Sunday 11 March 2012

Anchor Images for Meditation

Do you have an anchor image that you use when you meditate?

Today I hosted an anger management workshop in Norwich about using Mindfulness to regulate the feelings that arise from anger. I offered the audience a lighted candle in a glass vase as a focus the meditation. After the meditation, one of the audience described how she preferred to create an image for herself, finding the vase too prescriptive. I do too when I meditate alone.

The background image on this page has been my anchor for many years and has helped me when feeling very low. It was taken looking out over the sea in the town where I up. I tend not to use it now as it is associated too much with my parents who passed away the year before last, an association that is still too hard for me to tolerate quite yet.

Nowadays I often use a mental image of sunlight reflecting on water and it is an image I hope to be able to photograph one day.

The other image I use, is the dragonfly you see on my counselling practise website, (http:www.innercalm.co.uk website), a photograph I took at Howe Hill in Norfolk a couple of years ago. The dragonfly offers a wonderful metaphor of what counselling seeks to impart upon the client. When I think of the dragonfly I think of its mastery of flight, its part in nature and how it belongs among the reeds, the light falling on those magnificent wings.

Whatever image you use, always make sure you use it in a spirit of kindness to yourself. Never judge the image as being any more or less worthy than any other and allow it to become nourishment for your soul.