Transcript of the Video
Hi friends it's Michele Mattix of Sedona Meditation Experiences with another episode of Sedona meditation adventures. This is my mostly weekly show where I come out to beautiful places in and around Sedona, Arizona and explore the outer terrain while exploring the inner terrain of yourself using mindfulness, meditation, and other awareness practices.
Thank you for joining me! I'm happy that you're here. This week I'm on top of what I call a hillock. It's a hilltop and i'll just show you a little panorama. Sedona is in the not too far distance so you can see all around me. There's signs of fire - I know it's probably hard to see in this little video on my iphone screen. i'm just going to sit down here so I can talk with you more comfortably.
This tree behind me that you see here has been burned. It's charred and I don't know when the fire happened but it's been a while - long enough for regrowth to be happening. In addition to that we've just had a couple of days of winter storm! We've had snow and rain and sleet and all kinds of stuff falling from the sky, so there's snow up here. You can see some white spots on the tree behind me. That's snow and it's melting as the sun comes out and the sky is cloudy and there's sprouts of greeneries coming up from the ground. Just a very dynamic day in a very dynamic place and it's that time of year.
That's what spring is about - it's about rebirth and it feels like that. It really feels just on the horizon of the pandemic and what we've been going through there's hope. You know there's signs of life coming back it'll be slow and I don't want to get too excited about it because we're not through it yet but there's definitely signs of hope.
I've just been reflecting on lessons learned during the pandemic and with the spring you know the lesson of renewal - rebirth - and what we have to really renew from. Like the charred out tree and other signs of fire on this hilltop. A real catastrophe happened here at some point in time and with time nature has healed that and now there's new life coming back. When I look at what i've lost - and you can reflect on what you've lost during this pandemic. Maybe you've lost loved ones, maybe you've lost your health - if you got sick with covid maybe you still have some lingering illness from that. Maybe you've lost situations like your job or your home or just the freedom to travel and come and go.
We've all lost something and it's important to be able to roll with the changes that life presents. If you're not able to roll with it then you resist. And resistance makes you brittle and it's difficult to really sway like a palm tree in the wind when you're rigid and resisting the wind.
You need to have a practice to really help you with that process and meditation is a beautiful practice for that. Meditation is like safe harbor in the storm. You can't make the storm go away but you can change how you respond to it. Meditation gives you that little bit of time each day where you just really sink in and visit and rest with your truest self. Taking that time to be with yourself and really see yourself and just experience the vibration of your core self - it's really that simple. Spending time doing that for yourself helps to build resiliency.
It's kind of magical that way. We don't know entirely how it works we just know that it does work so taking time in meditation when you're going through something difficult like a global pandemic or something very acute like maybe the loss of someone that you love - and that feeling of grief that can bring up all kinds of scary, big emotions. It's really important to sit with yourself and just let yourself be.
What happens is giving yourself that moment - it seems to build your ability to roll with the changes - the dynamic changes of life so you can be like the palm tree blowing in the wind instead of a more rigid tree that might snap in the wind.
So if you don't have a meditation practice, now is a really great time to start. What are you waiting for? You can join me right now. Let's do a little bit of mindfulness. We'll sit and just enjoy the peace. I'm in this micro environment of this tree that was lost to the fire but all of the richness of the soil that's giving way to new life sprouting up. I'm going to be in this micro environment and you can be somewhere - I encourage you to sit outside. Nature's the perfect place to enjoy these kinds of practices to open up and just let yourself feel the oneness of life around you. But if you can't be outside it's perfectly okay to be inside just don't do this practice while you're driving or operating any heavy machinery. You want to give yourself the time and the space when you have nothing else to do and nowhere else to be so you can really enjoy this safely.
Join me now go ahead and close your eyes and let's take a few long slow deep breaths. There's no right or wrong way to do that. I like to breathe in through my nose and fill up my belly and then exhale through my mouth.
And at your own pace and however feels right for you just take a couple of breaths like that.
And then let your breath become natural.
Allow your awareness to rest on your breath.
Without judgment observe yourself breathing.
That can be the mechanics of your chest rising and falling.
It can be the awareness of fresh air moving through your body.
And it can be the place where your breath wants to take you.
Let's enjoy a moment of silence together…and watch your breath
Oh that was nice! I love to take a few moments and just soak up the environment where I am and just let my energy merge with the energy all around me. I hope you enjoyed that too.
Thank you for joining me this week. If you're feeling like you're ready to travel and you're thinking of coming to Sedona, I offer a host of different meditation experiences ranging from 90 minutes to several days - where we meet for an hour each day while you're in Sedona. I also have full moon meditation experiences if you're fortunate enough to be in Sedona during the full moon. And I do personal, very customized retreats – one-on-one. We really dig into what it is that you want to work on… if it's deepening your meditation practice or maybe helping to let go and finding what's the next path in life for you, or anything pertaining to meditation. Working one-on-one with me will give you a lot of new tools and skills and also allow you to enjoy Sedona and see some beautiful places and really deepen your meditation practice.
If any of these things sound good to you then check out my website (www.SedonaMeditationExperiences.com/Retreats) and get in touch with me. I'd love to take you out for the meditation experience of a lifetime!
Until then my friends - be safe so thank you for joining me. I look forward to seeing you again soon. Until then, this is Michele Mattix saying goodbye for nowAdd paragraph text here.