Chopra Center 21-Day Meditation Challenge | Day 8 | The Salty Smell of Ocean Air

I find it interesting that tonight's meditation (video below so that you may experience it, too), was on ocean waves.

The video was shot in Carlsbad, a beautiful town on the coast in Southern California, not too far from San Diego.

I could literally smell the ocean breeze during this experience. It takes some suggestibility and a quite an imagination to have such a vivid sensory experience during meditation.  I really enjoyed how realistic it made the experience.  I felt, for those few moments, as if I were looking down at the ocean waves from one of the rocky cliffs overlooking the great expanse of water.

This particular meditation is somewhat of a personification of my present state of being.  I've been riding waves of emotion, sometimes crashing, and sometimes flowing naturally and smoothly.

 
As I participated in this meditation, I noticed that there were moments when I was paying full attention to the waves - their size, the color of the ocean, the spray emitted by their crashes, the imagined smell...and there were other times when my mind drifted off and my muscles became tense. I was thinking about things that have recently happened or worrying about upcoming events - both real and imagined.

Rather than try to force myself back into the present moment, I first acknowledged that the state I was in - one of anxiety and apprehension, was my reality at the moment. I didn't try to run away from it. I didn't fall into shame.

I noticed how, no matter whether I paid attention or fell into fearful thinking, the ocean kept doing it's thing.  It came in. It went out. Ebbs and flows.  The heartbeat of the earth...waves...

We carry on too, even in those times of ups and downs.  We make it through even the difficult waves that we experience.  Life is intelligent and supports us - it's quite easy to see this after observing the ocean, even for just a few moments.

I hope you enjoy.

(Watch in full-screen for the best experience.)





Namaste,
Debbie aka Sulilo