Imagine walking through a beautiful forest that is abundant with plants, trees, rich soil, fresh streams, birds and animal life, and after walking for a while you decide to have a rest, so you sit down on a nearby rock amongst the wonder of all this beauty. You are a little tired, and as you sit quietly you begin to smell the freshness of the air and listen to the sounds of the water as the stream splashes and flows over the rocks. You begin to appreciate the majesty of all the plants, ferns and trees as you gaze at the magnificent setting that you find yourself in. You feel thirsty, so you go down to the stream, cup your hands together and scoop out a handful of water to quench your thirst and you taste the fresh, clean, rich water that is so effortlessly flowing. As you sit down by the water’s edge you take in your hand some of the soil from the ground and your rub the moist soil between your fingers and palm of your hand and you begin to feel blessed and grateful for been able to be here and take in all this magnificent beauty. The thoughts that were racing through your mind are gradually becoming quiet and there is a stillness coming over you.

As you notice your mind becoming quieter and your thoughts becoming clearer you begin to become more aware of your physical body, so you sit upright, your spine straightens and you start to notice your breath. You realise how shallow your breathing usually is, so you begin to breathe more deeply as you remember been told about how breathing from your abdomen  will lengthen your inhalation and exhalation thereby drawing more oxygen in and expelling more carbon dioxide out. You begin to enjoy just sitting and being, while you become more immersed in your breath. Before you know it, 20 minutes has passed and you feel different; you are much more in tune with your body as you become more aware of your muscles, joints and skin. You feel energised and awake. Your body feels relaxed and so too does your mind. Your thoughts are clearer and more focused and you become aware that there is a deeper side to yourself, you begin to realise that you are more than your physical body and the thoughts that you think. You begin to imagine that there is a perfectly serene, inherently intelligent, peaceful and powerful side to you that is hidden beneath your normal personality that you know as your normal self, the one that you have become used to and present to the world every day.

As you continue to enjoy breathing slowly and deeply, experiencing yourself in this refreshing new way, you feel positive about who you are and how you feel, your negative self-judgement is disappearing and is being replaced by the realisation of a new potential that is lying within the depths of your true self. The words, “I am” come to you, and you start to repeat this mantra “I am” quietly within your own mind, you imagine yourself as a deeply powerful and peaceful person that is far greater than any problem that is keeping you back from becoming the true person you were born to be. After a while your body and mind being to feel connected, as if they are merging into one space. You begin to let go of what and who you think you are and you begin to experience yourself without thought but as awareness, as a feeling, that is positive, that just is.

Bringing this into our reality

There is a way that can lead us back to our original self that will allow us to discover a more meaningful way to approach life. However we need to be humble enough to be open to new ideas, which will allow our true essence to flow through us. Our minds are incredible tools, but they should not restrict  us to the point where we can not evolve any further. The process of awakening starts by quietening our minds and our thoughts so that  our programmed thought patterns can give way to new ideas that can over time become our new truth.

Imagine living life feeling optimistic, healthy, young, peaceful, joyful, content, grateful and always being able to see opportunities instead of problems. These characteristics are what we need to make us feel that our lives are moving forward, and that we are living life with a purpose. 

Unless we are taught these goals and values, our lives will become moulded from the suggestions we encounter daily from what we see and hear, and our purpose, desires and intentions become the result of the suggestions that we encounter everyday. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging suggestions as we do need to “live with the times” to be dynamic and “flow with the go” but if our soul purpose is directed only by external suggestions, we will never feel satisfied as the world around us is constantly telling us something different. These external suggestions come from the people that are close to us and that we we admire, as well as from the media in the form of news, advertising and marketing. And although all this information we constantly receive seems to be helpful, it is still there to satisfy either someone or some  organisation’s  needs or desires. We end up been guided to become a piece in someone else’s dream rather than our own. We need an authentic centre of intelligence that will be our guide and our true source of inspiration. 

This should be one of our most important goals in life, because once we have discovered this centre of intelligence, we start to become our own teacher. Yes we will be making choices and doing things that we will consider to be “mistakes”, but this forms part of our life experience and as long as we learn from our mistakes and do not repeat them, we will be constantly moving forward into a life that is better than what we knew before, and what we were, becomes irrelevant, as the present moment becomes filled with gratitude, power and presence. We will be living with self-confidence, personal power and self-awareness. What happens in the world around us will become increasingly less important, not because we become arrogant or unable to sympathise or empathise but because we know that this is not the real world, the real world is within us.

Let’s go