Have you ever stood by the ocean, gazing out over the water to the far, wide horizon? Or maybe stood on top of a mountain, looking out all around you at broad vistas?
We talk sometimes about broadening our horizons, to learn more or gain new experiences. When you focus on a broad view, like the ocean stretching out to meet the sky, you are literally widening your horizons — and that has benefits.
Here’s a Sacred Sunday meditation to help you broaden your horizons.
Experience Less Stress
Next time you are sitting at your computer, try looking up and out. Look across the room. From the room, look out the window. You’re broadening your view. Even if it does not feel like much, you are widening your field of vision. Expanding your view decreases stress for the eyes. The more open, the wider the space, the less stress on you, your vision, your being.
Think about something that might be causing you stress. Just bring it into view, witness the stress. Then take a deep breath. Look out around you. Open to everything that is not stressful. Widen that view, keeping your attention on things that are not stressful. As you keep expanding your view, you may notice that thing that was stressful again. This time you see it living alongside all the non-stressful things. Change your horizon, change your perspective. Shaman change the world by changing their perception of the world.
We have a habit of focusing on the stressful. In the last two years in particular, our view has gotten very narrow. Widening your horizons will help reduce stress, by broadening our perception/perspective..
Open to Possibility
Just as with the practice of opening to possibilities and moving our attention to non-stressful things to help reduce stress, expanding our horizons brings new possibilities. We need to look up, we need to look out to see these possibilites. Our open view helps open our mind.
So if you are feeling stuck, try changing your perspective. Broaden your horizons, literally. Get and give yourself a new view. See what that opens up internally when you look through a different lens.
Want a guide as you open to possibility and your heart's journey? Try my free heart-focused journey meditation.
Feel Less Isolated
The wider our view the less isolated we are. The more connected we stay to things larger than us the less turbulent our time here on earth is.
Find your light, let it make heat and little fires inside of you to clear barriers and burst you out of your isolation. If someone is tumbling forward towards you with a stone of being alone, drop in and sit on the stone, listen, open your attention, open your heart. Broaden your horizon to others and connect.
When our gaze is tight and inward, we may fail to see others. We may not notice our community or our circle. Release the place of being alone. Broaden your horizons and connect to your light, to the wider community, your possibility, and the energy of the earth.
Join your practice with others as you widen your horizons. In our Sacred Sunday meditations, we connect with others. In Sacred Circle, we come together in real time, visually, even when we aren’t in the same physical space. We broaden our horizons. We set intentions. We connect energetically, and grow our intuitive capacities. We are meant to be in community.
What’s has shifted for you as you shifted your horizons?