Red Ribbon Exercise (for Guilt)

The Red Ribbon Exercise*

• Close your eyes and breathe out three times slowly.

• See, sense, and feel yourself sitting on an edge of the desert with a red ribbon in your lap.  On the ribbon write all the feelings you want to be rid of including guilt. When you are finished, place the red ribbon round your neck.

• Breathe out once.

• Walk near the desert, until you come upon a big waterfall with a large rock nearby at the base of the waterfall. In front of the rock dig a hole. Take all the traits from the ribbon and expel them one by one by  breathing out while naming each trait (not out loud but there in the desert). 

• Afterwards, place the ribbon on the rock and burn it. Place the ashes in the hole; fill in the hole and place the rock on top.

• Breathe out once.

• Go to the waterfall and climb from the bottom to the top, straight up the cascading water itself.  See, feel and sense the force of the water rushing over you, cleansing you, and washing away any residual guilt. Holding your hands, palms up, toward the sun, take some of the sun in your hands and then   place your hands anywhere you wish -  on or in your body -  to give you health and wellbeing.

• Breathe out once, letting the sun dry you. Put on a clean robe or gown and return to your chair knowing your guilt has gone.

• Beathe out and open your eyes.

* Excerpted from Gerald Epstein’s Healing Visualizations, pp.119-120.