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This guided meditation helps you release the guilt and obligation of life's shoulds by visualizing cords being cut under a vast star-filled sky, restoring clarity and a grounded sense of personal choice. This is the Meditation Minis podcast with your host, Hypnotist Shell Hamilton. Close your eyes, take three deep breaths, and give yourself permission to relax, allowing the sound of the music to just carry you off to that relaxed place inside where the body and the mind just let go for a time. Maybe taking a breath in and bringing your shoulders all the way up to your ears and then dropping them down again. As you settle into your space, settle into your place, and should there be any areas of your body that are less comfortable than others, that's fine. Just notice them, but move on. As you breathe and be, I'd like you to imagine as though you're you're someplace outside at night, and the air is just right. For some of you, that means that you might smell the salt of the sea, and for others, it it may just be kind of this dry, cool heat. And whatever it is for you, just go with it as you allow yourself to imagine or remember perhaps a time, getting a sense of what it would be like to be standing at the base of this hillside. And there are steps cut into the side of the hill, and as you walk up those steps, walking up into almost as though you're walking into the night sky and the stars are stretched out so beautifully. But I encourage you to pay attention to the next steps in front of you. And when you reach the top of the hill, the top of the mountainside, you walk to the edge of a cliff that just gives way to the blackness of the night and the beauty of all the stars sparkling in the sky. I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of looking out at the night sky in the desert when it's just so clear, you can see millions of rays of light. But I bet you can imagine it, even if you haven't been there. And as you get a sense of yourself looking up at that sky, just breathe in that awesomeness, and exhale self-doubt. Breathe and be, and all of those stars, it's such an amazing mystery. Life. Life is such an amazing mystery. And as you breathe and be standing in your place under the stars where you were born, where we all were born, there under the stars. I'd like you to just begin to turn your attention inward and just to the edges of your body as well, and get a sense of all of those chords of obligation, of shoulds, of guilt that have been attached to you. And some chords may be cords of love that you willingly carry, and you can reattach any chords you choose purposefully once this exercise is done. But for now, imagine that one by one, bit by bit, maybe it's the light of the stars acting as some sort of laser energy, or maybe you just feel as though there's someone there with you who's clipping those chords. And with each and every clip of the chords as they fall away, you feel lighter, clearer, stronger. And how good that feels. As you continue to clip all of the chords that have attached themselves to you, both the good ones and the not so good ones. And after you finish this process, you will be able to reattach any that you choose, and so just for these next moments, allow those chords to continue to be severed. And if you come across one that just doesn't seem to want to let go, take a moment and thank it for the job that it's done. Holding on and let it know that you love it for that. As you continue with each and every breath, you may even get the sense as the cords are clipped. It's almost as though you can feel wings reaching out of your back, so strong and powerful as you stand under the stars and you know I am free, I can breathe, I can fly, I am strong. And how lovely that feels. And you can take this feeling with you and tap into it anytime you want to choose or need. And throughout your day, any time that you feel those chords coming your way, stop and ask yourself: is this a chord that I choose? Is this a chord that empowers me? And make your choice more in a place of clarity. You choose for you the best choices for you and those that you care for, too. And taking a few more moments now to stand there under the stars, or you may have decided to stretch your wings and soar, and that's fine. Everyone feels that sense in a different way. Maybe you just feel it by standing on that land with your feet apart, maybe shoulder distance, the strength in your feet and the soaring in your soul, and you know, yes. Oh yes. And as you walk down those steps, feeling really good, knowing that it's nearly time to come out of this meditative state, but the chords that you choose now, you choose with calm clarity and courage, knowing that these are the right choices for you. Preparing yourself now to open your eyes.