Mental Balancing

For helping with the integration of information and balancing communication between hemispheres of the brain - essential when doing any activity intensely for a long period of time (ie: studying):
("brain button")

Position 1 - index finger and thumb of one hand just underneath the collar bones to either side of sternum

Position 2 - all 5 digits of other hand in/around belly button

Deep exhalations and scan your eyes back and forth Slowly across the horizon. 2 minutes.

Near bottom of exhalation, clavicles (collar bones) and sternum (breastbone) should sink and flatten in slightly. Wait - gently drifting towards empty - until your body inspires spontaneously - Sternum lifting and Clavicles rolling up and back.

Hands in both positions 1 & 2 are soft and sensitive. Pressure and quality of touch varying as you listen in and follow what feels good.

Connect with softness to the rhythm of bulging and hollowing, opening and closing, through your soft belly and mobile upper chest. This provides rich sensory information about your mid line and the relationship between two important organizational centers in the body.

Notice as you scan your eyes Left to Right and Right to Left across a horizon line:
- are there places your eyes tend to jump?
- do you notice yourself looking up or down?
- notice when your gaze is approaching the center and how that transitions to leaving the center

Are you holding your breath?
Commit to surrendering deeply into the space.

small reminder

feeling the ground beneath

surrendering *breath* deeply

&

*breath* pouring up from the earth
filling this container
bottom to top



may and those around you feel supported by their ground.


eYe

Recess - a Soma Break

How many of us can remember being told: "Sit still! Don't fidget!
How many of us are still startled and frightened into frozen stillness?

Listen and let yourself fidget! Squirm and rock and wobble!
Have you ever seen a 2year old sit still? how does your inner toddler want to move?!
Have Fun!

recess mix

take your time with explorations... feel where your body wants to go. start slow.

in starting this session, the initial movements are gentle nods:
yes - nose goes up&down / back of head goes down&up
no - nose goes one way / back of head goes the other
maybe - forehead goes one way / chin the other
--> a 3D set of axis: breath soft spaciousness into the center

from there this mix is all about weight-sensing (feeling weight on earth) and undulating.
- as you shift and move feel the weight shifting between sitz bones and or feet - feel the earth pushing up on you!
- undulations can arise from a yield and push on the ground to initiate from the foundation *or* as rhythmic pulls from higher in the body

ie: reaching the tip of one shoulder into space and then the other.
reaching though the top of the head to draw on roof
perhaps finding reaches through the fingertips - undulating with articulate collarbones...
let your body Be Moved!
let it shake off the holding
learn to return to center by gently leaving it...
where is play for you here?
look into your body
what do you see?

Cyclic Blissings

May you feel the support of Earth welling up and pushing on your bones.
Providing structure and stability - spiral crystalline mineral sculptures - earth-within-us.
May you Yield fully into Her support - that She might Push up on you
Force from the center of our Mother - meeting your surrender and trust
with the gift of infinite equanimity and support.

May this spread out in a plane all around you
- ready to offer support in any direction you may flow.
Stepping into each new moment and cycle.
Support providing the basis for mobility and actualization.
As well as a resting place in the Here and Now.

May you Reach out into the world through your Heart
Pulling in and integrating into your Self only what is nourishing.

May cycles and rhythms sing to you:
Yield into Push
Reach into Pull
Closing into Opening

Structured Patterns
Fluid Pulsations
Surrender and Inspiration

Space caressing our cell(ve)s

Thank you for touching my life.
In this Rebirth of Light - blessed Initiations.
______

nourishment and the connoisseur

habits that help me both appreciate my food more and regulate how much i eat:

- take the time to smell food. opening the olfactory sense starts the digestion process by forwarning the body of what it is consuming and allowing it to prep the appropriate digestive enzymes. smell is also very connected with the emotions and gives important information about how we feel towards the food on a deeper level. food will often also stop smelling so good when we don't actually need any more.

- take the time before and during eating to smack your mouth and swallow rhythmically. feel how the smooth muscle pulsations travel down through the esophagus, to the stomach, into the small intestines, up/across/down through the L intestines, and to the anus - the whole gut tube from top to bottom. connect with the sensation of your oral/anal pulsatory rhythm - yourself as a internal tube from top to bottom. awareness of the gut body highlights how our consumptive (needs & desires), integrative (nourishment & discretionary), and elimination (what we do not need or cant integrate) functions are feeling in the moment. this also helps food to move along, and sensitizes one to the messages of the digestive system.

- use chopsticks!

- take moments to pause, appreciate, and bless

- chew more - and even though it might be considered rude (it matters less when we are eating alone) try smacking your mouth while chewing. this mixes air with the scent of the food being broken down by saliva enzymes and blows it out the nose - increasing our experience (smell and taste) of the food. in oriental cultures this is the polite way to eat and appreciate food - chewing quietly means that you are trying to minimize how much you are tasting - and that you do not appreciate or like the food - especially when someone has prepared it for you.

- see how far down you can continue experiencing food after swallowing

all of this really speaks to me about sensitizing oneself to the present moment experience - in this case of eating. by opening ourselves to the moment and listening in with all our senses, our experience comes alive, we comes into consciousness, and the self-regulating genius of our being is allowed to express itself.

we become connoisseurs of experience.

there is so much language around falling...
falling in love
falling for
having a falling out
getting dumped
...just fell into it
falling apart
falling is said to be the only unlearned fear

our reaction to falling has several stages -
later in development the opening reaction gets overridden and we go straight to the startle response (flexion/adduction) but it is still very present in our nervous systems.

in falling we open to be held -
and then we close -
to protect the head in case of impact, and if there is a 'caring presence' - to embrace
the embrace is where we feel met and the opening into falling finds completion

Lying, Sitting, Standing, Walking
- the Four Dignities
a chinese proverb


Can you feel yourself thinking?
How would it feel
to permit more restfulness in your mind?

Does anything new come to consciousness,
if thought comes more to quiet?

[in this]

Are you fixing your attention on difficulties
and attempting to correct them?

How would it be to simply stay uncritical
- and open -
for whatever changes might happen by themselves?

all found in 'Sensory Awareness' by Charles Brooks