I have yet to come upon an individual that does not have at least three options for any challenge. Yet, 'I have no choice' is used far too often to give ourselves permission to take a less creative approach.

In her beautiful book Total Meditation, author Susannah Marriott provides an easy meditation to 'Widen Your Horizons'.

"Spaciousness is a state of mind you can cultivate through meditation. This quality enables you to step away from the habitual treadmill of work, eat, sleep, work that encourages self-limiting ways of thinking and behaving. Finding vastness of mind liberates you to think outside the box, to open up to all possibilities and potential. "

"This can transform your career, your relationships, and your lifestyle by helping you find spontaneity, see the bigger picture, understand from other points of views, and above all maintain that youthful belief that life offers you infinite choices."

Below is an easy meditation from Marriott's book. With practice you can do this in a matter of minutes anywhere and anytime:

• Sit comfortably upright, eyes closed, slowly breathing in and out.
• Allow intruding thoughts to just pass through. Be patient.
• Imagine sitting on the edge of a cliff, a hill, or a wide beach looking to the sea.
• In your minds eye, watch the horizon: see how wide, distant, and open it is.
• Imagine looking up at the sky, feeling the vast dome arching from horizon to horizon. Sense its spaciousness.
• Visualize your challenge appearing on the horizon; so far away that it no longer has any urgency. Let it slip below the horizon.
• Take the feeling of expanse and spaciousness within you. Visualize it expanding your internal organs, including your lungs and your brain.
• Take your focus to your breath and draw it downward. Feel the inhalation cause your abdomen to expand and the exhalation draw your abdomen toward your lower back.
• Breathe from beneath the earth, imagining it seeping up into your feet and buttocks to ground you. Sit quietly for a few minutes.

With any form of meditation, practice makes perfect. Be patient with yourself. When you begin to feel calm and peaceful with this practice you will allow the answers to come to you rather than forcing them.

My request of you this week is that you set some distance between you and your challenges with this method. See the expansion of options that are available to you if you simply get out of your own way!

If you've never meditated, try this shortcut. Close your eyes; sit with your feet squarely on the ground and breathe in and out a few times. See how this one or two minute experiment can give you a sense of perspective. Then, try the above meditation. Read through it a few times before trying it and let me know how well it works for you.

Ann Golden Eglé, PCC, CPCC
Executive Coach & President
Golden Visions Success Coaching, LLC

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Permission is granted to either reproduce copy or distribute "A Thought for the Week of January 19, 2005" so long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author is attached. The author is Ann Golden Eglé, Golden Visions Success Coaching, LLC, 541.385.8887, 1972 NE 3rd St, Suite # 307 Bend, Oregon 97701, www.GVSuccess.com