Creative Meditation to Release Stress

Don't pigeon-hole yourself into believing that meditating must conform to established or preconceived standards. Meditation can be done with your eyes open or closed, sitting or standing, inside or outside, in silence or with sound, upright or upside down, and any other format that works best for you. Afterall, meditation is for you and you alone. It can be whatever you want it to be at any given moment.

For instance, my acupuncturist in D.C., has taught me several fun ways to meditate over the years during our sessions. One of my favorites is perfect during the fall season.

Take a variety of colored leaves that have fallen off of the trees. Using a marker, write down on the leaves the items that you want to remove from your life. For the leaves below, I wrote down several common stressors that exist in many of my client's lives. Stress. Emotional Eating. Negativity. Control. Bad Habits.

As you write on your leaves, allow the leaf to become that stressor by fully releasing it from your mind, body, and spirit. Take several deep cleansing breaths with your eyes open or closed. Inhale peace and love. Exhale the stressors from your body. Feel your body releasing them.

Now take your leaves and allow the wind to blow them away; taking your stressors along with them permanently...never to return back to your mind, body, or spirit. Alternatively, you can place the leaves in a stream, river, lake, or even ocean as I did below.

As you watch the leaves either blow or wade away, enjoy the feeling of freedom from your stressors. Thank the Earth for accepting your stressors and helping you to live your life more fully.

No leaves? No lake? No wind? No worries! You can use these pictures to create a mental picture of your meditation experience. Enjoy!