An Exercise in Imagination

This meditation exercise, called “Discovering Your Imagination,” is borrowed from the book, Meditation, by Bill Anderton.  In this exercise a box is used as a focus for your meditation.  As you visualize the box, let your imagination take over.  allow items in the box to “appear”–these represent your thoughts and feelings.  It may help if you actually place an empty box in front of you and focus on it for a minute or two before you begin.

When you are ready to begin, close your eyes picture the box in your mind’s eye.

Imagine that the box represents your mind and you open it to discover that it contains certain objects.  What do you see inside the box?  Are these items that represent your life, your personality or your mood?  Perhaps these are random objects that don’t seem to make sense–they could be messages from your unconscious.

Then imagine removing each item from the box.  What feelings does each item arouse in you?  Accept your feelings, whatever they might be.  To end the meditation, imagine placing the items back in the box and then closing the lid.  Take a few deep breaths and open your eyes.

I have never tried the above exercise, but will definitely being doing so the next time I sit down with quiet time (which will probably be with a client, this afternoon, who definitely wants to get back to some meditation).  I am not sure that I would always put the objects back in the box.  In my mind, I would think about the feelings associated with the box and then decide which ones should be left out of the box completely!  But that’s me…I like to be in control!  I think it’s important to remember that even as we are NOT in control of what life hands us, we ARE always in control of how we react and respond along the journey.

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