You can get some sense of this as a metaphor by simply reading the blog below. However, I suggest you read it through two or three times, make it your own, and then meditate with it.  

You can refer to previous blogs on quieting your mind, breathing techniques, and our daily grounding sessions to help bring you to a space where this kind of visualization is most effective.

Now, sitting with your back straight and body still, gently close your eyes. Feel your breath slowing. Allow your mind to quiet and grounded. Take your time to settling into the body.

Now, imagine yourself standing beside a river on a very hot, humid summer day. The sun beats down upon you like a furnace. The air is still. There is no breeze, shade, or relief from the heat. You’re your feet are sore from a very long walk. Sweating and exhausted from the sun’s relentless blaze, insects buzz busily in your ear. Before you, cool, clear waters flow endlessly by. The cool river promises deep relief from your suffering.

You look around. This place is so private, so far from anyone else. Alone and safe, you decide to take off your sweaty clothes and confining shoes. You truggling a little to remove the socks that cling to your aching feet and toes.  Barefoot, you walk down the rocky slope to the river’s edge. Ignoring the pain of stones beneath your sore feet, so eager to cool your swealtering body, you step gingerly into the water. Ahhh . . . . thebody begins to cool as heat begins to drain out the feet. Stepping in further, you realize the river bottom is covered with rocks and debris. Walking gingerly, careful to keep your balance, the water rises to the calves, thighs, and finally to the waist.

With each step, the body recovers more and more. You are renewed.  Suffering from the heat is eased. Your body tingles and a feeling of elation arises from within. Soon, however, as your body temperature eases, you become more and more aware of the throbbing in your feet as you walk across the stony riverbed. Now standing in the middle of the river, the current pushing against you, you struggle to maintain balance. You find that if you stand in just the right place, and don’t move an inch, you can keep from falling over. The longer you stand, the greater your feet ache from the pocking stones.  Your legs begin to tire from this awkward stance you must maintain. Very cold at the bottom of the river, your sore feet begin to grow numb.

As your relief evolves into an entirely different form of discomfort, you realize you must move again. Will you get out of the water, in favor of the furnace that awaits? Or, stay cool, continuing to struggle with your balance and the pain in your body?

Then it occurs to you. The answer was there all the time.

You take a deep breath and lay gently back into the loving, waiting arms of the river. Picking up your feet, you bob easily up on the water’s surface. The current immediately begins to carry you away at a gentle, comfortable pace.  Branches of trees pass over head. The sound of the water, birds above, and insects in the distance combine to form a beautiful celestial symphony. The sun’s warmth is now a welcome balance to to cool waters all around and beneath you. Perfection. Leaving your fears and suffering behind, handing over your wants and desires, you are swept away in a gentle, loving embrace. You let go. You flow. You are free.

Allow yourself to drift down this river further and further. As you do so, feel yourself slowly drifting into a warm, comfortable, darkness where no thoughts or images exist, only a dark and velvety nighttime. Be the awareness. Be the consciousness.

And when you come back to this physical word. Realize that nothing around has changed. It never really does. The shift occurs from within, as you remember who you really are.