretching my spiritual arms to soar, I take a short flight over houses and treetops to Lake Whatcom, just a block away. From there, I’ll swoop down to the lake and fly low, skimming its surface. On a sunny day, I’ll feel warmth on my back and the cool of the lake below. At night, the surface sparkles and shimmers with moonlight. Reaching the end of the lake, I’ll ascend up over tree covered foothills, and quickly reaching snow-covered Mt Baker. Hovering over Coleman Glacier, I’ll drop into a crevasse and experience its cold silence, seeing the blue world of ice and snow as clearly as possible. From there, I soar home at cloud level, descend into my house and bring my consciousness back into my body. Then, I’ll either stretch and get up, or continue on to another meditation.

You undoubtedly have some interesting sights within a short flight from your house. If not, feel free to take a longer one. I’ve even used this technique to visit the moon. From the air, even a small town’s lights at night are a beautiful sight.

I’d love to hear of your exciting experiences with this. Please post them below. Thanks, Curt

Body of Light Beach Visualization Meditation

Bliss at the Beach (Without the Beach)

by Curt Remington

With this visualization, you can briefly experience your natural heavenly state, as a higher vibration being of light. This will help renew your energy and release blocks to your health and happiness. As summer comes to an end, this visualization is a great way to continue experiencing the rejuvenating benefits of a warm day at the beach, and you don’t need to worry about sunburn.

Trunk Bay, San Juan, USVI

Trunk Bay, St John, USVI

This meditation originally came to me while I was in the San Juan Islands, for three days of relaxing and writing. The exercise got squeezed into the middle of that trip report, where it probably went unnoticed. Here it is now, in the meditation section where it belongs.

Meditation Exercise

Once you’re seated comfortably, take a deep breath and close your eyes. Grounding and running your energies is always a great first step. Then, briefly tense and relax each part of your body, starting with your face and neck, working down your shoulders, back and all the way to your feet.  Once you’re fully relaxed, with your eyes closed, imagine getting up and stepping onto a white sand beach.  The sea is aqua-blue and gentle waves are lapping at the shoreline.  As you step forward, visualize soothing bright light from the sun and sky soaking in, especially through the top of your head. This healing light causes the denser energy of your troubles and cares to flake off and fall away.  Soon what’s left is the shape of your body, made of light. With each step you become lighter and more filled with energy, able to run and jump effortlessly on the beach, feeling the soothing power and purity of this place. 
If you want, dive into the water and swim, enjoying its cooler healing effects.  After swimming, as long as you’d like, walk back out to a marble bench on the beach and watch the golden sunset as you dry in the sun.  Once you’re ready, either gently end your meditation or imagine your body of light walking back across the beach and stepping back into your more solid body that’s sitting comfortably meditating.

 I hope that you’ll feel lighter and healthier than you did before.