Most of us take time off to journey to new places within our own country or to travel to different countries.
We do this to take some time off the treadmill and to rest and rejuvenate so that we can return refreshed to our daily routine.
Sometimes going on holiday can be even more stressful than daily life. Flight delays, dodgy hotel accommodation, lost luggage and other obstacles can conspire to ruin our plans for restful recreation.
But most of the time, it can be a liberating experience to take time out of our daily cycle to explore other places. In fact, two of the older meanings of the word ‘vacation’ are ‘freedom’ and ‘release’.
A holiday within can be just as, or even more, fascinating than a journey outside to a far-flung corner of the planet.
These are the internal journeys that we take when we practise certain forms of meditation. Another meaning of the Latin word ‘vacare‘ is ‘to be empty’. Traditional forms of meditation often require you to empty your mind.
And just like with an external holiday, after travelling within, you can return to your daily life, renewed and refreshed.
So how do you travel within?
There are several ways. But taking some quite time alone to sit in silence and in stillness is perhaps the simplest method. It can be a very restorative and healing practice.
In silence and stillness, you can declutter your mind of stressful thoughts and temporarily remove yourself from the hassles of daily life.
Start off by observing your breathing and listening to the sounds in your immediate environment.
Then use the word Relax as a kind of mantra. As you breathe in, think “Re” and as you breathe out, think “lax.”
You can continue this exercise for ten to fifteen minutes.
This exercise should relax the rhythm of your breathing, slow down the speed of your thoughts and release the tension in your body.
Once you have achieved a degree of relaxation, you can then take a wander through your own imagination and see what images present themselves to your psyche.
Get to know and interpret the visual symbols in your mind’s eye and how they connect with the issues that you are currently experiencing in your life.
You can sometimes obtain interesting insights, creative ideas or solutions to dilemmas and problems simply from taking ten to fifteen minutes to sit in silence and allowing your unconscious mind to communicate with you.
We cannot always drop everything and go on an exotic holiday or a luxurious cruise.
But we can continue to travel within and take time out from the stresses of daily life through the practice of meditation.
With internal journeys, there are no flight delays and no luggage mix-ups. And of course, these journeys are absolutely free. The only cost is fifteen minutes of your own time.
So instead of getting lost in a maze of activity and stress, we can take a few minutes each day to connect with our unconscious and then return to our conscious life rejuvenated, relaxed and refreshed.
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Chan Punch is a Reiki Master who specialises in the practice of meditation for healing.
Visit http://www.creative-healing-meditation.com to explore meditation techniques for healing and creativity.
Her free Stress-Busting E-Course contains further stress reduction techniques:
http://www.creative-healing-meditation.com/free-stressbusting-ecourse.html
Tags: holidays, meditation, rejuvenation, relaxation technique, rest
