Hello, beautiful soul, and welcome to Meditate with Mandy. I’m Mandy, and it is an absolute honor and privilege to be sharing space and presence with you today.
Go ahead and get cozy and comfy in your space, my sweet friend. Feather your nest. Allow your body to find that posture that is both relaxing and supportive of alertness.
And when you’re there, gently flutter your beautiful eyelids closed like butterflies and take a deep breath in through the nose, and let it go through the mouth. Another in through the nose, and out through the mouth. In through nose, out through mouth. And last one, in through nose. Hold at the peak, and sigh it out through your mouth.
Beautiful, my sweet friend.
Now allow your body to inhale and exhale through the nose at your own pace, at your own rhythm, whatever feels aligned.
Today, we’re going to bring our awareness to the center of our chest, to that sweet home. And as usual, we’ll anchor ourselves there, using the breath to stoke the white light of awareness, almost as if it were flame.
On our inhales, when we feel our chest rise, we’ll see that white light grow there. And on our exhales, when we feel our chest fall, we’ll see that white light anchor there.
Let’s witness our heart center with our full, loving awareness.
Let’s look at it physically.
How does it feel when our chest expands? Are muscles loose and easy in the chest, or is there any contraction? What does it feel like to pull in air through our nasal passageway, through our windpipe, into our lungs? How oxygenated do we feel? How alert? How awake? Is our heart beating faster or slower than usual?
Do we feel any physical symptoms of anxiety or deep relaxation?
Or are we dancing on the razor’s edge?
For me, some of my most heightened moments of awareness are right in the middle, an undefinable zero space where I am neither relaxed nor anxious.
Or perhaps I’m both.
When we’ve witnessed physically, we move into a mental witnessing now.
We focus on the center of our chest, the sternum area between our ribs.
What thoughts arise?
What thoughts arise about our physical witnessing? What thoughts about our to-do list or our agenda in the future arise? What thoughts about the past arise? Rumination about recent little entanglements or power struggles, realizations?
What personality is the mind wearing right now?
The spiritual guru?
The pragmatic anthropologist?
The frazzled, well-meaning people pleaser?
Or no personality at all?
And then we move to the emotional world as we look at the center of our chest, as we witness what emotions rise up in the land between the physical and realm of mind.
What do we feel emotionally?
A sense of warmth and expansion that we might attribute to joy or openness?
A sense of contraction, constriction that we might attribute to stress or overwhelm?
Might we feel curiosity or inspiration, or mirth, amusement, or sadness and grief?
Stress?
Let’s witness it all and understand that we may recognize how to define or label some things, and others we might not.
And yet, everything we witness is still absolutely valid, even if we don’t have the language to describe it, define it, prescribe it, or categorize it.
Let’s just witness all three realms for a moment:
Body.
Mind.
Emotions.
As they choose to take your awareness.
And periodically, just bring yourself back to the breath.
Here we go.
[Silent interlude]
Beautiful.
Beautiful, my sweet friend.
Glorious.
Now join me with your alert awareness.
Bring it to my voice, please.
As you breathe in through your nose and out through your nose, we are now going to grant you a higher authority, a key that builds on all we’ve learned.
So relax your shoulders.
Release your jaw muscle.
Smooth your eyebrows, your forehead, your scalp, and let a ripple of relaxation move through your entire body from head to toe.
We’re now going to move our awareness ever so gently up from the center of our chest to our Throat Chakra.
If it is comfortable for you and you have the hand to do it, gently take your hand and draw it to your throat, right at the base of your neck.
You may have an indent between the two muscles and tendons of your neck, right where your neck meets chest and collarbones.
Just place your index and middle finger, whichever one or both if they’re available, right there in that nook.
And breathe into it for a moment, just as we were doing into our chest.
In through nose.
Out through nose.
And feel the movement under your fingers.
If hand and fingers aren’t available, just feel it through your own skin, becoming fixated on the feeling of breath moving through your throat, past this nook.
And unlike the heart center, which is a destination, it’s where life force goes to rest for a moment and be absorbed, the Throat Chakra is different.
It is not a destination.
Only when the Throat Chakra is imbalanced is it a destination.
Only when it is imbalanced do words go there to die.
Only when it is imbalanced does life force stop moving through it.
But when it is balanced, my sweet friend, there is constant movement.
It’s a chariot.
And it takes all the truths of your heart and carries them up and out of your body and into the world.
It’s a vehicle.
It’s a spellcaster.
It’s a boundary maker.
It’s a truth teller.
And a lie detector.
And today, we activate it.
Gently remove your hand now, if it was there.
Place it back at your side or wherever is comfortable.
And just watch this space for a moment at the base of your neck.
So not the neck itself, not the center of the neck as it’s so often depicted in imagery, but it’s the base where neck joins chest.
It’s the nook.
And you’ll feel right into it as you bring your awareness, because your awareness will naturally sit right in this place, like a jewel clicking into a setting.
As we breathe, we’re going to bring the same quality of awareness that we started with to this space.
Again, not to prescribe or describe.
But to witness what arises with love.
And to let this center of energy know that it is safe to come online in its full power.
Let’s witness as a friend to our Throat Chakra.
As a guide to our Throat Chakra.
As a parent.
A steward.
A partner.
And a lover.
Here we go.
[Silent interlude]
Beautiful, my sweet friend.
Beautiful.
From the witness perspective, give a sweet smile to your Throat Chakra.
Welcoming it to the game.
We’re all gonna have so much fun together.
Feel the connection between your heart and your throat.
Two open channels.
Ready to give.
Ready to receive.
But always in motion.
Let’s go ahead and seal this beautiful alchemy with our breath.
We are going to do five for change and movement and the welcoming of the new.
So bear with the process.
Let’s take it easy, starting with the first in through the nose, out through the mouth.
Here we go.
Inhale in nose.
Exhale out mouth.
Old energetic residue is released.
Inhale in nose.
Exhale out mouth.
Old words never spoken are released.
Inhale in nose.
Exhale out mouth.
Doubts and fears released.
Inhale in nose:
Power.
Exhale out mouth:
Power.
Inhale in nose:
Joy.
Exhale out mouth:
Confidence.
Beautiful, my sweet friend.
Glorious.
Return to your balanced nasal breathing, your own pace, your own way.
And when you’re ready, my sweet friend, chakras agleam, flutter those beautiful eyelids open to greet your world, your dream, your playground.
I am so very proud of you and so humbled to initiate you into a new frequency of consciousness.
For every chakra is a gate.
It’s a hum.
A sound.
A note.
A vibration.
And it welcomes in with it a new reality that you are more than ready for.
So, my beloved, until we meet again, I am sending you all of the love that I’ve got.
It is always more.
It’s never less.
Because you, my sweet, sweet friend, you are so very worthy.