Beach Bliss (audio)

Maggie Dent:

Hello and welcome to beach bliss. This is a creative utilisation 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.

Now we're going to continue with some more breathing. I would like you to pretend that you can breathe out worry and tension from your body and breathe in a sense of calmness and relaxation. So for three breaths, focus on breathing out worry and tension and breathe in calmness and relaxation. And now I'd like you to continue with three more breaths. This time, focus on breathing out doubt and fear and breathe in feeling safe and secure. So three more breaths, breathe out doubt and fear and breathe in feeling safe and secure. And finally, the last three breaths I want you to choose to breathe out sadness and disappointment and simply breathe in feeling loved and special. So once again, three last breaths, breathe out sadness and disappointment and breathe in feeling loved and special.

And now allow your imagination to take you to a beautiful, pristine, clean beach. This can be a beach that you know or one that you create, simply with your imagination. Allow it to be a beach that is so, so clean and so, so beautiful. And what you first imagine, walking on the sand with your bare feet. The sand which is a beautiful white colour, squeaks because it is so fine between your toes. So see yourself walking on that beautiful sand, hearing gentle waves and maybe even some seagulls. You maybe able to smell the salt spray in the air, but there's just that beach smell that we all know so well. Be aware of the beautiful blue skies and amazingly that turquoise water that is just simply beautiful.

So we need to walk for a short time along that beach. Allow each of your steps to take you further and further away from your busy world, from a sense of feeling tired, from a sense of feeling overwhelmed and each step will allow you to feel more relaxed and hopefully a lot of freedom can come into your body because there are no time problems where you are right now. There are no commitments, there is no work, there is no worry. There is no pain and no sickness. So take each step and allow those things to simply fall away and set yourself completely free to enjoy this beautiful beach bliss.

After your short walk, I want you to sit yourself down on the sand just like you would as if you'd arrived for a well deserved holiday. Breathe out that big sigh that we do. That's the one. And I want you to allow your attention to become focused on the gentle waves. Watch them as they roll towards you, build up and roll over, very quietly and very gently. I want you to imagine doing nothing but watching these gentle waves roll towards the shore one after another.

Now that you are really relaxed, I want you to enjoy that beach just for a few moments as though you were really there. So those of you who'd like to go for a swim might do so. And those of you who would like to continue sitting exactly where you are, may also continue. And those who need to lay flat on their back and really let themselves relax may also do so, just for a couple of minutes.

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 anytime that you choose. Take two deep breaths, bringing oxygen back down into the body. Then another deep breath and slowly start to wiggle those toes in your shoes and 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, well being and most importantly a sense of being valued and a special part of our world. Come back gently, quietly. All is well.