[LISA LEWIS] The Am I Ok? Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith Fringes, the Holistic Counseling Podcast, and Beta Male Revolution, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network. Welcome to the Am I Ok? Podcast, where you will discover that being highly sensitive is something to embrace and it’s actually a gift you bring to the world. We will learn together how to take ownership of your high sensitivity, so you can make positive changes in your life, in the lives of others, and it’s totally okay to feel this way. I’m your host, Lisa Lewis. I’m so glad you’re here for the journey. Welcome to today’s episode of the Am I Ok? Podcast. This is Lisa Lewis, your host. How are you all doing today? I hope you’re doing well. I would like to remind my listeners that I offer a free eight-week email course titled Highly Sensitive People. My email course provides weekly tools that help you feel more whole in a world isn’t exactly made for us and I show you how your sensitivity can be seen as a unique gift and how many others are just like you. To find out more about my email course, please go to my website, amiokpodcast.com. Well, we are in the month of May and this month in today’s episode, I like to continue with self-care journey and I’ve been providing some self-care tools guided meditations and visualizations. Today I’m going to continue with another visualization that I like to use for myself and with clients called a meadow visualization. As we know as highly sensitive people, whether you know this or not, that we can feel emotionally drained, over-stimulated we can take on other people’s energies and we need to clear this energy from our body, really our physical body energetically. So I’m going to help you do that today. With things returning to new normal, with things opening up right, May is a time for graduations and other traditions, getting together for barbecues, looking forward to summer plans. So a lot of things we’ll be reconnecting with people being in large crowds and as an HSP that can just feel overwhelming. We may look forward to it and enjoy it a lot and then feel afterwards like, oh my gosh, I feel so drained as we get used to being around people again. So I want you to sit back and relax. If you’re driving, please do not do this visualization, pull over or wait till you’re in a place where you can just relax. Remember to turn off all your electronic devices and be in a place where you’ll not be interrupted because I want you to get the most out of this visualization. I want you to receive all the benefits of it. So let’s get started. So getting comfortable in a chair or laying down on a couch or bed or on the floor, we don’t want to fall asleep, but just being comfortable and feel the bottom of your feet on the floor or on the bed. Take a few breaths in, inhaling and exhaling, inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, letting go of any tension, any stress, any anxiety and any fear or anything else. If you’re noticing any brain chatter, just scoop it up with your hand, scoop up that brain chatter and gently place it to the side of you or on a shelf. Acknowledge that you know it’s there but now you are taking the time for yourself to relax. Allow your tongue to gently fall away from the roof of your mouth. Now, relax your body, relax your mind, relax your eyes, your mouth, your jaw, your cheeks, your face, your scalp, the back of your head. Allow the relaxation to drift down your neck and into your shoulders. Let your shoulders drop and let the tension go, relaxing all the muscles in your back. Let the relaxation fill your arms and hands and fingers. Let it fill your chest and lungs. Notice how it feels as it fills the inside of your body. Let it surround your heart. Notice how gentle and quiet your breathing is becoming. Let the relaxation drift into your solar plexus, the area just beneath your ribcage, relaxing all of your organs, your pelvis area, and lower back. It is now filling your hips, your bottom and thighs, relaxing those muscles. It continues down to your knees and calves. Allow your ankles and feet to become relaxed. Wiggle your toes to let the tension out, let go of all the tension in your body and allow it to flow into the earth. As attention is released from your body, find yourself in a beautiful meadow that is surrounded by a majestic mountain range. Perhaps this is a place you visited before, seen in a picture or have created in your mind’s eye. Allow the image to appear and once you have that place, hold it in your mind, develop a clearer picture of it. Take a 360-degree look-around and allow yourself to see what is here. What do you notice? Examine the richness of the colors. Perhaps you see the vibrant colors of wildflowers that are in full bloom or the color of the sky. Let the colors come alive for you in this beautiful and serene meadow. Now invite your other senses into the experience. What sounds do you hear as you are standing in your meadow? Are there birds somewhere overhead? Do you hear the trickle of water flowing from a nearby stream or the sound of the wind gently blowing through the treetops? What about the smells? Do you smell the fragrance from the bloom wildflowers or perhaps the fresh smell of pine trees? Let your imagination run wild. There is no right or wrong answer. Feel the textures in your mind, the rough bark of a tree, the softness of a flower pedal or the smoothness of the rocks that lay near the stream. Are there any tastes that pop out in your mind? How about the refreshing coolness from a sip of water from the stream? Are there juicy wild berries growing that are sweet? Perhaps you smell the fresh pine from the pine trees. Remember anything you put in your meadow is up to you. As you notice all five of your senses, something in the far distance catches your attention. As you look ahead you notice a presence walking toward you and as it approaches you, you get a big smile on your face and a feeling familiar to you. Your loving spirit guide has come to greet you in this beautiful meadow that you have created for yourself. As your spirit guide approaches, you welcome each other. You exchange words and then decide to find a comfortable spot in your meadow to sit amongst each other in silence for a few minutes, to enjoy the loving presence of each other’s company. As you gaze into this presence, into each other’s eyes, your spirit guide has a message for you. Allow your spirit guide to give you the message that they bring you. Take it. if it doesn’t make any sense, just allow it to be here, hear it. Now it’s time to say goodbye to each other. You thank your spirit guide for this visit and know that you can reach out to this loving presence at any time. It is there for you and with you at all times, and you are never alone. So take one last look around in this beautiful serene meadow that you have created for yourself. Take a kinesthetic imprint of this spiritual place and special place in your body just like you are taking a photograph. When you’re ready to leave your meadow acknowledge the gratitude of creating this space for yourself. Gently, bring yourself back into the room that you’re in by wiggling your fingers, wiggling your toes, taking a deep inhale and exhale, stretching your arms overhead, and slowly opening and closing your eyes taking as much time you need. Thank you for tuning in today. Please know what you thought of the episode. Send me an email to lisa@amiokpodcast.com. And remember to subscribe, rate and review wherever you get your podcast. It really helps me if you rate and review the podcast and also to let others know about it. So please tell your friends, family members, colleagues. Also to find out more about highly sensitive persons, please visit my website at amiokpodcast.com and subscribe to my free eight-week email course to help you navigate your own sensitivities and to show you that it’s okay not take on everyone else’s problems. This is Lisa Lewis reminding each and every one of you that you are okay. Until next time be well. Thank you for listening today at Am I Ok? Podcast. If you are loving the show, please rate, review and subscribe to it on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you’d like to learn how to manage situations as a highly sensitive person, discover your unique gift as a highly sensitive person, and learn how to be comfortable in your own skin, I offer a free eight-week email course called Highly Sensitive People. Just go to amiokpodcast.com to sign up. In addition, I love hearing from my listeners, drop me an email to let me know what is on your mind. You can reach me at lisa@amiokpodcast.com. This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want to professional, you should find one.