Guided Meditation: Relapse Cord Cutting
Dallas Bragg guides you through a visualization where you confront your relapse as a physical presence bound by ropes from your own waist. You extract what it taught you, cut the cord, and watch it transform into white light you absorb back into your body.
Chapters
Okay, I want you to get very comfortable. If you're seated, I want you to put your feet flat on the floor, your hands somewhere comfortable, maybe your lap, arms of the chair. If you're lying down, I want you to make sure your legs are apart. Relaxed and heavy. Your head is heavy on the pillow and your arms are to your side. As we begin, I want you to get very comfortable. Do a quick body scan. Turn your awareness to your right foot. Feel that Turn your awareness to your left arm. Turn your awareness to your right leg. Feel that. Turn your awareness to your neck. Release any tension. Turn your awareness to your jaw. If it's clenched, let it go. If you have to have your mouth gaping during the meditation, no one's looking. Relax your eyelids. Now quickly, to add a layer of relaxation, I want you to keep your eyelids closed, take your eyeballs up and look to the middle of your forehead where your third eye would be. Take your eyeballs up, look to the middle of your forehead. Keep your eyelids closed. Your eyelids are going to flutter a little bit. Keep your eyeballs up. One, two, three, four, five, and release. You should feel a subtle shift in your body.
Okay.
Quickly breathe in through the nose. Breathe out. Through the mouth. Breathe in through the nose. Breathe out through the mouth. Now breathe normally. Just be aware of your lungs expanding and let your breath breathe you for a minute. Okay, so we're gonna go back to our field of escape. If you did the first meditation, you're familiar with the field of escape. You've created this space. It's sacred, it's personal, safe.
Look around.
Notice something you haven't noticed before. Is everything the same? Has any colors changed? And remember that when you're feeling overwhelmed, extra triggered, dysregulated, sometimes we do need to escape. It's just how we do that that's important, right? Closing your eyes, taking yourself here quickly, feeling that emotion of nothing matters. No deadlines, no pressures, no relationships to keep going, no addiction to balance. Just you. Just you and your escape. Okay, so I want you to start walking. As you're walking, look around. Notice something you haven't noticed again. Maybe it's an animal, certain flower, sound. As you're walking along, I want you to imagine in your mind's eye that to the right is a stream. And I want you to walk toward that stream. And as you get closer, you're going to hear the babbling brook as it goes across the rocks, as the water flows down the stream. Maybe there's fish jumping. Frog hopping in, all those fun sounds. You hear the water running. Now you're standing by the stream, and now you notice that there's a little boat there. I want you to get in that boat. It's a little canoe, a rowboat, whatever you Want to picture it as— get in it. The water starts to take you down the stream. As you're in this boat, you're looking around. Just notice the banks of the river, vegetation. Maybe there's another animal. As the water takes you, I'm going to count Down from 10 to 1. As I count, you're going to get a little more comfortable. You're going to go farther down the stream. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 4, 3, 2, and 1. The boat slowly starts to drift to the right and stops. I want you to get out of the boat, stand on the Banks of the river. And now you notice a little door on the side of a hill. Maybe it's like a little hobbit door, a little round door. Maybe it's a square door. Maybe it's a cave, but you see it. How does it show up?
It's a cave.
I want you to walk over to it. I want you to open it and step inside. When you step inside, you're back in that gray dome room again. Dome ceiling, walls, the floor, they're all gray marble. You notice something in the middle of the room. I want you to walk over, and as you get closer, you notice it's your relapse again. I want you to take yourself back to how you personified the relapse. Does it look any different? The relapse is bound. It's tied up. It's sitting on the ground and it's tied up. What color is it? What shape? Does it have eyes? Are they open? A gender? Consistency? How big is it? I want you to really note to see if it's changed. And if it has or if it hasn't. You notice that it's bound up by ropes. Take note of how this is feeling in your body. As you're looking on your relapse, where is your body reacting? Could be a certain place in your body, or it could be your entire body.
Take note.
As you look at the ropes, you start to follow them with your eyes because you want to see what is your relapse tied to. Where are these cords originating from? And as you follow the ropes, you look down Then you realize the ropes are coming from you. There's a rope tied to your waist. You've actually attached yourself to the relapse. In this meditation, We're cutting the cord. I want you to ask your relapse, this relapsed part of you, what is the best thing that I received from you? What is the highest level of learning I've received from you? What is it? What is it that your relapses have have given you that you can benefit from, grow from? What is it? Wait for the answer. First impression. Don't push it. Don't question it. Don't say I'm making it up. Just go with it. I want you to take your hands. You can motion in front of your body if you want, or just imagine in your mind's eye. Your hands reach down to that cord wrapped around your waist. Take both hands on the cord. I want you to pull it apart. Begin to pull it. See the strands of this rope, this cord, begin to stretch and break and crack and pull and pull and pull, and it pulls apart. When you do that, the cord begins to disintegrate, and you watch your relapse become unbound. Untethered, and now it's free. I want you to say thank you. Thank you for being a part of me. Thank you for giving me what you gave me. But now I want to say goodbye. I'm ready to take the best parts of you and move on with my life. You relapse. It gets up from the floor, begins to walk away. It finds a door. That you didn't notice before and opens it and begins to walk out. And as it walks through the door, it becomes white light. This white light represents what you got from your relapses, your relapse part, what it's giving to you, the benefit, the strength, the growth, the knowledge, the learning. And I want you to imagine that white light coming in to the part of your body where you felt the relapse, where you feel it, where it affects you. Maybe it's your whole body, maybe it's your head, your heart, your gut, your loins, your hips. Wherever the relapse reacts in you, I want you to take that white light in right now. It comes back and just comes and receive it. Receive that light right now, and it's illuminating that part of your body. It's embodying It's incorporating, integrating. You're done now. You're ready. You may not feel strong enough. You may doubt.
I don't doubt.
You may wonder what good this is, but in your heart of hearts, you know something's changed. We're going to leave this room. I want you to go back through the door we came in. Open it, and you found yourself back on the riverbank. Lo and behold, the river is flowing the opposite direction. There's your boat. I want you to get in it. The water takes you. I'm gonna count from 1 to 10. 1. As I count, going up the river, coming back into your body, back into the room. 2. 3, 4. You feeling a little different? 5, 6, 7, 8. You're standing straight. You're sitting up higher. 9, 10.
We're back.
Did you get out of the boat? Walk into your field. As you stand in your field of escape, I want you to consider that you're making changes. You're learning. You're viewing your addiction and your relapses in a whole new way. You're stronger. You're wiser.
