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Ever wake up with a great outlook, feeling confident you’re going to have a terrific day, and then at some point throughout it you suddenly realize you’ve fallen off track? This happens to all of us. And why shouldn’t it? As soon as we take a step beyond ourselves, out into a world of others – e.g., people, things, ideas, texts, rants, raves, plans, expectations, regrets, concerns – we find ourselves at sea, attempting to navigate our way as best as possible. In doing so, it’s easy to drift off course, to lose our center of gravity.

When we’re feeling depleted, anxious, distracted, grouchy, worried, unmotivated, cynical, too focused on the future, or too focused on the past, we’re off center. Our highest selves are crowded out by the human experience. To get back in synch with our highest selves—our spirit—we need to recenter, to realign, to reboot. Getting off center is a normal part of life and happens frequently. This is why learning how to bet back to your center without too much effort is so important. Let’s do it! Let’s explode some roses!

Exploding Roses

1) Visualizing a Rose. Close your eyes and imagine a rose floating in the air about arm’s length in front of you. Imagine it in as much detail as possible. Should it be red? What should the stem look like? Should there be any leaves on the stem? Should the bud be open or closed? What if it looks like a cartoon? What if it appears in black and white? What if it looks ugly? Make it whatever you like! Just imagine it in as much detail as possible. Every time I visualize a rose, it looks different, ranging from orange, to blue, to glittery, to ceramic, to gold, to glass, to shriveling up, to covered in snow. It can be whatever! Just see it in as much detail as possible and try to accept whatever comes up. Perfect roses don’t exist. The closer you are to accepting what you see is the closest thing you are to seeing a “perfect” rose. Got it? 

2) Breathing into the Rose. Once you can see the rose, take a few deep breaths, focusing on the emotion, thought, person, or conversation that is occupying your mind. Now, take one more deep breath, and as you exhale, watch as the rose absorbs your breath and the thoughts and feelings you were experiencing. Sometimes when I’m feeling especially off center, I exhale my thoughts and feelings into the rose a few times. 

3) Exploding the Rose. Now that the rose has absorbed your thoughts and feelings through your breath, you are ready to explode it. Just like the rose’s appearance, the explosion can look anyway you like. You can imagine it combusting right before you, shooting up into the air and exploding like a firework, dropping to the ground and exploding on impact. However you visualize it, the rose must disappear completely and any remains of the rose are absorbed by the earth so you can no longer see the rose, feel the rose, or function from the rose. Trust that the rose is gone and you are now back to center. 

I recommend practicing exploding roses often. The more you do it, the easier it will be to visualize the roses and their explosions. You may even get so good at it you will be able to do it with your eyes open when you find yourself getting off-center in daily interactions. Have fun and enjoy it. And please trust that however you see the rose and however you see it explode is exactly how it should look.

Let us know in the comments section below what how it goes!

Love and Light, 

Tim