Loving Awareness Practice:

 

In the Loving Awareness Practice, you are invited to sit comfortably and explore sensations of the body with curiosity; with an open heart, and a non shaming and non blaming curiosity. As we gently move through the body with full presence self-awareness, stories and judgment are bound to come up. When you notice that the story teller version of yourself popped in to narrate or to pass judgment, gently acknowledge the story teller within you and then gently bring your curious observer self back into the drivers seat. The story teller version of our mind will eventually catch on as you repetitively bring it back to the practice of full attentive awareness. As we learn to be fully present in our body and our body’s sensations in a non judgmental way, we are given the opportunity to expand our horizon awareness and see things in a new light. We also learn to bring a loving awareness into the way we connect with interact with ourselves.

 

As we begin to find ease in sitting with ourselves, even within our emotions of joy, sadness, anxiousness, grief, relief, anger, ect…., in a listening and compassionate way we move away from the stuck patterns of the storyteller and gently move to expanded curious loving awareness. You may find as the story fades away so does shame and blame, for yourself and others. The curious exploration can be thought of as an art form. As you explore a sensation, notice if it has a color, or a shape. Are there any apex points, are there any shadows? Maybe words pop into your mind space as you explore. Try not to lead the experience, but just let it happen. If there is something that needs to be examined or reflected upon, you can take note and make time later to reflect upon these insights that came up during your practice, but for now just be in full presence of your own being.

 

Full body awareness and processing emotions: All emotions are felt in the body. For example: Anxiety is quite often felt in the belly, sadness quite often felt in the heart and anger quite often felt in the throat. But those are just examples, as each person is different and where you feel sadness may be completely different than another person. Now that you have a Loving Awareness Practice, when you feel sensations in the body and/or when you are feeling emotional, you are invited to sit with yourself in whatever body sensation or emotion you are feeling and hold space for yourself in a loving and compassionate way however it shows up in the body. You can just crawl up with all your awareness, into that body sensation without stories, judgment, shame or blame, but instead with that curious and accepting awareness of what is just is. Emotion is the mind reacting to something on the outside as we learn in our Emotions teaching. The ‘something’, or the event already happened. Now what is left is the minds reaction to the event that sits in the body as an emotion. If you can sit with the emotion in the body until the judgment passes and it becomes a feeling state that is non judgmental and acceptance based, then you have provided your mind with a loving awareness that says, you are safe, you are loved, you are free from the limitations of your mind.

 

The Founder's Story: Once when I was reading a letter from a friend of mine, my face started turning hot and red and my throat got really hot and kind of clogged up. I stopped reading to just notice. I said “wow, isn't that interesting, I think I just witnessed anger in my body at what I was reading from my friend.” This full body awareness allowed me to witness a feeling state and just sit with it without judgment until it dissipated. My attitude softened as a wave of compassion came over me. Then after I held space for myself I read the rest of the letter. I took the time to reflect on where the source of this feeling state came from. I realized that I was being misunderstood by my friend. Instead of asking me questions, they assumed they knew how I was feeling. And this triggered a reaction of my childhood in which I was frequently told how to feel, seemingly never asked how I felt. Without holding this awareness and non judgmental space for myself to reflect, I would have immediately reacted and written back that they had no idea what they were talking about. Or I might have just not said anything and ended up resenting this friend because I did not have the ability to process my feelings and realize the root cause of the emotion. By moving into full body awareness, and holding space for my own feelings at the throat and face, I was able to sort out my feelings and respond in a gentle way by holding them accountable and suggesting that they please ask me how I feel and what I needed instead of assuming they knew what I needed.

 

May you find acceptance and peace for this Journey that you are embarking on. There are no failures in life. We are here to learn and the best way to learn is to experience our life through our challenges and joys. Shanti dear ones! Shantih!