This visualization was inspired by the artwork Love Against All Odds by Deniz Altug
General visualization for relaxation
Imagine yourself walking across a frozen landscape. The crunching of your boots is the only sound other than the wind that you can hear. The wind is blowing steadily, bending tree branches and swirling snow through the air. You feel the gusts against your cheeks but nowhere else as you are bundled from head to toes in beautiful, thick winter wear. You actually welcome the cool wind against your cheeks as it provides a nice contrast to the toasty warmth you feel in the rest of your body.
You climb to the top of a hill where you have a clear view of the landscape. There are a few benches and a large, wooden box filled with blankets. You grab a few blankets, sit down, and make yourself comfortable.
You sit quietly, the only human in the frozen wilderness. Small groups of trees dot the landscape, but they are separated by large stretches of nothing but ice and snow. Sitting in this vast, open terrain with the sound of the wind in your ears you feel alone at first, but this feeling quickly fades as you begin to feel like you are a part of the land and not just an observer of it.
The cold around you draws your attention to the warmth within you. You feel your heart beating in your chest, and you imagine your heart pushing warmth and energy out from your body to the land.
But winter too has a heart. As you sit, cozy in your thick coat and blankets, watching the wind swirl the snow through the air, you begin to sense a rhythmic beat, the slightest of vibrations, all around you.
You close your eyes and tune into this steady drumming. And as it washes through you, your breathing slows, and eventually your own heart beat shifts so that your heart and the heart of winter are beating as one.
Stay with this visualization as long as you like.
Painting by Deniz Altug