Do you rush through the day without checking in with your experience of life, your experience within? Do the days lead to weeks and years of being out of touch with your own needs and feelings? Are dissatisfaction, burnout and health being sacrificed as you continue to "push through"?
Constant movement, change, focus and drive can challenge your ability to be grounded, embodied and fully present to your needs. If you are living on autopilot, this will have a dramatic impact on your health, comfort and nourishment, as well as your relationships. What really suffers is your relationship with your true Self, and most certainly your creativity and life force energy. Fortunately you can unwind the numbness and choose to step into embodiment with very little effort. I use a simple technique to help bring presence to what is occurring within at any given moment. It's beyond listening to the breath and deep breathing (though this can certainly be valuable for the nervous system). I use a "three level check-in" process to immediately name the experiences arriving within. In this embodiment practice, you human experience is divided into four levels: mental body, emotional body and physical body. The fourth level includes the spiritual body. The spiritual body upholds the other three bodies. The Vedic koshas correlate to these "four bodies" and Ayurveda corroborates, since it also speaks to these four "bodies" as well. We can also use this tracking process in conjunction with Jyotish. As you track your inner landscape, you are literally tracking the effects of the planets on your physiology. There are multiple reasons why a Four Level Check-in is valuable for health and well being as well as for deepening one's ability to increase resiliency and thriving. First, let's take it for a spin and experience the mechanics of it. 1) Whatever you are doing right now, hit the pause button and bring your attention inward. It may help to close your eyes, but this isn't necessary. You may be sitting, standing or walking, but bring your attention to the now regardless of what is happening around you. 2) Notice the physical body. What is coming to you? What is the physical body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. 3) Notice the emotional body. What is coming to you? What is the emotional body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. 4) Notice the mental body. What is coming to you? What is the mental body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. 5) Notice the spiritual body. What is coming to you? What is the spiritual body sharing with you? Be present to images, colors, words, expressions and shapes that arise. This level of awareness is the most nuanced. Sometimes it's available, other times it is not. Create a space for listening nonetheless. Use this check-in practice at least once a day to do an "audit" of your inner landscape. As you track your physical body, you are tracking the Sun and Saturn and often Mars- which give awareness of sensation in the body. As you track the emotional body, you are tracking the Moon and often Venus. Tracking the mental body arrives through Mercury. The spiritual body is connected to the Sun as well as Jupiter. Mars and Venus support these bodies in subtle ways, while Rahu and Ketu intensify the experiences arriving. Your four level check-in findings can be written down and used at another time. You can take these findings into a creative process by moving your words, creating a poem from them, drawing an image, or turning them into a song etc. This keeps your bodies alive, potent and moving. It can also help you deepen the identification process- which is so vital for creating life change. Use your inner experiences and harvest from them further; move them, transform them, change them through an intentional art making process. But if nothing else, create space for these feelings, allow them to be with you and be present to the experience of your inner landscape. This presence alone can be immensely valuable. Far too often people gloss over feelings, physical body sensations and the potency of the inner landscape- cutting and pasting over these vital messages. Everyone wears numerous masks just to get through each day, week, year. But when you take time to stop what you are doing and notice how you are unconsciously being, you have the opportunity to arrive into the now. The potency of life is in the moments of now. Here you can listen intently to your feelings and inner experiences. Here you gain an opportunity for more depth and awareness within your life. It is through pausing and listening that you can more clearly and courageously attend to your own needs, use healthy boundaries, and create a life that is more in harmony with joy, nourishment, thriving and satisfaction. This is the power of the present moment and being in the now, being embodied. Never miss a Creative Ritual, sign up for my weekly newsletter. Want more Creative Rituals? See my current virtual workshop offerings here.
8 Comments
3/2/2015 10:11:26 am
as a sensitive person I feel more I am more in tune with everything. I have learned there is nothing wrong with it. It has taken 53 years to come to terms with it. It has begun to be for me that what I feel and am are a gift not a henderance. I wonder why others are not as feeling as me and how great it is to given such a gift. Embrace how lucky I am to be intune with the world.
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Hope
8/13/2015 06:33:08 am
I understand how to take stock of my emotions, my thoughts and my body, but I don't understand what spiritual really means. I never have. Would you give some examples please of what your spiritual body shares with you or others? Thanks.
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Hi Hope,
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Ashley
11/7/2015 01:29:02 pm
Thanks for this question and this answer. I have a pretty overactive mind and I gravitate towards nature, meditation and exercise to help settle it. However, I am clearly not a visual "seer" as I have never really seen colors or images. I wish I could see them as they sound lovely and quite affirming, however, that skill does not appear to be open to me. Any thoughts on how to activate that? I try to meditate and journal daily but over my thinking mind gets the best of me and I run out of time in the day. 9/25/2015 10:40:49 am
Personally speaking, I don't think there is any right/wrong way to live life; because all people are different...and, therefore, we all must follow different paths/seeking different salvations/cures. However, I did/do always feel that there is so much more to life than what merely lies on the 'surface'...as, quite often, the surface tends to be very shallow/in fact, when we look deep down, it's 'empty!' So, In order to not go completely astray; by chasing after money/go looks/other peoples praise; I try to place much emphasis on seeking the 'spiritual', too; which is like putting ourselves far above following our own ego. Namely, I want this/I want that...all the time knowing that such endless wanting can never truly be satisfied. Therefore, sometimes, it's important to give up all of the non-stop wanting; and, then, simply learn to 'accept'. I think, meditation teaches us this very well; don't want..instead, just simply learn to accept being ourselves. Accepting yourself, though, doesn't necessarily come too easy; for some it takes them an entire lifetime to 'master'...that is, if they ever manage to get there at all?! Due to how BIG our ego, actually, is... Even at age, 52; I'm still struggling each and everyday with how to overcome mine...???
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