THE EXPANDED BODY EXERCISE

This is a example of the guided meditation exercises used in Life Purpose Coaching. This exercise uses the concept of the imaginal body from the work of Jean Houston.  The imaginal body is a reflection of our ability to imagine movement, emotion, size, and position in our bodies.  I like to explain the imaginal body in terms of the channels we use in guided meditation.  Visualization is not the only channel operating during a guided fantasy.  Just as we can imagine seeing anything in a fantasy that we could see in reality, we can also imagine feeling anything that we could actually feel.  We also can imagine hearing things and occasionally even tasting or smelling.  The visual channel is the major one, but the channels of hearing and body sensing are also important.  The imaginal body is simply a name for the body-sensing channel in guided meditation.

            Assume a comfortable position for a long guided fantasy, and close your eyes....  Now tighten the muscles of your feet....  Now relax them.  Now tighten the muscles of your imaginal feet.  This means imagining that you are tightening your feet and feeling these sensations without actually doing it....  Now tighten your calves....  Relax them.  Now tighten your imaginal calves....  And relax them.

            Then move on to the calves, the thighs, and on up the body, doing each segment in turn with both real and imaginal parts of the body.  Make sure not to skip any parts of the body.  The person is actually constructing an imaginal body during this part, and any parts that are skipped may later turn out to be missing.

            Now let your imaginal body feel sleepy.  Feel waves of  lassitude and tiredness fill you....  Now let that go.

            Now imagine that you are being nurtured in a very loving way.  Feel the warmth and comfort, the safety, the good feeling in your imaginal body....  Now let that go.

            Now feel yourself in your imaginal body as a tiger prowling through the  jungle.  Feel your strength, your sure-footedness, your agility.  Feel your body as if you were stalking prey, sensing the great power just waiting to be unleashed in you....  Now let that go.

            Now imagine yourself as a hawk or other great bird soaring through the sky.  Feel your imaginal arms become wings, gliding effortlessly through the sky.  Looking down with your sharp eyes at the great vista layed out before you....  Now let that go.

            Feel yourself as a large, powerful bear striding through the forest.  Feel the tremendous size of you, the great strength of your arms and claws, the great power of your body, how confident you feel, how little fear....  Now let that go.

            Now feel yourself as a great pine tree, rooted in the earth, stretching high up into the air.  You are a quiet, serene giant of the forest, feeling your sap flowing slowly through your body, your leaves rustling in the wind.  You are ancient, standing in your wisdom and watching the centuries roll by, seeing countless creatures live and die, and growing and learning from it all, in your rootedness....  Now let that go.

            Let yourself become a meadow and feel your warm moist body teeming with life.  You spread out for a distance and form a rich ground of abundance, full of flowers, grass, earthworms, little animals.  Feeling yourself spreading out in the warm sunshine full of richness....  Now let that go.

            Feel yourself now as a mountain, a great rocky mountain, your firm rockiness rising out of the earth to a great height.  Feel your strength, your solidity, your agelessness, the great size of you, the great vantage point you have from your peak....  Now let that go.

     This part of the exercise can be summarized as follows:

sleepy

nurtured

tiger

hawk

bear

redwood tree

meadow

mountain

Now in a minute when I tell you, your imaginal body will begin expand and develop in your own particular way, both physically and spiritually.  You may sense your body expanding to be that of a giant, or a large animal, or some formation from the natural world.  Or It may simply become an extended version of your normal body.  Or you may find yourself stretching to fill the sky, or becoming the planet earth prehaps, or even the entire galaxy.  Or something entirely different.

[Music: Horizons Beyond Infinity (second half) from Starmusic by Don Robertson]

Whatever it is, now begin to let your imaginal body expand.  Feel yourself extending, blossoming forth, amplifying, increasing on many levels....  As this happens, feel the quality of that expanded body, experience what it is like to be that large--the power, the perspective, the reach.  What is it like to live from there?...

            Find yourself expanding in the emotional and spiritual sense as well.  Find yourself becoming more developed, more advanced, more mature; becoming solider, stronger, deeper.  Becoming just naturally invulnerable, not because you are defended in any way, but rather because you are simply too large, too strong, too evolved to be hurt.  Feel the security in this body, the great strength, the personal power that is yours....

And also feel the depth you have in this expanded body, in this expanded psyche, feel the richness, the complexity, the wisdom.  You have deepened insight into people and situations.  You aren't distracted by the needs and fears of your ordinary body and psyche.  In this place you are developed enough to transcend these fears of the local self.  In this place, if any problems confront you, they are problems that are much larger than your personal needs and fears....

[Music: Extended Pachelbel by Daniel Kobialka]

            Now whatever form your expanded body has taken, it has a heart.  Find the heart of your expanded body, and feel it.  Feel its warmth, its openness, feel the enormous love which emanates from it.  Feel that heart expanding even further so that it becomes larger, capable of containing great sorrows and transmuting them to light, capable of powerful healing energy, capable of warming and supporting great numbers with its love....

            Now from our expanded body and psyche let yourself see or sense your ordinary self, who lives in the everyday world.  This is the part of you which struggles and hopes, which has to deal with all the demands of everyday reality.  Open your heart to this person.  Let your huge loving heart pour out love toward your ordinary self.  Feel your heart softening, opening, melting with love and compassion for yourself.  Feel how much you care about this person, how much you want the best for them, how much you appreciate them.  Feel waves of love emanating from your heart and surrounding your ordinary self.

            Now as your love shines on this person who is you, you will see or sense certain aspects of them which are the strengths and talents which they have to help them make their contribution to the world, to live out their life purpose.  Let yourself now see an image of this person which shows a certain special personal quality of theirs which they have to offer to other people and to the world, a quality that will bring something unique and helpful to others....  And appreciate this person for this....  Now the image changes to highlight another aspect of this person, a talent of theirs, something that they do very well, which they have to offer to the world....  And appreciate them for this talent....  And now let other qualities and strengths and talents shine through this person.  See each one and appreciate each one....

            Now let go of the image of your ordinary self for the moment.  Imagine that your expanded body, whatever form it has, has great powers, even magical powers.  Imagine that you can change anything you want about the world, create anything you want in the world.  You are the great planetary healer, the great creator of new and healthier ways of doing things for the world.  You have unlimited power to make this world the way it should be for everyone to be happier, healthier, living in harmony with others and with the natural world, and reaching their full potential. 

            Be specific.  Imagine yourself with the power to help certain kinds of people who are in need, or to right certain wrongs in the world, or to create certain new ways of living or relating, or even to create new institutions or social structures.  What would you change?  Who would you help?  What would you create? … And now see this happening, imagine the changes you would create,  see the results of your dream.  Imagine the healing, the joy, the harmony....

            You are the high self, the one who sees the larger picture of your life.  You have the wisdom to see past the everyday struggles and pleasures, to see the deeper reason for your existence.  You have the perspective to view the greater plan, or to create a greater plan that gives your life meaning.  You are a being of light and love.  You are a guide for that local, personal part of you who is living out a life on the human plane.  He or she gets immersed in the day-to-day dealings with the world.  You retain the deeper wisdom.  Let yourself get a sense of this purpose, however vague and fleeting it might be at first.  It might be an image or words or a body sensing or just a knowing.  Let it arise in you now, even if you don't understand what it means....

            Now imagine that is many years in the future and you have almost come to the end of your life, and it has been a life of fulfillment.  You have really live a life of purpose.  You have accomplished what you were here for.  You have made your unique contribution to the world.  You are old and wise and completely satisfied with your life.  You are content.  Feel what that feels like....  Looking back on your life, what do you see?  What has been most satisfying, most fulfilling?  What has given you the most sense of being part of something larger and meaningful?  What have you left the world as your legacy?...