I Am Valued.
“The best things in life are unseen. That’s why we close our eyes when we kiss, laugh and dream.” – Anonymous
Dream — one way to define this is as an involuntary vision occurring to a person when awake. That’s exactly what happened. A vision…and for the first time, in a long time, I once again felt awake.
I don’t know exactly when it was that I fell asleep, but I did. I closed my internal eyes to the harshness of the world, shut down and began to live life unconsciously. Being told one too many times that what I wanted was not good enough. Heart-wrenching rejection, resulting in the belief that I am unworthy overcame my life and I no longer felt I had the right to even feel.
After coming out of — as always — one of Tanis’ beautifully powerful yoga nidra practices and settling into sitting meditation, she gently guided us to bring to mind our sankalpa — a seed of transformation that is planted into the subconscious mind in the form of a short, simple and precise sentence. The one I am working with — that was given to me by Tanis — is, “I am valued.” I stated my sankalpa three times as she asked us to bring to mind what we want for ourselves, for our lives.
What do I want in my life? I was always told that what I wanted wasn’t good enough. How am I supposed to know what I want? I knew…but I had forgotten how to feel it within my heart. I wanted to feel it. What I truly wanted had gotten lost in the chaos of sensory stimulation overloaded in the pedestal of material gains. My automatic reaction had succumb to believe I had to think bigger. Fortune? Fame? What do I want? The material images slowly stripped themselves down and spontaneously…
A vision came to the dark space behind my eyes. A dream — so vivid. There I stood on top of the sphere of earth in an open golden-green field. Against my skin, I could feel a brush of fresh wind sweeping by and the warmth from the bright sun’s reaching rays. I stood there in the midst of people, animals and plant life forms in pure contentment with the sense of community. An array of limiting beliefs released themselves from the space of sky and dissipated like water evaporates into steam, revealing all the light from the sun’s body. And it was then that I knew who I truly was. I was awakened. Returned to my true essence.
It is when we can conjure up the courage to transform the storage house of our old belief systems that is no longer serving us and surrender ourselves to die, that we can then be reborn into who we are meant to be – stripped from the coverings of limiting beliefs.
That is yoga nidra. For as many times the world whirlwinds me once again, yoga nidra will gently guide me back to remember who I really am.
Deep Love,
