Exercises

These exercises are from a book I'm writing. If you'd like, try them out and then send me an email telling me about your experience. This would be of great help to me and I suspect you'll enjoy them as well.

Exercise One

Notice where you’re sitting. Notice how you are sitting, what position your body is in. Notice your big toes. See how much of your big toes you can feel. The tips? The first joint? All of the skin? Notice any thoughts about this process or about your toes. Just notice those thoughts. Say to yourself, “I had the thought ___(fill in the blank)____.” Then gently bring your attention back to the sensation in your toes. Now notice the entire bottoms of your feet. If there is pain, just notice the sensation. If there is pleasure, just notice that feeling. Take as much time as you like to finish this exercise. What did you notice about doing this exercise? Was it difficult for you? Did you enjoy it? Did you feel calm or anxious? Whatever you felt, it’s all good. This is just the beginning of bringing yourself into the moment.

Exercise Two

In this experiment we’ll be noticing breath. One of the issues I’ve run across quite often in teaching meditation, as well as for myself when I first started, is that when people pay attention to breath they get anxious. They begin to feel as if they can’t breathe or some other weird and unpleasant sensation. If you are new to this or if you’ve had that experience before, I can tell you that you will get past that and reap the tremendous benefits of noticing your breath. And, as well, the following exercise is designed to minimize that issue. So here goes.

Sit somewhere that you can hear sounds from outside like traffic or wind in trees or whatever sounds are present near you. Begin by closing your eyes and noticing the sounds. Take your time to let yourself notice as much of the texture and details of sound. When you’ve done that for a while, begin to bring your attention to the rise and fall of your breath. Just let your breath rise and fall as it will and notice the physical sensation of breathing. If your mind wanders, that's okay, just notice the thoughts as they pass by and gently bring your attention back to breath. Notice what is pleasurable in breathing. Notice where you can feel your breath moving. Notice how far it moves into your belly and pelvis. Notice if your breath is short or long, deep or shallow, rough or smooth. Do this meditation for as long as you like and then take a moment to write some notes on what you experienced.

Exercise Three

If it feels okay, I'd like you to do a little experiment right now. Just take a moment, close your eyes (after you've read the next few sentences!), and just notice what's happening in your experience right now. Begin by noticing the sensation in your body. Try not to make any judgments about what you notice. There's no good or bad to this. Just notice. Is there tension somewhere? Are you warm, or cold? Can you feel where your body meets the surface on which you're resting? Now notice your feeling body. Are you feeling joy, sadness, anxiety, numbness or anger? Just get a sense of what you're feeling. Now let all those details coalesce into a sense of your overall experience at the moment. Are you feeling expansive or contracted? Are you feeling curious and perhaps engaged?

The point

Our body and mind function as a unit. Not much or maybe not anything happens in one without affecting the other. We are limbic creatures. We experience the world and make decisions largely based on emotion. We can only experience emotion through feeling it in our bodies. Thus chronic anger may lead to a chronically tight neck... etc. One of the easiest and deepest ways to get to know about our anger is to explore how it manifests in our bodies.

Breath. It’s an interesting phenomenon. From the moment we emerge from the womb until the moment we die we breathe. I’ve often been asked while teaching or talking about meditation, “Why pay attention to breath? What’s so interesting or important about breath?” Well, I think I can best answer that from experience. When I’m breathing deeply and relaxed I feel grounded, alive and full of possibility and completely content where I’m at. I’ve also noticed over and over how connected breath is to everything else in my body and mind. If I tune into my breath and also tune into some tension or pain somewhere in my body, eventually I become aware that they are connected. And if I keep bringing my loving, allowing attention to both at the same time the pain or tension can begin to move and change through my breathing. And eventually both breathing and body will become more alive and well.

Tell me about your experience
If you take the time to try out some of my exercises, please tell me about your experience. This helps me in making the communicating of these exercises more effective. I will also really enjoy hearing about what happened for you because people often experience things I haven't even thought of thus broadening my understanding.