Once again I invite you to explore a range of ways you might bring meditation into your life from Sounds True. Maybe you have tried meditating before and become restless or bored, or it brought up painful feelings or perhaps you have never tried meditation. In the links below you may find a meditation practice (or more than one) that is just right for you.

Research has scientifically proven that meditation is a safe and simple way to balance your physical, emotional, and mental state and its countless values have been known and practiced for thousands of years. More and more doctors promote the benefits of meditation to cure many stress related illnesses.Meditation has been proven to:

• relieve stress
• lower blood pressure and heart rate
• improves the immune system
• improve mood (such as feeling blue or anxious)
• create new neural pathways in your brain leading to better states of mind and wellbeing
• increase the level of healthy neurotransmitters (e.g. serotonin)
• reconnect with yourself
• recognise and release  habitual thinking patterns

The ultimate expression of meditation comes when we can feel all the pains of the world, experience them with mindfulness and equanimity so they dissolve into energy, and then recolor that energy and radiate it out as unconditional love, moment by moment, through every pore of our being.
—Shinzen Young

Are you ready to experience meditation for yourself? Simply select the category on the right that interests you, and you’ll be on your way. “Meditation to Calm the Mind” and “Open to Awareness” offers you eight traditional techniques to settle your thoughts, strengthen your attention, and build a foundation for successful practice.
“Meditation to Soften and Nourish the Heart” includes a series of practices that focus on nurturing qualities like compassion and kindness. “Meditation on the Energy of the Body” shows us how to open up the free flow of life force throughout our being.
“Meditation as ’Just Being’” is less about technique and more about simply welcoming all experience. And perhaps the most practical, “Meditation in Daily Life” helps you bring the fruits of meditation into your everyday activities—while eating, driving, at the office, and so on.

Meditation Exercises Overview:

This interactive guide is designed for people who have heard about meditation but don’t know where to begin. To make it easy for you to learn how to meditate, Sounds True have created five categories, each of which includes exercises you can try right now

Meditation to Calm the Mind and Open to Awareness

• 1: Observing the Breath
• 2: Meditation for Relaxation
• 3: Mantra Meditation
• 4: Centring Prayer
• 5: Meditation on Harmony
• 6: Sufi Meditation
• 7: Walking Meditation
• 8: Meditation for Pain Relief

Meditation to Soften and Nourish the Heart

• 9: Metta— Meditation
• 10: Tonglen— Meditation
• 11: Forgiveness Meditation

Meditation on the Energy of the Body

• 12: Chakra Meditation
• 13: Standing Meditation
• 14: Inner-Body Meditation
• 15: Earth Breathing

Meditation as "Just Being"

• 16: Natural Meditation
• 17: True Meditation

Meditation in Daily Life

• 18: Meditation for Busy People
• 19: Morning Meditation
• 20: Mini Meditations
• 21: Eating Meditation

Join 40 of the world’s most respected spiritual leaders to dialogue about the question ~

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Each teacher will be asked to share their most important secrets for living a sacred life – the practical, personal tips for how they have found joy, love, connection, and a sense of purpose, as well as learned how to express their highest service in the world.

The Recordings Archive now features their first 28 leaders, and Sacred Awakening posts new releases within a few days, plus transcripts as volunteers complete them. You can register to join the final 12 call lives here. You’ll be able to engage with some of the wisest, most enlightened, and loving spiritual teachers, all from the convenience of home. For those unable to take a long desert retreat, I hope this series will prove illuminating for your path!

I love this post by The Urban Monk. In particular I enjoyed his move towards self-compassion both in the present moment and with the part of us from our past that feels triggered by the present moment.

In Focusing we might turn towards ourselves, as a first step, and say hello to what is there holding the space with a quality of empathic curiosity.

In NVC we might sense for the unmet needs which are our values that are not being met in this situation.

I also relish that he has drawn my attention to how much of my present moment emotional experience is part of an ongoing stream from my past.

Mindful observation of the present experience can help me “not add more to my story” and saying hello and empathically connecting with the nature of my energy stream from the past can help me heal and move forward from a needs met energy.

Please enjoy and then go check out his blog. It’s worth subscribing to.

These are qualities of practice that I alluded to in my last blog. Most spiritual or personal development practices imply “improvement” or at least some kind of movement towards something.

I know that I have swung from trying to “repress” or “avoid” particular negative emotions or actions I have labelled as harmful to myself and others, or problematic at the very least, to indulging in the emotions or actions.

When I repress I tell myself a particular kind of story – how “bad” or “weak” I am, how lost I am or how I just can’t get my act together. I wallow in a critic-fest.

When I indulge I tell myself a different kind of story. I make enemy images of the people I am affecting – how they deserve it, how they brought it upon themselves, how I am acting righteously or justly to bring them to some new awareness. I criticise them.

Both ways are just stories I make up to justify my responses.

Now, however,  I am trying a middle way, one that has 3 processes.

Acknowledging

Now, I try and notice when I am moving towards repression or indulgence. I say hello to this movement, holding myself with a kind of friendliness that one feels with an old, dear friend.

“Oh, hello my dear friend anger. I can sense you arising in my body – I can feel the tension and tightening across the front of my chest and the shortening of my breath. I acknowledge you there just as you are.”

Accompanying

When I say hello to whatever is arising – what comes is a relationship between me and it. For example a relationship between me and anger. I am not anger and it is not me but we are here, in this moment, together. I can sense how it moves through me. I can accompany its arising, its response to my acknowledgement and I, now, can accompany it as it tells me what is up for it. I can listen to it and listen for its deeper needs or the values it thinks it will protect by doing what it is doing. I can accompany it a little way down the road.

Accepting

I can accept that this is how I feel just now and as I journey with it I can notice moment by moment shifts and changes. Accepting doesn’t mean agreeing – it just means –yep, this is how it seems for me just now in this moment. I can accept that I might be experiencing suffering or discomfort. I can accept that it feels strong or overwhelming.

It may seem like accepting will be buying into the story (whichever one is being told) – yet that has not been my experience. I have found that once I accept whatever I am experiencing – no matter how subjective – a new possibility opens up for me. There comes a softening, a letting go, a relaxing of sorts.

And there, in that space I can invite something more.  I might invite some questions:

“Is this true, really true? Can I be absolutely sure that what I am telling myself  is true?”

“What needs or values are needing care in all of this?”

“Is there any other part of me that needs attention too? Is there something more that also needs to tell its story?”

“Is there something happening here that brings up old, unresolved material from my childhood? How can I best take care of myself if this is happening?”

“Can I get a felt sense of this – an image, a metaphor, a word that best captures all of it? Can I stay with this and explore my inner landscape and what it knows, in my body, about the best way forward?”

This process of acknowledging, accompanying and accepting is so helping me to connect more compassionately with myself. I am better able to stay with my present moment experiences and find such richness in them.  I sense they are the first step on a journey to a delightful self-acceptance.

Swiss psychologist Alice Miller wrote:

“Ultimately the body will rebel. Even if it can be temporarily pacified with the help of drugs, cigarettes or medicine, it usually has the last word because it is quicker to see through self-deception than the mind. We may ignore or deride the messages of the body, but its rebellion demands to be heeded because its language is the authentic expression of our true selves and of the strength of our vitality.”

This is a very powerful statement. Our true sense of self is rooted, not in ideas or thoughts, but in a “feeling of what happens” that is experienced at a bodily level.

Because this statement is so powerful, I also want to be careful to point out what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t negate the value of ideas and rational thinking. This would be absurd. It’s just that, if we were to only pay attention to logical thinking, we’d be cutting ourselves off from a major portion of our resources. Our goal is to combine both.

This is the power of Focusing. We can take an issue that we are thinking about, a feeling or an emotion, a situation and sense inwardly all about how our body holds this too. We come into balance in the considering of all the data that is entering our field of awareness. If we just “think” and use logic then we become top-heavy. All of our energy stays in our head. If we just follow feelings we can become blown about by emotions which come and go, we can start to believe we are our feelings and we lose our stability. If we combine all 3 ways we are designed to process information we become stable. It is like the process of “triangulation”. The term triangulation originated in cartography where two or more reference points are used to locate an exact position.

Most of us spend so much time thinking about our problems and some of us spend time overwhelmed by the our feelings about our problems  that almost forget to be in touch with how our body is carrying the issue. Sometimes thinking and feeling don’t even connect to each other. have you ever been dissuaded from feeling a certain way through the power of logical arguments – or does that just leave you feeling unheard, invalidated or labelled as emotional.

The felt meaning your body carries enables you to listen to the story within that, at the same time, needs to be told and heard, by you. This is your own story. This is the key to Focusing and is what Gene Gendlin found was an important clue that unlocks the mystery of how change happens in people.

He discovered that:

Our bodies hold the key to transformation

when we can allow

the felt meaning to unfold

and tell its story.

Emotions such as fear, anger, confusions are just the easily-recognised tip of how our bodies carry felt meaning. Your issue speaks like a story by moving forward in the changing body feeling of it.

Connecting with care and curiosity to our own story as it is known by our living body connects us to our own inner wisdom. We become both the author, the reader and the listener to our experience. And it is through the felt meaning held in our body that we are able to move beyond (yet still include) our minds (ego, will, pre-written story lines, and inner critics) and our emotions (moveable and reactive) to a more stable place within that can lead us to an undivided life of self-trust, self-respect and self-connection.

by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

[image source]

A great article from Shambhala Sun – they are making older articles freely available (which they always have been) in their RSS feed.

This is great article on how Buddhism deals with the body in its various schools.

From the impermanent to the heroic to the sacred—The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche on how the view of body changes and evolves in the three vehicles of Buddhism.

From the Buddhist perspective, our spiritual journey begins here—with this very body and mind. Who we are now consists of these two, body and mind, and who we might become will also be expressed through body and mind. Yet what is the true nature of these two?

Our present experience of life can be viewed as a long dream, arising from our lack of understanding about who we truly are and the actual nature of our world. What we usually refer to as a “dream” is only a short-term fantasy that we wake up from every morning. The real dream we are having is our “waking life,” a delusion that continues on and on. When we are in this dream and do not recognize that we are dreaming, then everything we see appears as solid and real, and we do not see any possibilities for transforming our painful experiences. However, when we recognize that we are dreaming, then everything becomes spacious, transparent and free, and all of our confusion and suffering can be easily transformed.

All the teachings of the Buddha are taught for the purpose of developing the penetrating knowledge that sees through this illusion and wakes us up. It is important to realize that these teachings do not constitute a religion in the conventional sense. Rather, they represent a genuine science of mind, a science of insight that uncovers the pure nature of the mind and world that we experience. They also portray a philosophy of life—an approach to life that deals with its meaning and helps us understand how we can overcome the suffering of the world.

When we say that Buddhism is a “science,” we are talking about going into the depths of our inner world using the methods of the path to explore the two basic states of confusion and wisdom. Our resulting understanding of mind brings us greater clarity about how to lead our lives effectively and meaningfully. The spiritual journey is nothing more and nothing less than his.

We may not accept the view that we are “dreaming.” However, most of us recognize a personal sense of self, a familiar face, so to speak, that looks out on the world and reacts habitually to each experience. This sense of self, of “I,” pervades each moment, each interaction, perpetuating itself infinitely. Yet how often or how closely do we look at it?

The two aspects of this self are always together: body is the ground for mind, the stabilizing element that brings mind to the present. The embodied mind can settle, be tamed and be trained, whereas mind without body can go anywhere in an instant. It is when we work with our mind that we overcome whatever we experience physically or mentally as negative or disturbing. So when we discover the actual nature of the body, we are on a genuine path to experiencing the pure nature of mind and its world.

The Body in the Three Yanas

The Buddhist path is divided into three yanas, or vehicles, which represent levels or progressive stages of Buddhist teachings. The Hinayana focuses on individual liberation and the teachings of the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination. The Mahayana focuses on the teachings of emptiness, compassion and buddhanature, and introduces the ideal of the bodhisattva, who is dedicated to the liberation of all sentient beings. The Vajrayana (also called Tantrayana or Mantrayana) is known as the “diamond vehicle,” and also the “path of skillful means.” By taking the state of fruition as the path, this “rapid vehicle” can result in liberation in one lifetime.

Each of the yanas presents a specific view of the body and corresponding methods for investigating and discovering its essence.

The Hinayana view of body focuses on the relative existence of one’s own body as a product of karma and as an impure and impermanent collection of aggregates. The body is taken as an object of meditation to induce the state of renunciation and spur the renunciate to the full state of cessation.

The Mahayana view of body, from the absolute point of view, focuses on the nonexistence of both the body itself and the mind that fixates on the body as a self. From the perspective of relative truth, the Mahayana views the body as inseparable appearance and emptiness. This illusion-like body becomes the basis for understanding the suffering of samsara more deeply and the ground for cultivating a genuine heart of love and compassion for all sentient beings. Moreover, the Mahayana meditation practices take not only one’s own body as an object of consideration, but also the bodies of all sentient beings.

The Vajrayana view of body is that the state of enlightenment is present within one’s physical form at this very moment. Body, speech and mind are regarded as sacred and are seen as the three kayas, or bodies, of buddha—primordially pure expressions of wisdom and compassion.
By looking at the view of the body from the perspective of the three yanas, beginning with the Hinayana, we can see how, through the application of methods of investigation such as the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness and analytical meditation, we can expose this “self” further and further—the self that is pure fabrication, the no-self that is appearance-emptiness, and the state of primordial purity manifesting as the three buddha kayas.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness are meditations that cultivate a correct knowledge of the natures of four specific objects: the body, feeling or sensation, the mind and phenomena. (Phenomena here refers to the six objects of our six sensory perceptions: forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touch and mental objects.) In this context, knowledge is primarily that which correctly recognizes relative truth, or the relative characteristics of these four things. However, on the basis of this, there is a gradual development of the higher knowledge that recognizes absolute truth. The Hinayana emphasizes these four mindfulness practices as meditations upon the nature of relative reality, while the Mahayana approach makes use of these practices as a way of realizing the absolute truth.

These four meditations work with the five collections of physical and mental components (known as the five skandhas, or aggregates) that comprise sentient beings: physical forms, sensations, perception, concept or mental formations, and consciousnesses. Among these five, the form skandha relates to the body and the next four are all related to mind. In short, we can say that there are two observed objects of self-clinging: body and mind.

Essentially, the practice of mindfulness consists of investigating these individual objects
of meditation in order to discriminate between or distinguish the actual characteristics of the things themselves from the abstractions we create in dependence upon them. For example, the abstraction or concept of “my body” can be distinguished from the aggregate of body itself. The actual body is a physical thing composed of various elements, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with my name for it, my image of it, and so on.

The Hinayana Approach: Reversing Attachment to Self

From the Hinayana point of view, the body is the basis for the self-clinging that is said to be the cause of suffering. At the same time, the body is viewed as the main basis for the path that leads to the transcendence, or cessation, of suffering. Thus, the body is both a fundamental cause of suffering as well as that which suffers; in addition, it is a fundamental cause of liberation because it is that which engages in the path of transcendence.

In a basic way, the mindfulness of body relates to our fundamental sense of existence. Due to our samsaric tendencies, our existence is normally not very stable or grounded; it is very wild, like a mad elephant. For that reason, at the first stage of mindfulness practice, we work with the existence of form. In particular, we work with three different levels of form: the outer form of our physical existence, the inner form of our perceptions, and the innermost form, which is related to the Mahayana understanding of the selflessness of body.

We work with the outer form of our physical existence by bringing our complete attention to the physical body, which is the primary basis for our clinging. When we work with mindfulness of body, we work with the basic root of emotions, which is attachment. The method of practice is to feel the body within the state of calmness, or shamatha. We simply experience the skandha of form without adding anything to it—without adding any labels, judgments or thoughts, such as, “This is my body,” “This is a good body,” “This is a beautiful body,” “It is so healthy,” “It is so unhealthy,” and so forth. The instruction here is just to drop it all. At this point, we are simply being open. By bringing body into the present, we come into contact with what body actually is, rather than continuing to think about what it actually is.

What we are working toward is seeing the actual nature of the outer form of our body, without concern for speculations, such as, “Is the body mind or matter? Is the body a projection of mind or not?” At this level, we should forget about such philosophical or theoretical divisions. The Buddha teaches this basic approach in the sutras when he says such things as, “When you see, just see. When you smell, just smell. When you touch, just touch. When you feel, just feel.”

Once we are able to simply sit and be with our body, then it is possible for us to have a sense of the profound nature of our physical existence. That experience takes us to the inner state of physical existence, allowing us to see the true nature of our body, the reality of the relative existence of self. At this stage, we experience the impermanent nature of our body, which is the subtle experience of the mindfulness of body. It is said that as a result of this technique, we begin to feel our body in a way that is completely different from our ordinary experience. We actually begin to feel the empty nature of the body. The body naturally leads us to the experience of shunyata, or emptiness. Usually, we experience only the labels we impose on our body. When we look at ourselves in a mirror, we see nothing more than our conceptual mask. What is the problem with putting on this mask? We forget that we are wearing a mask and we scare ourselves. Practicing mindfulness of body is a way to experience the true self—the true body—without any barrier.

Reversing Attachment to Body

In the Hinayana tradition, mindfulness of body is also practiced using the method known as the “meditation on ugliness,” or the “meditation on that which is repulsive.” The object of one’s meditation, in this case, includes both one’s own body and the bodies of others. Traditionally, one reflects on how our bodies are impure or unclean, to counteract the perception of our bodies as pure, and the five skandhas are viewed as “aggregates of filth.” This meditation engenders a sense of disgust toward the body and strengthens our sense of renunciation, of wishing to be free of samsara.
This attitude of revulsion is generated in stages by means of the “ten perceptions of the body.” The first of these is the perception of the body as mortal, the recognition that death could occur at any time. The next meditation works with the perception of the body as being ugly or gross by reflecting on all of the unpleasant things that are inside our body, such as blood, lymph, phlegm and other foul and revolting things. The remaining eight perceptions are based on considering what happens to a body after death.

Although we are very attached to our bodies right now, if we think about these a great deal, then our perception of our bodies will change. Essentially, we are attempting to divest ourselves of whatever it is that we are fixating on as “I” or as a self through contemplating the dissolution of the body, until finally we realize that there is no basis in the body for the concept “I.” This meditation should only be done under the guidance of a qualified Buddhist teacher.

Contemplating impermanence is another method for reversing our attachment to the body and inspiring us to take advantage of the precious opportunity of this life that allows us to cut attachment. When we reflect on death and impermanence, we reflect on the certainty of death as well as the uncertainty of the moment of death. We also contemplate the kinds of experiences we will have at the time of death, and what will truly help us through them. We consider what we are leaving behind—our physical body, our family and friends, all our possessions and power, and even our teachers.

When we reflect in this way, we see that this reality is not frozen—it is flowing like a river. Every moment is new, fresh and profoundly awakening. We can take full advantage of this moment or let it slip from our hands, just as each moment in the past has slipped away. That is seeing impermanence: seeing the transitory nature of our lives and the fragile nature of our existence.

Ooohh…today I was asked to contribute ideas to a workshop on “difficult conversations” and my first thought was, “Well, I’d really rather not have any of them thank you very much!”

What I really meant was:

“I’d rather not deal with the difficult feelings that come up in me when I have to face situations that I am not comfortable with.”

Hmmm. In the Focusing world they have a phrase for this.

Process Skipping.

It is a long standing pattern we have of relating to the more negative part of ourselves (remember the Jell-O parts). The difficult part is realising that these old and difficult feelings we treat as enemies are, in fact both friends and teachers! No, its true! And it is possible to come into a new, kinder relationship with ourselves instead of making war inside – holding chronic kinds of tension around relationships, situations, issues, self-judgments and circumstances.

Each of us usually develops a pattern of numbing our difficult feelings. We might exercise, we might drink, watch TV, work long hours, play computer games, talk on the telephone. This, actually, takes us away from ourselves, which seems like a good thing if we are feeling guilty, scared, angry, annoyed, confused etc. Or we might go outside of ourselves to find the solution. We might talk to someone, defer to advice of elders, counsellors, meditate into deeply relaxed states and so on.

We don’t process-skip deliberately. It’s kind of automatic. But you can ask yourself:

How, precisely, do I avoid, numb, or run away from my difficult feelings?

What to do?

However, Gene Gendlin, who developed Focusing says that while the “mind” looks for a “solution” to a problem, our body actually looks for a ‘resolution”. We can find the resolution by spending time with how our body carries this issue in a Focusing kind of way. So, “difficult or uncomfortable” feelings hold the key to resolving the recurring issues in our lives. They hold the key.

The possibility for change and growth  lies not with emotion reactions, but in your body’s  more connected sense of meaning, its Felt Sense, to any given situation or part of yourself. We stay with the Felt Sense of the situation which may show itself to us as a metaphor, an image, a feeling, a shape, a sound, a colour. A felt sense is not just an emotion. Anger, happiness, sadness, fear – these are emotions. But what is under those emotions? What more lies there?

Have you ever tried to talk yourself out of the something that lies under the emotion and found it answering back – like it has a life of its own? We can, by attending to it, let it reveal itself to us. We let it show us what it knows all about this situation and how to resolve this issue. We hold a new kind of conversation with our body.

Our body can only know something is wrong by feeling uncomfortable because it instinctively knows what is perfectly right for us. Our job is to learn how to listen, listen again and trust in its embodied wisdom.

Warp drive…

I made a Star Trek move recently. I went into warp drive creating a heated and extended argument with my husband this week in which, I am not proud to admit, I found myself diagnosing, blaming, judging and advising over something that really had nothing to do with me. Now why would I do that? Why did I go into warp drive with nary a thought?

At first I was convinced it was all about him (during the argument of course). Then later a nagging feeling started to grow in the pit of my stomach -this appears to be where my conscience lives – down deep where it is is all churned up, messy and in process!  No, not for me a conscience which lives in the clear air, with a 360 degree view, where angelic wings can flutter. Damn it.

I began to get curious and wonder if the very qualities of character, his responses to the event, the interpretations he was making and which I was bridling against so strongly were actually parts of me I have never listened to fully. After all, the events meant very little to me. It was how he was responding the events that triggered me.

So here I was making judgements about character. Hmmm. What is acceptable character and what is not. More hmmm. Now I am curious. What makes some stuff send me into warp drive and some stuff barely registers on my radar? And why doesn’t all the intellectualising about “people all having different ways of being in the world” stop the triggering? Well, I think part of the answer lies with Jell-O and part of the resolution lies with the seeming simple act of being heard.

Exploding Jell-O

Now, here, dear reader, I ask you to bear with me for a moment. We have all heard about projecting our shadow parts on to other people. That is where we least accept in others what we least accept in ourselves. These are the parts of ourselves our parents, caregivers, rule-makers in our culture showed and told us were unacceptable as we grew up, so we learned to eliminate them from our conscious life one way or another. However, they are not eliminated, they are just stuffed down into our subconscious life. They become like Jell-O. Most of they time they just sit there, wobbling in response to the normal bumps and grinds of life. But every now and again comes a big squeeze, more pressure than normal and like Jell-O, it squeezes out through the gaps between our conscious mind and our subconscious mind and appears in our life. Only it comes out fast –it flies out and splats onto the other person. Now it looks like their stuff.

So, how does this relate to my argument with my husband – who is now covered in multicoloured “Leona” Jell-O. Well, in NVC he can, if he has the presence of mind, wash it off. He doesn’t have to own it. He can check in for what is his material and what is not; he can give himself some emergency self-empathy. Secondly, he can check out my Jell-O. He can respond to it. He can say – hey Leona, it sounds like you really care about… and you are really stunned as to how anyone can respond like…. I’m wondering how you feel when you notice that response and what needs of yours are not being met. So, he can offer empathy to my exploding Jell-O.

Or

I can learn to listen more fully to myself. This is the part I like most because it feels, to me, self-empowering, self-loving, self-connecting and self-accepting. I can:

• acknowledge the rising tide of pain – a simple “hello rising tension and tightness I sense you there” and “I wonder if you are a part inside of me that has never really been allowed into the light?” and then pause and notice what comes…

• then later, when I have time and space, listen to my “shoulds” – I can take some serious time to hear how life has been for those parts of me that I have not been allowed/continued to allow into my life. I don’t necessarily need to go into the story of why that happened but rather acknowledge its pain of living in the shadows, of not being acceptable and accepted.

• listen for feelings, needs/values, to the metaphors – the intricate, unique richness of each part’s living experiences

• reflect back what you hear so that these parts know they are heard. Ask if they feel heard. Invite them to tell you more.
• Let them know that more than one conversation is possible. That this is about gently getting to know each other again – becoming friends again after a long estrangement.

This process of deep self-empathy takes some effort – actually it takes a huge effort. I reckon bungy jumping has nothing on the deep self-empathy process in terms of courage (and yes, I have jumped).

How can you do this process? Well, here are some of the ways I have tried and others I respect have I tried:

1. Journaling – writing as a dialogue – listener and speaker so each part gets heard
2. Moving between chairs – the chair represents each part and we mediate between the part that holds the “should” and the part that now wants to be heard (aka the shadow). This is a form of NVC mediation. We are helping our parts to hear and understand each other.
3. Listening partner – to reflect each part, to hold the safe energy and support you.
4. Movement – allowing the body to move and express the living energy of each part; really feeling into how our muscles, cells and body structure has held both the “should” and “the part that needs to be fully heard”.

Why does this matter? Isn’t it selfish for it to be “all about me”?

Could it be that if our inner world is at peace then our relationship with the outer world can hold space for peace?

I have a spiritual practice. Indeed, grammatically I should write I have a few spiritual practices. Why? Well, I am a pragmatic woman.

I want a practice that is given plenty of opportunity for expression in my daily life. Both through stillness and movement. Through silence and voice.

I want a practice that helps me feel good about myself – not just my mind feeling stroked – one where my body feels good about itself somehow. Both emotionally well and physically well.

I want a practice that can hold my paradoxes – that of wanting to grow and transform and wanting complete acceptance of myself all while “letting go”. A crazy-making fully-accepting, releasing of self through the attention to self.

For me this is a felt process of becoming. By felt I mean that I experience it in my body. The body becomes the bridge to Presence, to the transcendent experience. I don’t write “transcendence” because so far I have experienced fleeting experiences. Wonderful and momentary. I unfold gently and with inner wisdom at my own pace. I sense for what is alive in the here and now. I feel at the edge for needs my attention, what is new, fresh and vital. I learn to trust myself. I learn to watch and be with myself in a caring way. I learn to hold all of me with the same acceptance.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from my paths of practice which help me to stay connected to what really works for me. Mindfulness, Focusing, valuing oneself, transformation and peace. This is what I practice – literally. And practice is not the same as “this is what I do and am good at.” It is simply what I pay attention to and what I teach. Mindfulness and Focusing as a way to find one’s own unique path while joyfully watching everyone walk their own paths.

Buddhism

“There is one thing that, when cultivated and regularly practiced, leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now, and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening. And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centred on the body.” Gautama Buddha

Focusing & Spirituality

Experience is a myriad richness.
We think more than we can say.
We feel more than we can think.
We live more than we can feel.
And there is much more still.

“You need to stand again in your own experiencing – in your own felt ongoingness, which is that intricate complexity inside of life – to put into the world what hasn’t been said yet that you are carrying from your particular experiencing” Eugene Gendlin

“A subtle, bodily feeling with vague meanings that brings new, clearer meanings involving a transcendent growth process.” Elfie Hinterkopf

How do I live each day so that a felt consciousness of living in a Presence can grow and deepen right within the experiences of daily life? The habit of felt sensing (Focusing) is a practical, physical way to open my body’s consciousness to the transcendent giftedness of everything, including events that threaten biological life. Living itself can be prayer. Our body itself, which we so identify with mortality, is meant to be our conscious bridge into immortality. It is the body process that creates an experiential faith. The habit of felt sensing gives us the body-feel for how in the practical order we can live connected in this world of gift, no matter what happens to us. Rev. Ed McMahon

You – as a gift to the world

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium. It will be lost. The world will never have it. Martha Graham, American dancer and choreographer

Spiritual Transformation

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. J. Krishnamurti

Peace as spiritual practice

Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. Unknown

A few weeks ago I did an exercise from Mark Silver’s called “finding your Jewel”. This exercise is about finding out what is your unique gift in this world. In business there are thousands of massage therapists, life coaches bloggers, for example, but what is it about you that will attract particular clients.

Mark believes that  what our heart most deeply yearns, or thirsts for is the very same quality that our clients yearn or thirst for.

So, following his guided mp3 I sensed into what my heart yearns for. What came first were all the qualities that I am told are my strengths and that help my clients; clarity, insight, support, intuition.

Then, inviting still more. Going into the more vulnerable heart-felt space the word acceptance came. I yearn for acceptance; just as I am and just as I unfold and grow in the light of life’s experiences. Then, inviting still more I knew I hit upon a deep inner truth when the word trust came.

At first, my mind says, “Of course you want trust, who doesn’t want trust, how can you live in a world without trust! Obvious!”

Then, more came.  I yearn to trust my own heart. I yearn to trust my own judgement enough to be able to hear how other’s experience life. I yearn to trust my own reactions and emotions. Not to be swept away by them but to sense into what they are trying to tell me and paying attention to that responsively. Now I know when I have touched in to something essentially true for me when a sheen of tears come and my heart turns. TRUST & ACCEPTANCE.

Now, I have been sitting on this post for a few weeks. Not quite sure what comes next and yet sensing its not quite finished either. And today I saw a quote in Davina’s blog Shades of Crimson.

“Heaven and Earth can never meet as long as you hold even one person outside of your heart.” from Devrah Laval, The Magic Doorway into the Divine.

Davina asked herself “When a person can’t even hold themselves in their heart, how could they possibly attract their dreams?”

When a person can’t even hold themselves in their heart, then what?

How many people do you know who can truly hold themselves in their heart? All of themselves? In Davina’s blog her life coach asks why should she be in a lifeboat if her ship is sinking.  This brought Davina closer to the qualities she admires about herself. What about you -would you be able to let of all the parts of yourself  on to the lifeboat? Would you be able to accept all of you and bring them on board? Or would you turn some parts away? Or maybe you might not even notice some parts that need to get on?

And then who would be left on the lifeboat? Would that actually be “you” at all? Or just the you you have been told to be by your culture, your parents, your school teachers, priests, counsellors, and your inner critic to name just the obvious sources of advice and admonition we receive as we grow up. Would you really be “living” if all of you didn’t come on board.

For me, this raises the question what do our shadow parts bring to us as a gift? Do they bring energy, vulnerability, compassion? What is the jewel hidden inside our judgement of them? Why do these parts we shy away from, deny existance know they should be on the lifeboat?

How does it feel to even be considering bringing them all on board – and who is the part that thinks it gets to decide who stays behind and who boards?

When you can’t even hold all of yourself in your heart, then what does that mean for how you live “the all” of your life?