I recently went on vacation with my sister for our annual time away together. As part of my preparation for the trip, I did a meditation in which I chose the qualities I wanted to resonate with throughout the trip. The primary frequency I chose was “flexibility”. During my daily life, I often choose the frequency of “kindness”, along with “flexibility”. What I want to share here is an interesting experience I had that I think makes consciously choosing frequencies with which to resonate in any given situation much more appealing.
At one point in the trip, a situation arose that in the past would have had me feeling constrained and a bit irritable. What I discovered was that I was relaxed and “going with the flow” in a way I hadn’t anticipated and in a way that required no self-management on my part. A response of being flexible naturally and spontaneously arose and then, the important thing I want to share here, is that I noticed that the quality and tone of my self-talk was different from how I would have expected it to be. I found myself telling myself that, “It’s all fine. No problem.” As I listened to those internal words, I found myself even more relaxed.
This all got me to thinking about how useful it is to have supportive self-talk spontaneously arise without having to exert any conscious effort for it to do so. I can only attribute the quality of the self-talk to my resonance with the frequency of flexibility. That tone and quality seemingly pervaded my psychological experience, along with my body, in ways that allowed me to move through the whole week with flexibility at the forefront of my responses.
For this week’s practice, I invite you to choose a frequency—a quality of being—with which you want to resonate more noticeably. It can be any quality of being. Every quality represents a frequency, positive or negative, so take some time to be in touch with the qualities you would like to experience and express in the coming week. Then, each morning reaffirm your intention to resonate with such-and-such quality/frequency and notice how your experience unfolds as you move through your day.
In the past, I would call on the frequency of kindness whenever there were family gatherings, orienting my intention to resonate with kindness in my interactions with certain family members who would occasionally irritate me. This was entirely my problem, not theirs, so I wanted to work with it in ways that I hoped would offer an easier flow to our time together. Much to my surprise, the visits where I remembered to do this were always much gentler experiences and I consistently attributed this to the presence of the frequency of kindness and my resonating with it.
As with all these practices, there’s no “right” frequency to choose. It can be anything that you want to explore more deeply. The key thing here is to notice any shifts you may notice in the quality and tone of your self-talk, as for me that was one of the most notable shifts in my experience, and a very useful one, indeed! It’s about noticing the self-talk that naturally arises rather than anything you impose. That’s what makes this practice so interesting—you won’t know ahead of time how your self-talk will change and how it will help support the outcomes you intend.
Please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them.