By Katrina Rasbold
The beginning of self-mastery comes from identifying where your energy goes and the impact it has when it gets there, balanced out with the necessity of maintaining a baseline of personal energy for your own needs. When someone has a total disregard for the needs of others or any concern about their impact on the people around them, we identify that behavior as a mental health disorder. When the reverse is true and a person gives to others beyond what their energetic reserves can support, we do not (usually) attach this behavior to mental illness, and yet, the effects can be personally devastating.
Balance in all things is essential for creating spiritual, mental, emotional, and even physical health. I am sure all of us know of people who routinely deplete their energy for excellent causes, then suffer from exhaustion and depression afterwards. To my clients, I recommend a monthly self-audit to identify where your energy goes and carefully adjust that information to fit with your overall goals. It is much like creating a financial budget. Ideally, we do not spend more than our income can support and we sometimes must cut back on expenses that extend beyond our income or we find an abundance and can apply that energy elsewhere.
This meditation, developed by my wonderful husband/priest, Eric Rasbold, is a great tool for visualizing your energy flow, plugging up the leaks, and widening the passages to let more flow to your desired recipients.
Settle yourself into a comfortable position where your body is well supported and you do not have to consciously think about holding yourself upright. Wiggle your body around a bit to find the best position in which to rest for several minutes.
Take several deep breaths, in the nose and out the mouth. Feel the air circulate through your body, bringing with it the essentials it needs to be healthy and nourished. Continue to breathe rhythmically and deeply, saturating yourself with healthy oxygen and breath. Rest your hands so that they are in the “receive” position with palm open and facing somewhat upward.
As you take each breath, feel yourself become more and more relaxed. Your larger limbs become heavier and heavier with each exhalation. Your body parts relax: your legs, your pelvis, your back, your abdomen and chest, your shoulders, your neck, and your face. Pull in a breath for each of these body parts and feel them become heavy as you exhale.
Once your body is fully relaxed, still your mind. Picture the thoughts as tangible objects, moving around in your head. See their motion slow and then see them fall softly to the floor around you.
Imagine that you stand on the riverbank next to a river. Your river may be raging or it could be softly moving. You see what you see. The water level may be high or low. You see what you see. Go with the very first imagery you receive. That is your authentic image.
Toward the head of the river, there is a dam. The dam is as tall as you envision it to be. You see what you see. There are floodgates in the dam operated by wheels that are turned. There is tremendous water pressure behind the dam that you access by turning the wheels and letting more water or less water flow through the floodgates.
This river is your own personal energy. If the river you saw was low and slow, then your personal energy needs work.
If you saw a strong and forceful river, you may need to slow it down a bit. The energy behind the dam is Universal energy from God/The Goddess/The Universe. Let in more or less of the Universal energy as needed until the river pumps along as strong and solid current.
Turn your attention to the mouth of the river below. How much water made it all the way to the bottom? What is the condition of the water? Is it murky and ugly? Is it pure and clean? Is it green? Blue? Brown? Clear?
In between the dam and the mouth of your river, there are several tributaries. Small creeks branch off your main river and divert some of the water to other places. These tributaries have names identified by signs stuck into the bank beside them. Every tributary will have its own sign. Some will have the names of people. Some will have “work,” or “health concerns,” or “finances.” Every place where you invest energy has a tributary. The water at the mouth of the river represents what you have in reserve after you meet all these energetic needs.
You have complete control over your river. There is work that needs to be done. You can do it yourself or you can envision that you bring workers in to do it for you. It does not matter how it gets done, but it must complete during your meditation.
The first course of action is to block off the tributaries you no longer wish to feed. If you do not want your energy to go to that destination any longer, then patch up the opening that lets the water/energy through to that tributary. Slowly and carefully, mend every outlet that you do not want to use any longer. Widen outlets where you want to devote more energy. Take your time with this process.
Once you are satisfied that all your energy/water is going where you want it to go, return to the dam and again check the floodgates. Adjust the flow of Universal energy into your river as needed now that you have changed where the water/energy goes. This will help to fortify and stabilize you and your energy flow. If your personal river flow is slow or seems low, open the gates to allow in more water from Universal flow. If your personal river overflows the banks or moves too aggressively, consider other tributaries you can create to mitigate the overflow.
The water that comes from the floodgates is crystal clear, pure, and strong. It pushes against and through the openings in the dam and practically shoves its way into your river, eager to revitalize you and get your river moving at a healthy pace. It cleanses away any old, stagnant water that is there.
Spend some time with your river for a few minutes. Check out specifics that are only for you in your vision. Lie beside the river for a while and listen to it flow, confident that all that water and energy is going to the proper places. See that you now have a nice surplus of water all the way down to the end of the river, as far as you can see.
Once you have completed your river time, let the darkness behind your closed eyes envelope you once again. Feel the awareness begin to return to your body parts from your toes, all the way up your limbs and torso, to your head.
Gently open your eyes and spend a few moments considering the images you just saw and what they mean to you. You can return to the river meditation as often as you want. Sometimes, all is well and you just want to rest by your river. Other times, great work is needed. You will know what to do and when to do it.
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Katrina Rasbold is a professional Witch, published author, priestess, and editor of Green Egg Magazine. She and her husband, Eric, are the creators of the CUSP spiritual path and owners of Crossroads Occult. She and Dahlia Rose host the popular livestreamed video broadcast “Crossroads of Cognizance” most Thursday afternoons. You can reach her through www.katrinarasbold.com.