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PART II:

Mental Health Respite, A Coping Skills Experiential Blog 

 
with Dr. Lydiana Garcia
11/01/2020
 

 

Guided Meditation

As you settle in, whether you're sitting or lying, or you're walking and taking a very slow walk out of distractions as much as possible, this would be a great time to:

 

1. Notice and imagine that you feel pulled down into the earth, noticing from your head all the way to your toes.

How can you make contact with the earth, even if it's on the floor in your house, or the ground or the grass in the patio. 

  • If you’re standing or walking, notice how your toes are making contact with your shoes or with the ground. 
  • If you're sitting in a chair, press your feet against the ground. 
  • If you're sitting crossed-leg, you’d want to push with your hands.

 

2. As you do that, notice your breath. 

  • You can either close your eyes, if that feels soothing, and safe for you. Or you can keep them open and just lower your gaze to a specific point.
  • Visualize white or gold light coming all the way from your head, entering your body. As it goes down to your extremities and body, it’s taking away all the tension and melting it out. And the tension is coming down through your feet, through your hands in the floor, and is also expanding via your heart.
  • For those of you that watch Care Bears, imagine a Care Bear just kind of radiating light through the heart. 

 

3. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth while imagining that you’re inhaling and exhaling through your heart. 

 

4. Now, imagine that you are walking into a beautiful garden, kind of like the secret garden. 

  • There's a little door you discovered among the bushes, and as you're opening this door and going in, you're noticing the flowers, the scent. 
  • All the way at the end, there's a little room or a gazebo that has a round, big table. 
  • As you get closer to that table and chairs, you notice that there's some people sitting in that table. These people are different protective figures, it could be any higher self and spiritual guidance or loved ones that want the best for you, and you can fill as many chairs as you notice with your protective figures.
  • Say hi to them in whatever way resonates with you. 
  • You're going to sit down and look around and notice each person that is sitting there is your protective person. People that feel safe for you, people that you trust, people that have the best interest for you, that love you.
  • And as you do that, ask a question about something that's going on with you right now. Maybe ask for support, guidance, and just ask your questions.
  • You can hear the responses from each person that is sitting in the table and they are going to go one at a time.
  • I invite you at this time to just receive their messages, their love, their support, and thank them. And this will be a good time if you want to pause and write down the messages that you got from them.
  • Imagine yourself standing, saying goodbye and walking back to the entrance of this garden. 
  • Notice how it looks again, all the different scents, notice the small door where you came through. 
  • Try to take a minute or a second to kind of like just sink it in and exit the place. 
  • As you exit the place, you will come back to the present. Start wiggling your toes, your fingers, stretch if you have to.
  • And you can journal more about it.

 

You can also do these skills and exercises by listening to the full podcast episode at https://www.thebeyondresiliencelife.com/blog/mental-health-respite-a-coping-skills-experiential-episode 

To get a copy of the worksheet with these reflective questions and information on how to create your resources, please join The Beyond Resilience Life community via the Mighty Network App HERE.

 

I hope this was helpful. And whether you did all three or if you did just one part of it, I want to honor you. It takes so much to do something for ourselves nowadays, there's so many distractions. So taking this time for you and honoring rest and the importance of nurturing yourself, it’s so important. 

In case you've been kind of questioning your life, your worth, and thinking about hurting yourself or significantly hurting yourself, you can come and you can call that count. And you can call the National Suicide Prevention Prevention Lifeline, the phone number is 1-800-273-8255, it's 1-800-273-8255 it's available 24 hours, and the languages are English, Spanish and more.

I also want to remind you that you're not alone in this journey. I cannot necessarily be in physical presence with you but I'm here via my voice in The Beyond Resilience Life Podcast, and I am with you in this. We're together in this difficult, crazy times.

 

With Love, 

Dr. Lydiana

 

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