Summer is filled with opportunities for you to swim, splash, dive, play or even walk through water. Water is a symbol of renewal, transformation. It moves around obstacles as if they were nothing.

For this self care ritual you will invoke the cleansing power of water through a short meditation exercise.

Gently close your eyes and bring your awareness to your breath. Feel the natural rhythm as you breathe. Breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let all thoughts and feelings of your day wash away.

Visualise a gentle stream – the water is free flowing over the rocks. Grass graces the banks as this stream meanders its way down through a paddock, not blocked by any object or obstacle.

Focus on the gentle sound the water makes as it flows over the rocks with ease, while breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth.

Water is cleansing and transformative. It purifies us and releases all tension and negativity from our day. Focusing on the release in your mind, call on the water to cleanse you and release you from whatever you are holding on to.

“Water I ask that you cleanse me of …. and allow me to flow through and past this.”

Imagine you put your hands into the stream at your feet and feel the water washing over your hands, moving around your hands as if you were not even there. Water knows no obstacle.

Imagine the water flowing over your hands, taking with it whatever you are holding on to.

Imagine this as the colour red. A red orb is now carried by the water into the stream. Picture this pain or hurt being diluted by the water and gently, with no judgment, being washed away.

Give thanks to the water.

“Thank you water for releasing me from this pain/negativity.”

Take a deep cleansing breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

– Vicki Shannon