Using Meditation as a Healing and Therapeutic Tool The concept of using meditation as a healing tool was introduced to me when I was in therapy for depression, to help me learn how to let go of the negative emotions and negative situations that had happened to me and still controlled how I felt about myself and who I was. I had allowed these emotions and situations to controlled my self-esteem, keeping me trapped in the past and unable to move forward in my life.
Using meditation to change these emotions and situations was a powerful gift. When you use meditation in this way you take the situation that happened and you resolve it in a natural way, a way that is comfortable and special to you. I would like to share a mediation that was given to me in therapy called “The Glass House.” I use this glass house meditation in three different ways. I will walk you through the first way and then I will also give examples of two other personal meditations I came up with to heal past events and negative situations that occur in life. All three of these meditations are very powerful and fulfilling. You will then have the power to make them your own and use them as you feel you need to.
The following meditation worked wonders for me, and I was able to close out many longstanding problems that were still impacting me in my everyday life. I feel the only way to change a negative experience that has caused trauma in your life is to counter it with a positive one- one that clears out the negative situation and replaces it with a positive one. In doing so you now have a new memory and a new experience that is far more powerful and positive than the original. What makes it so powerful is the fact that you created it yourself and you truly believe it in your mind, body and soul. We cannot control what may happen to us at the hands of others, but we can make an outcome for ourselves that is positive and allows us to move forward in a health way. This helps us heal the past and paves the way for a happy and bright future.
After the Glass House we will look at two other meditations that are extensions of the glass house, building on the same environment.
The Glass House meditation is a special meditation, a place to clear out negative emotion and situations that have been hurting you and replace them with positive ones.
This is how it works: you go to the glass house in your mind, and it can be any type of house, big, small, it doesn’t matter. It can be anywhere you wish it to be, you are in control of what it looks like and where it is, which is part of it being so therapeutic because you make it personal and unique to what will be relaxing for you specifically.
What happens in the house is truly special. Once you are in the glass house you will see that there is a wonderful kitchen with a massive sink and high-pressure washer hanging above it. There are these dirt glass jars that are filled with negative emotions and there are labels on the front of every bottle. These labels are the negative emotions that you have and you want to change in your life. Hate, guilt, humiliation etc. The idea is that you take that dirty jar and you empty it out and scrub it clean, making sure that it is totally free from all dirt, which represents the negative emotion.
Then you reach over to the tap, which has ice cold spring water coming out of it, and you fill the jar. Then take the label off the jar and replace it with a new one, a new emotion, a positive emotion. You then take a long drink of this water and you allow it to fill your body with the new emotion. You become that emotion and kill off the negative one that was once in the jar. Then take the jar and place it on a shelf with other jars you have done the same procedure to already.
You keep these jars on the shelf in plain view so you can see them every time you visit the glass house. You may even drink from them again and fill yourself up with that positive emotion if you need to. You can visit this glass house anytime you’d like, it is a safe place like my tree or whatever your safe place is. You are in a place where you are free to feel and deal with anything in your life or just go and relax. You are always free to just look at the jars and feel proud of yourself for what you have accomplished in the past.
This meditation is very therapeutic in many ways. When you are washing out the jar you are physically washing way a situation in your life that caused you to feel negative emotions. The act of cleaning is the act of taking away the power it had over you and then replacing it with a new emotion you want to believe is alive in you. The water is black and negative so you pour it down the drain and you empty yourself of the negative emotion.
You put a new label on the bottle that is positive, one that you want to believe about yourself. You drink the water and you allow yourself to feel the positive emotion and energy. You believe this change has happened inside of you because you have taken it into your body and in doing so you fully believe it and accept it. You take the time to allow the cold, clear water to fill you with that emotion, you feel it in your body and allow it to become real. This can now feel like a physical thing that has happen to you.
The bottles are always kept on a shelf like
trophies you have earned, as proof of what you have accomplished. Not only that but you are welcome to drink from them anytime to replenish these positive feelings and emotions when you feel you need to. These bottles become a recourse to you and you can go to the glass house any time you need to fill your body with the strength and happiness that is in each one.
Below is an excerpt from my book “Why I Run” where I used the glass house as a way to close out an EMDR session, where I learned to change failure to success. After you read this excerpt, I will share with you my glass house meditation.
When I finally finished proving myself wrong over and over again I went to my safe place and just thought of nothing but taking in air through my leaves and out through my roots. I stayed in the tree till I felt I was ready, and then I did the last thing I needed to do.
I have a house we go to sometimes to help close out the therapy sessions. It's a meditation exercise. A glass house sits in the middle of a beautiful, green grass field surrounded by a forest of tall trees.
This house is a peaceful place. It is a laboratory where some large bottles with water in them are kept. They are all labeled with words that represent my emotions, good and bad. I take the bad emotion that I am dealing with and I empty out that bottle and I wash it up and I fill it with clean water. I put a new label on it and take a nice long drink from it, letting this new emotion fill me up. Then I place this new bottle on a clean shelf with the other bottles that I have done the same with. I like to sit in an office chair and look out at the forest until I am at peace. Then I open my eyes and I am free.
This time I had something special for the bottle, a feeling called failure. That bottle had been hidden for so long. I took it and emptied its black, dirty water down the drain, but then I did something different with it. This time I placed that bottle in the garbage. I had no use for it anymore. It was time to just say goodbye. I didn't even want to reuse it as a container for the new emotion. I asked Mastora if I could just get a new bottle and label it success and she said, “Of course you can.” So I walked over to the closet and opened the door and there were hundreds of new, clean bottles for me to fill!! I took one and put the label on and wrote “Success” on it. I filled it up and drank from it and I cried. I know I am not a failure. Never was, never will be.
I walked over to the office chair and I smiled with joy. I sat there peacefully. Mastora asked how much I still believed I was a failure after this EMDR. I told her, “Zero.” She asked me, when I think of these police and RCMP tests now, what do I feel? I told her I feel strong and I feel smart and I feel these feelings in my heart to be 100% true. I opened my eyes and I am free from failure.
To learn more about My Guided Mediation please visit :https://www.darcypatrick.com/my-guided-meditation
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