Positive Self-Talk Day 6: Your Inner Geography

Hello and welcome to Day 6 of the positive self-talk challenge. I am often my own best client for my coaching and today is no different. This post should have gone up on Saturday of last week but I was at a conference and didn’t make it happen. I had hoped to get all my posts scheduled ahead of time but got overwhelmed with work and making sure my family would be taken care of while I was gone. I could be sitting here beating myself up, feeling guilty for not getting this post done sooner or ignoring the topic and just putting the post up as if nothing had happened.

That would feel out of integrity for me so here I am, sharing that I do feel like I let myself down by not getting my 7-day challenge completed in 7-days. If you have been taking the 7-day challenge I apologize if you were looking for the post and found it missing and I hope that you continued on your personal journey towards self-acceptance and treating yourself with loving kindness. That’s what I am focusing on in this moment, staying connected with my feelings and being vulnerable with you. I am not perfect and I often make mistakes. I have learned to not let those mistakes hold me back or become an excuse to berate myself. I just acknowledge them and move on.

I experienced some major breakthroughs over the weekend around self-acceptance, my commitment to myself and my business and what I need to hold on to and release. I love the idea of an Inner Geography as an analogy for describing the landscape where I find myself right now. Geography can be a powerful touch point for connecting with your inner voice.

 

Today I want to talk about your Inner Geography as an expression of self-acceptance. I am facilitating a workshop called the Geography of Grace based on the work of Parker Palmer. I love his work and I love the spaciousness of Circles of Trust work. I am sure you will here me talk more and share more about this as the year goes on.

Tonight is our first session and I will be sharing a wonderful guided visualization that I felt called to share with you here. Read through the visualization once and then take the time to sit and go through the questions. Have your journal ready to answer the questions that follow.

Visiting your Sacred Space

Some people say that one’s sense of place is deeply spiritual, for it is clear that what nurtures one person may not appeal to another. To begin this exploration, I want to invite you to relax, close your eyes, and find a sense of belonging and home through this inner geographical journey. The beauty of the imagination is that when you picture something, your body doesn’t distinguish between your thought and the actual experience. Our thoughts and imaginations are powerful portals.

Get in a comfortable position, close your eyes, and place your hands in your laps with your palms facing upwards. Begin to breathe very slowly and deeply. It is said that, like the plant world, we receive and replenish our energies through air, or breath, through light, and through contact with the earth. During our time together, we invite you to remember to replenish yourselves intentionally by contacting these sources of the land often. This grace is always available to us.

Breathe in slowly for seven counts, hold one count, then breathe out seven counts. Pause for one count, then repeat. (Do this 5 times.)

Now, placing your left hand on your heart, shift your breathing to breathing slowly through your heart. Find your home in your heart, which is the strongest muscle in your body. When your heart slows down, the rest of your body entrains to that and relaxes. Slowly breathe through your heart 5 times.  

Now, picture your favorite place on the planet and imagine yourself there… (pause)… What does it feel like to be here…? (pause) Settle down in this place and look around… (pause)…What is the weather like…? (pause) The light…? The wind…? What do you hear…? How does this place speak to you…? Just let yourself be in this place for awhile and rest. (Wait at least a minute.)

Breathe it in…

Come home to this place…

Before leaving, ask: What kind of grace do I find here in this sacred place?

Slowly, return to the room and write for about 5 minutes on what you experienced in your sacred place. 

Continuing the journey through your Inner Geography

Now that you have had time to explore your sacred place, I want to ask you another question that will further your exploration of geography.

There is much variety in the geography on this planet: the coastlines and deserts, the tundra and canyons, the jungles, forests and wetlands, and countless others. What all landscapes share in common are encounters with the weather, the play of light and shadow in the cycle of the days and seasons, the influence of what lives and grows on them, of erosion and time, and a vulnerability to human impact. These inner and outer landscapes often reflect patterns and paradoxes, offering healing and nourishment to the spiritual imagination.

The question I want you to journal on is:

What geography might describe where you are right now in your inner life as we begin this program? Would it be the rough waters on a river? The desert, the sea, the open space of the prairie, a meadow, the mountains, or a silent forest?

 

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