Flight Fantasy (audio)

Maggie Dent:

Hello, and welcome to Flight Fantasy. This is a creative visualisation activity that's aimed at giving you some quality, quiet relaxation time while stimulating your wonderful imagination so that you may feel calmer, more content and hopefully happier within yourself. And now to begin.

Make yourself comfortable. A pillow of course is very, very important. You may sit down or lie down. You may also choose to cover yourself. And now to begin, with three long, slow, deep breaths. In through your nose and out through your mouth. And now, I want you to do some colour breath work with me to bring in a deeper sense of relaxation. Are you ready? I want you to take three breaths and I want you to breathe out an angry, red energy that you have in your body and bring in a beautiful, gentle blue which is about calming. So begin breathing in a beautiful blue, and breathing out angry red.

And the second colour breath that I want you to try is I want you to breathe out a brown colour, which will represent disappointment, of feeling let down by let down by life. And the colour to breathe in is a yellow. A very bright yellow which is a positive and hopeful colour. Are you ready for three more deep breaths, breathing out brown and breathing in bright yellow.

The final colour breath I want you to try is I want you to breathe out an orange colour, a very dirty orange colour. This represents any held hurts that you may be holding inside you I want you to replace the orange with a beautiful, gentle green which is the colour of love and the colour of forgiveness. So we need three more breaths, breathing out a burnt orange and breathing in a beautiful green.

Your body should now be feeling quite relaxed and comfortable. You are now going to invite that wonderful imagination of yours to take you somewhere a long way away from where you are right now. I want you to see yourself standing safely on the top of a beautiful mountain. This mountain overlooks a coast so you can see a sparkling ocean in the distance, an incredibly blue sky with beautiful white clouds. Not only is the view beautiful at the top of this mountain, but you're a long way from the things in your life that may cause you concern and worry. Imagine you can just breathe in the natural beauty of this beautiful place and this pure air and take one big breath in, and let that sigh happen afterwards.

Then beneath your feet I want you to feel the energy of Mother Earth flowing into your body so that you feel very, very connected to her and to our world. And maybe, you may even be able to feel the pulse of the earth through the soles of your feet. And now imagine yourself in this beautiful stillness, feeling very much a part of nature and see yourself spread your arms wide, allowing your chest to expand.

Then, really let your imagination go and choose a bird, one that you have always admired and I want you to see those beautiful arms of yours turn into wings and your body become like the bird that you have chosen and simply transform yourself into a bird and then fly. Gently at first, on the uplifts of air around the mountain. Feel how easy it is to fly with your wings spread. Really experience the magic of flying above the earth, among the clouds and spend some time, some quiet time, being a bird, being free. Spread those wings and fly beautiful bird, fly. Allow your whole body to feel that enormous sense of freedom that your imaginary bird is feeling. If you could bring that freedom into your own world, what might you change? What might be different?

From this place of quietness, of amazing imagination, I want you to get a sense of being full of enormous potential. Something inside you that pulses to be expressed, just like a bird needs to fly. Maybe source of wisdom and energy within you be able to flow up, right up, from deep within you, into your mind, into your heart so that you can find a way of expressing it in this lifetime and in this world. For some of you, you may need to write, to sing, to dance. For others, you may need to make things, create things or maybe fix things. And there will be some of you who will need to teach, or care for others or help others to heal. There is this part within every single human being. Spend a few moments allowing what's pushing out deep within, to come up into your mind, like a lost dream, or an idea that you dismissed one day.

It is now time to get ready to bring yourself back from your imaginary world, back into the real world, into this present time. Before you do, glance around and remember the beauty, the peaceful energy and the sense of freedom that you have just enjoyed so that you can return to that special place any time that you choose. Take two deep breaths, bringing oxygen back down into the body. Then another deep breath and slowly start to wriggle those toes in your shoes, maybe your fingers. And then just as though you've just woken up from a deep sleep, stretch and roll and breathe, and I ask you to bring back with you a sense of calmness, wellbeing, and most importantly, a sense of being valued and a special part of our world. Come back gently, quietly. All is well.