A Guided Meditation for Stress, Anxiety, & Quarantine Blues
The following guided meditation was originally published in Enough-ism: This Minimalist Wants More and on the Enough-ism Podcast.
This meditation aims to help you deal with pain, anxiety, trauma, daily stress, ongoing emotional fatigue, and negative self-talk by increasing your self-awareness and self-love. If you’re feeling the quarantine blues hard today, let this short meditation be but a small beacon of light to help pull you out of gloom and hopelessness and into joy and serenity, no matter where you are, physically or mentally.
You find yourself standing alone on a beautiful beach. You’re staring at the ocean. The wind is blowing gently. There’s a beautiful horizon that expands out into eternity. There is no one there with you except for yourself and your own thoughts. You are safe.
You look up at the sky. It’s a beautiful, bright blue. Fluffy clouds welcome you.
You look over to the left and in the distance, there is a beautiful white horse. He is slowly galloping towards you. You feel as if you know this horse — maybe in a past life, maybe in a dream, maybe in a memory. His mane is blowing in the wind. He is happy to see you. He comes closer and pauses as he approaches. He bows his head down to your feet to welcome you as if to say, “Hi. I’m here and I’m happy to see you.”
You give his head a little pat with your hand. He stands back up. The sun reflects off of his coat.
“Get on,” he says. Let’s go for a ride.”
You notice there’s a saddle on his back. You take your hands, grab onto his neck, gently, put your right foot in a stirrup, and bring your left foot around his body. You’re sitting upright on his back — so tall. You can see everything — every part of the land from way up here.
There are reigns. You gently grab them.
“Let’s go,” he says. “I know you are ready.”
You feel safe. This is part of your journey together.
You began galloping slowly along the shoreline. The ocean is to your left. The dunes are to your right. The wind gently blows in your face and you feel free.
For the first time, in a very long time, you are a part of nature. You are part of the world. You are a part of everything that has ever been created and everything that will be.
“Who are you?” you say to the horse, as you continue galloping along the shoreline.
“I am you,” the horse says. “I am your fears. I am your anxiety. I am your worries. I am your stress. I am what keeps you from sleeping at night. I am the thoughts that ruminate in your mind. I am the fears you have — most of which will never come true. I am the dreams you have — some of which will come true.”
Together, you continue riding. You notice the sun is beginning to set in the distance. The sky is turning a beautiful shade of orange, and red, and purple, and pink, and yellow. All of these colors seamlessly blending together in front of you, like an oil painting.
You realize the horse below you, is you. The horse below you is your baggage. The horse below you is everything you’ve been carrying with you. All of the pain, all of the fear.
You feel different than when you first stepped on this beach. This time when you think of what ails your mind, these negative emotions are not ones you are carrying. These emotions are not part of you. They do not define you. It is time to let them go.
You gently pull the reigns on the horse. He stops. You take your left foot out of his saddle. You swing your leg around. You slowly glide your body down off of the horse, onto the sand. The horse says to you, “I am everything that you no longer need. It is embodied in me. It is time to let it go. Are you ready?” he asks you.
“Yes,” you say. “I am ready.”
The horse bows his head down, once again, as if to say, “It is time.”
He gallops away towards the sunset, his brilliant glistening white body reflecting off of the light. You feel as if his body represents every hurtful word that has been said to you. Every hurtful word you have uttered to others. It is okay. For it is time to release all of that and disassociated from your identity and from who you are.
His body gets smaller and smaller as he finally vanishes away. Now you are there alone on the beach just as when you started, but it is different now, for you feel lighter. You feel cleansed. You feel hopeful.
The sun is now on the horizon. It is beginning to poke its way down, down into the sea.
You lie down on the sand. You began to stare up at the sky. Soon, the sky gradually transitions from day to night. Now it is nothing but you, the sky, and the sound of ocean waves. The stars are plentiful. You find yourself looking up at the sky. You get lost in the dots of light. You get lost in the galaxies.
In the corner of your eye, shooting stars dart from one side of the sky to the next. The moon is bright. It is a beautiful Crescent, a delicate U-shape that illuminates the night. It reflects off the waves as they have ebb and flow, as they rise and fall. You feel safe. This is a time of strength. This is a time of resilience.
You notice one star up in the sky that appears much brighter than the others. You stare at it. And soon, it becomes the only star you can see among the sprinkles of light. This star is nothing but a ball of light. Similarly to you, your true essence for you, like all living things, is nothing but a ball of light.
You find yourself saying out loud, perhaps spoken, perhaps whispered, or perhaps merely in your mind, three words. The words are: I am. And then your name. Say these words to yourself now.
I am ________.
Good. Let’s go deeper. Now you say, I am, leaving off your name.
I am.
Good. Now let’s go deeper. You now just saw the word, I, and nothing more. Go.
I.
Good. Now let’s go deeper. Now, imagine you are nothing but a ball of light and you are rising up towards that star to meet it, to welcome it, perhaps to give it a hug. You float up and up and up, up above the ocean. Up above the clouds, up above the atmospheres, towards the planets, towards the galaxies. Soon, you are there next to that star. Your two light bodies merge into one. Feel your body expand. Now you are that star. You are that ball of light in the sky. And now you are looking down at your physical body, the body that is on the beach. Looking back at that very star, both of these bodies, the physical body, and the star, are you. The star represents your true self. You feel safe as a star in the sky because it is who you are. It is who you are meant to be.
You look down at your physical body, small, lying on the beach. You know that this physical body is also you. It carries your fears, your anxieties — but those fears and those anxieties are not part of your identity. They have been created. They are reactionary. They exist in your mind, based on events that have happened in your life. They exist in your mind, based on memories. You realize they are not tied to you. And they do not define you. The negative emotions that you experience can be ones that you have the power to let go of. You have the power to extinguish them. You have the power to live just as this star lives in the sky — full of light, full of pureness, full of brightness, full of joy.
Your light body begins to fall gently back towards the earth. The star that you represent is now a shooting star. It is falling slowly, gracefully, gently back down, down, down towards your body. That lays peacefully on the beach. You fall until finally, your body gets closer and closer. The ball of light merges with your physical body. Now you are one. You have always been one. You are the same person who initially walked onto this beach. Yet you are different. You have changed. You feel strong. You feel like no matter what happens, you have the power and the resilience to get through it. You don’t need anything else in this lifetime to help you navigate the trials and tribulations. You don’t need anything outside of yourself to help you navigate this earthly journey. You don’t need anything outside of yourself to help you navigate. All you need is within you. All you need, you already have, and you will always have it.
You feel connected. You are on this beach by yourself, but you are not alone. You are there with the ocean, with the sky, with the stars, with the moon, with the wind, with the earth, you are ever knowing, ever-present, and ever beautiful. This feeling of peace. This feeling of joy. This feeling of connection is one that will stay with you today, tomorrow. And the next day. This is not a fleeting reaction. This is a long-lasting sense of joy and peace and stillness that will continue the rest of your day. As if you are wearing a coat of armor. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can steal your light. You are a shining star. You are brilliant. You are like a diamond in the rough.
We’re all stars. We are all light. We are all energy. And this energy is what the world is made up of. You of love. This love and this light fill the world. This love and light bring hope. This love and light bring joy to others. That is your mission here on earth: to bring happiness to yourself and to bring happiness to others. A simple mission, but one you can only do if you feel peaceful within yourself, for you cannot bring happiness to others unless you yourself have lightness. You are light as a feather. You are late, has a star. You’re as light as the expansive darkness in the sky.
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The end.
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Thanks for reading this excerpt from Enough-ism: This Minimalist Wants More. Can’t get enough of Enough-ism? ❈ Visit IAmEnoughism.com ❈ and follow @IAmEnoughism on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Medium. | Image credits: Unsplash.com
About the author: Yugen Bond, B.Msc., is a metaphysics writer, podcast host, and reiki master who once despised meditation, had both too much and nothing to wear, and didn’t know how to slow down her thoughts. What a journey it’s been. Time to share it with the world, especially with you. Business inquiries: enoughismpodcast@gmail.com.