 Take a deep breath.
Put your hands on your heart. Take another deep breath. Feel into your presence. Notice where you are. Breathe into yourself and the present moment. And now... Pick a number between 1 and 100. Got your number? Go here  Breathe in the energy of a new day. Breathe out all that's behind you, all that's done. Today is a day you will be supported by the whole Universe. Today is a day all your hopes and dreams will be heard by the Divine. You are not alone today. You are loved and supported by all that keeps this world alive and moving forwards. Your deepest desires are held in the hands of your Creator, where they are protected and nourished as they are brought to life. Today is a new day, full of new possibility. Today is a day of your own design. What you think about today will create the world around you. Think about what you love. Think about what brings you joy. Think about what makes you feel alive. Think about the flowers blooming, the birds soaring, and all that is well, right outside your window. Today is a new day. Breathe in the energy of a new day. Breathe out all that's behind you, all that's done. I wish you many blessings and moments of joy and love today. Melissa  Several years ago I went through one of the deepest and most introspective periods of my life. It was one of those “right time and right place” situations where all of the conditions conspired in my favor for this to happen. I’d just moved back from Holland, where I’d been living with my Dutch boyfriend. I was living back with my parents, and this gave me strong feelings of being both comfortable and safe. My time in Holland had been intense and brought up a lot of questions in me, particularly related to my happiness and my sense of self. With my heart and mind full of questions and my spirit in a place that it felt safe to grow and explore, the call to go within was both very strong and very natural. I meditated several times a day, sometimes for hours at a time. This is very strange for me to think about now, because that kind of intense solitude and reflection feels like it was experienced by another person. However, a powerful calling and urge to let go and go within came over me during this period of time, which lasted about two months. I am forever grateful I honored the calling I felt to immerse myself in this time of meditation and reflection. Most of my experience revolved around the chanting of a mantra called HU. HU is a primal tone, like AUM (or om). It’s considered to be one of the sounds that, like aum, existed at the time of creation, and thus deeply and profoundly connects us back to the divine energy that was and is in everything that’s been created across all time and dimensions.  I had stumbled across HU on a bulletin board and I couldn’t deny a powerful feeling that it was important. Furthermore, I felt a continual urging to meditate on HU every day for 40 days in a row. I was intrigued but also conflicted. How could I give up that much of my precious time to sitting and chanting? What if nothing happened and the 40 days was a waste? What if EVERYTHING happened and I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t handle it? What was even causing this urging? What was beyond me that was sending this calling to me? It was this endless stream of questions that got me to begin my 40 days of HU. It was like looking at a guide book for an exotic land and knowing that if you traveled there it would forever change you. The desire to fulfill my curiosity propelled me on, and I had no idea then that this really would be an adventure. I was having my first experience with adventures in cosmic consciousness, and rather than board an airplane, I would sit each day and travel to the furthest reaches of my soul. Each day of using HU I received profound insights that changed the way I viewed myself, this world, the Universe and even the concept of life itself. Near the end I had one that opened me up in such a way that prepared me for the BIG one, the one that changed everything. In this initial moment of expansion, I continually heard the question in my mind during meditation, “What makes you amazing?” I tried to answer with what I felt were positive and honest things, such as I feel I’m amazing because I’m intelligent. I feel I’m amazing because I’m adventurous. I feel I’m amazing because I’m funny. And so on. But I was receiving a distinct NO back, a tangible feeling that I was not tuning into the real answer, and these answer were based on a purely human perspective. I needed to go wider, and it was then that I began to open up to everything. I felt myself go deeper into my meditative state, but it was a paradox, because the deeper within I went the more my mind and soul opened outwards. I stayed within my body, I was aware of my body, but I was also one with the mountains and sky, the rivers and the forests, and all the while I was being shown that THIS is what makes me amazing. I am amazing because I AM the mountain. I am amazing because I AM the night sky. I am amazing because I AM the fast flowing river that travels across continents.  It was only in this moment of deep meditation that, for the first time, I could feel what these statements meant. It wasn’t a beautiful thought where I looked up at the stars and pondered what it means to be made of star stuff. I was in the stars, and yet also, I was still me, sitting in my room, breathing so slowly and imperceptibly that I hardly moved. It was on the 40th day of my meditation that the experience I had been leading up to was revealed to me. I cannot say if it was the number of days that was important, or if it was simply because I leaned so deeply into the trust. I had no idea why I was keeping on for 40 days, and all I could do was trust that this period of self-discipline and self imposed isolation would be worthwhile. As I sat to meditate on the 40th day I wondered once again what I was doing, and if anything would happen. I had no idea what exactly I was meant to do or even what I was grasping for. I could only lean further into the trust, and follow the feelings I was getting. As I meditated on this day I tried something I never had. I tried pushing the edges of my spirit up and out so fast that it did something I can’t quiet explain. It was almost as if I was creating friction, in the way that an airplane flies fast enough that it is flying on the friction it creates. I continued to push up and out, and watched with awe as the world shrank away. But like before, I was still in my body. I was once again seemingly in two places at once. I was in my body, sitting in my room, and I was out in the cosmos, expanding my soul past the edges of the solar system, past the galaxy, past planets billions of light years away. Opening. Expanding. Growing. Reaching. Flying. All at a speed I cannot comprehend. It was all happening in a way that was beyond what I could consciously think about, it was just happening, and I was both a participant and a curious observer. I went out so fast and so far that I came to the edges of the Universe. Unlike my previous enlightenment, when I felt I am everything, my breathing was not light. It was heavy, slow and long. My body became so hot that sweat beaded up on my forehead. It was clear that something was happening, something so visceral that my body was heating up and breathing deep in response. At the edge of the Universe I faded through the edges and went… into the infinite. This is where words fail me. Even what I’ve written so far was a struggle to find the right words, the right descriptions, but here, I cannot even attempt to try and convey a sense of where I was. I was everything and I was nothing. I was completely relaxed, but in a state beyond relaxation. I had no awareness of even a concept like stress or worry, and so to say I was relaxed is not quite right. It was more like I was in a time and place where the feelings of love and joy where the only things that existed. To say feelings of stress, sadness and worry weren’t real seems impossible as I write this, and yet, in that place, they didn’t exist, and nothing could have felt more real or more true. I had a vague awareness of my body and the room I was still in. Everything was dark, but at the same time, it was not an emptiness. It was so full of rich feeling that every drop of air felt full of what I suppose can only be described as nirvana. There was no emptiness and yet it was all empty. I was bigger than the whole Universe, and yet, I was the Universe, and I was as small as the person I am now. There was no time. Before, after, now, then, none of it existed. I understood everything, but I had no thoughts. I understood in a way that I felt the knowing. I felt the truth. Everything was so simple, so pure, so light and easy, but at the same time, it was beyond me, it was a paradox, because afterwards I did not understand at all. I was not able to retain the all knowingness, which makes no sense because how can you lose that? I don't know. I really don't. I can only share what I felt.  Despite the feeling of infinite time, it felt like I had reached this place for a fleeting moment. As I came back it felt like I was dissolving through a thousand layers of silk and cotton. Floating back through the layers of reality I came back to me, even though I always was me in that expanded state. As I came back in I felt a sadness, a sadness so palpable I was surprised by it. I couldn’t understand why I felt so sad, and then I realized, this is how I’ve always felt. I was full of so much joy and love in that state I now had something to compare my natural feelings to. It was only upon my return, when the contrast was perfectly clear, that I became aware of how I really feel. It wasn’t that I walk around all the time with a sad and heavy heart. It was just that the love I felt in that moment was so deep, so profound, that I couldn’t help but feel how far away from it I live in my everyday life. To even call what I felt love is undermining the feeling. It was something beyond love. It was like all the love I’ve ever known heightened, intensified, and expanded. I can only describe it as the love beyond love. Love is not the right word for it, but there is no word, and to say it was love a million light years beyond the love I have for my family or life or the earth is all I can say. It was in fact so big and so deep that I didn’t feel ready for it, here and now, as the being I am. For a few days after this experience I would get waves of that sublime, all expanding love, and it was so intense and overwhelming I became dazed by it. Not in a bad way. I was again so relaxed I was beyond relaxed. It was just clear to me I wasn’t ready to live in this state of expanded love and truth, and in many ways, I liked that feeling. I like being here in this world, as I am, experiencing the rich vastness of emotions and feelings that are available to me. Since I had those two experiences I have never slipped back into that all expansive, all knowing state. I have come close, and begun to feel my body turn into such lightness that I could feel myself fading through the layers of reality, but never again have I crossed that threshold. And yet, the experience is always with me, like a memory from a trip that dramatically altered the course of my life. Sometimes I forget that I even had this experience, and I lose myself in the dramas and day to day realities of this world. Which is actually kind of amazing, because when I do find myself deeply rooted in what feels like struggle, it gives that experience of expansion and enlightenment even more richness and contrast. It makes it feel that much more alive and profound, and it is a continual reminder to me that this is a world of balance. This is a world where we get to feel the unbelievably rich feeling of physical touch and reality. It is also a world where we get to awaken our spirits, to feel the exquisite lightness of our infinite souls. If I could take this experience and put it in your heart for you to feel also, I would, because it was perhaps one of the most important moments of my life. It was the first time I truly felt not just who I am, but what I am. It was my first taste of how truly brilliant and magnificent and GRAND I really am. It was my first sense of my power, my real power, not the kind of power that turns people into dominant leaders, but the kind that I could use to create my own reality. The kind of power that lets me know I am so full of richness and resources that success is a given. The kind of power that lets me know that no matter what happens, I will be okay, because within me as a connection to the most infinite and divine resources. But even if I could give you this experience, deep down you wouldn’t want me to. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the beautiful awakening that would occur within you to get yourself there. However, I don’t want to tell you this story and leave you feeling I have nothing to offer to at least assist you in your own cosmic consciousness adventures. It was after this experience that I began creating my guided meditations. Each one is like a light on the trail, and they will all help you to find your way, in the way that is right for you, to this source of the truth of yourself. What you find in meditation will be what is right for you. What is right for you will continue evolve during your life. By relaxing, temporarily letting go of attachment to outcomes, and tuning into your natural self, you will find your own insights and awakenings about life. Yours will be different than mine, because we are all unique and all experiencing life from our own unique perspective. Which is what makes meditations so beautiful and perfect also. You can’t get it wrong, and when you share your insights, you expand my awareness, because you help me to see the Universe and life in a new way. If you'd like to try a guided meditation with HU being sung in the background, I have incorporated it into my meditation "I am the Universe, the Universe is me." Click here to hear a sample and purchase the mp3 (or click the image below).  |