A shared practice
Sensing the Serenity of a Lake
S
Created bySean Fargo
From Sean's stress-and-anxiety collection — recorded in his own voice.
In Sean Fargo’s own voice12 min
Read along — the full script
Welcome. I'm Sean Fargo. To reduce anxiety, please make yourself comfortable by lying down on your bed or on the floor, or wherever you can be comfortable. Maybe putting a pillow of some sort under your knees if that feels good to you, but allowing yourself to rest on your back and allow your eyes to close and your body to just melt into the floor or the bed.
And take a few moments to scan your awareness through the sensations of your body. And wherever possible, see if you can soften and release obvious areas of physical tension. This can be done with great effect at the end of a long day, although it can be done at any time.
Allow your attention to gently come into your body, into the flowing sensations of your breathing as you breathe naturally using your belly in and out. Experience a sense of your body as a whole, simply lying here right now, extended and breathing. And when you feel ready, picture in your mind's eye the image of a lake.
Perhaps it's a lake that you know well, that you go to from time to time, or maybe one that you've seen in a photograph. And just see if you can bring that image of a lake into vivid focus. And notice how it's an extended body of water held within the earth's surface.
Perhaps it's fed by a spring or a stream. And if you watch and observe the lake carefully, you'll notice that it's always changing, and yet it's also always itself. It changes as the sun moves across the sky. The light is reflected off the water in different ways.
It changes depending on the weather. Sometimes on very calm days, the surface might be like glass and reflect virtually everything with great precision. Reflecting everything that comes by, like clouds, birds, the trees that might surround the lake, and the sun as it makes its journey across the sky.
Or for that matter, the moon and the stars at night. So there are times when the lake is extremely reflective and contains in a certain way everything that comes by or over it. But in different periods of time, the surface of the lake might be choppy and sometimes quite pronounced in the waves, in which times the light might sparkle off the water in different ways.
Of course, the lake changes through the seasons. In the winter, depending on its location, it might actually be frozen over. Through day and night and through the seasons and the years, the lake is constantly changing, but always is its own essential nature.
Now, see if you can invite the lake to exist within your own body lying here so that your body actually becomes the lake itself. You can imagine feeling held and embraced as you lie here, aware of the many ways in which your own mind is like the surface of the lake, where your mind is sometimes highly still and reflective. Sometimes your mind is choppy.
Getting in touch with the sense of the entirety of the lake, the full body of water, the body of water, not only in the surface, but also down below. As you lie here breathing, experience the fullness of your own being so that even at times when your mind is choppy or upset, reactive, dealing with different things, you can drop down beneath the surface of your own mind's waves and find a stillness and a calmness that's always here. It's always available to you with each moment, with each breath, and certainly available to you when you come to lie down in this way.
Lying here under the canopy of your vast awareness, experiencing the moment-to-moment changes in your own body, the changes in your sensations, thoughts, feelings, impulses. And all the while, your lake-like feeling like a lake is simply lying here, watching the play of the weather of your mind and body. Allowing your awareness to hold it all, moment by moment, breath by breath, in your own fullness, in your own completeness.
More from Sean Fargo
Make one of your own
This practice was written and narrated with Mindfulness Exercises Pro. Yours takes a few minutes to make.
$0 today · cancel anytime · your work stays yours
Or describe one in the composer — the trial composes it
Just here to listen? You can ask for a practice made for what you’re carrying — a hard week, a racing mind, a night you can’t sleep — and hear it back.
Tell us what you need →Free · no account