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1.1 | What have you observed about your mindfulness of body practice?
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I am really valuing the mindfulness of body practice because it’s helping me focus on others, and on breathing, when I’m feeling tension or stress. When sitting down to specifically practice and meditate, I realized how easy it is for me to ‘check out’ of my body—to run away into my mind and my thoughts. When I am able to really be mindfully aware of my body, I immediately feel calmer and more present and connected with myself, and others. In simply pausing, not reacting, breathing, and giving space in meetings, I’ve felt that I’m able to better support and guide others. Naturally, I’d like to continue practicing this.
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Mindfulness of the body practice has helped me notice the many sensations, tightness, and sometimes heaviness in my neck, throat, chest, shoulders, and hip areas when anxious, sad, excited, or mad. However, before I notice and can name those feelings, sometimes it feels like my body is floating away from me. It’s almost as if I’m standing outside of myself trying to escape truly feeling what’s happening.
For me, the body and breath go hand-in-hand, so in those moments, I try to draw my attention to my breath, which allows me to call my body back. The breath usually helps ease the chest area. I try to stand up and stretch or do shoulder rolls if the environment does not allow a full stretch for the other areas of my body. My goal is to pay specific attention to the body and what it’s telling me.
This practice has helped my body notice the emotion, recognize the sensations, sit in the discomfort, and start asking myself some questions to understand better what’s happening. It can be a bit of a chaotic experience because I’m going: “Oh, your body is trying to run away from you. You’re feeling something. Find your breath. Ok, you’re back. Your shoulders are up; what happened? Do you feel safe? So, now what?” as a check-in to figure out why my body is reacting and what I’m feeling.
Sorting through the feelings and questions has also helped me understand my anxiety a little better. For many years, I didn’t realize that I experienced similar feelings when anxious and excited. For example, I might feel anxiety when a project is due soon and excitement when I’m about to dive into a new project. My body experiences similar sensations in both situations, but awareness of those feelings in the body lets me ask questions to get to the source.
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What have you learned / observed about your mindfulness of body practice?
Because of this prompt, I have actively tried to pause and be mindful of my physical experience in meetings. Instead of immediately jumping to in with a response, I am more actively listening to the individual speaking and how my body feels in that moment. With the pausing, I have responded and met others in a different space than if I were to quickly react/respond (as I typically do). It’s allowed me to more patiently think through how I want to acknowledge what that individual just shared and do so from a more grounded space.
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I do practice body scans but tend to end up in my head a lot during the day and even when meditating. Consistently focusing on the body has made me more aware of it outside of practice – breathing, body position, its feelings and pulses – and makes it much easier to do the inside/ outside awareness. There is a reduced separateness between mind and body and it is really helpful in bringing me back to the moment – in car, at work, whenever. Though I am only very occasionally managing it, I can start to feel this sense of being “embodied” as a person and a leader what might actually mean (rather than being a walking head) and how I might be more intentional and responsive in my stance and style.
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I’ve been struggling with migraines that last several weeks so I’ve noticed how much I have been dissociated rather than mindful of my body. It’s a familiar way to cope. When I sit formally though I’ve been aware of how much more settled I’ve felt now that I’ve been sitting more regularly and that the groundedness is a little easier to find. I have also found that when I’m busy lost in thought, planning, ruminating or rehashing something that my shoulders and neck and face tense up. When I catch myself and sense into by body again I can sometimes feel my whole body relax. All good reminders of why I practice.
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I’ve been listening to the SoundCloud meditation and appreciate both the focus on body awareness and the self-love practice at the end of the call. I see a clear difference on the days when I’m able to slow down and pay attention to my body and mind.
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Perhaps I am being too hard on myself but I have noticed an aversion to integrating the body scans into my meditation practice. I am fairly in-tune with my body as it is, and have been trying to increase awareness simply by being present and noticing when I feel tense, tired, and tightness in my body. I am going to try and integrate the body-scans, however, and see what comes of it.
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I really appreciate going back to the basics. I feel, by focusing on my body, I can get to calm more easily and quickly. I’ve used mindfulness of body during my seated meditation when my mind is busy and during meetings to get calm and focus my energy. So it’s been beneficial to reconnect with the mindfulness of body practice.
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This practice has transformed how I approach every aspect of my life. It almost feels self-indulgent, like a mini-vacation, where I can ‘get away’ and just be. By focusing on the body, I’m more attentive to where feelings manifest, awareness of not being the feelings themselves and as a result returning to my day with greater peace and perspective. My biggest struggle is time, I wish I had more time to focus on this practice as I know there are greater depths to it.
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I have assiduously maintained a mindful meditation practice for about the previous seven (7) years. Two more recent observations that bear mentioning in this space:
***In the early years of my practice, there was a clearer boundary between the times in the morning and evening that I invested in meditation versus the rest of my ‘normal’ day or waking time. Lately I’ve been able to blur and some days even erase this line and extend the principles and practices from meditation outward into the rest of my life. Any moment in the day is a moment for mindfulness, not just meditation. Anything happening at any minute is an opportunity to notice whatever wave of energy is emerging in consciousness.***During my times of meditation practice, more recently I’ve also been able to notice and relinquish more nuanced mood states and wants that I previously didn’t recognize or merely accepted as elements of reality. As an example, in the first year of regular meditation I often noticed a sensation of wanting something to happen or waiting for something to happen. Now, I’m able to identify (and relinquish) that coloration of mood, that want for something to occur, as just another wave of energy emerging in consciousness no different than an itch that might pop up on my arm or my leg.
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It has greatly reduced my response to stress and worry and helped me to stay more present in meetings and with my coworkers. I’m noticing it is also helping me to stay/return to being present outside of work in my home and personal life as well. One of the most surprising things to me is how I have watched my resting heart rate drop over the past few weeks, it’s been really validating and encouraging to see.
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When meditating I’m able to notice more easily the areas of the body that need attention. When not in a mindful state, I might generalize an overall feeling, but mindfulness of body helps me to zero in on the internal and external. The breadth is key for me, taking moments through the day where I dab some lavender oil on my temples and just inhale and exhale. It’s a reset that feels restorative and keeps me going.
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Exploring my mindfulness of body practice has really driven home how much of my time I spend in my head, untethered to the signals from my body.
I’ve started to pick up more on my body’s cue for anxiety, a sudden feeling of sinking in my chest when anxiety is on the horizon, my mind wandering, lost in thought. Originally I thought the deep thinking tangents were my unbridled creativity but now I see the ways in which I was resisting cues for rest, cues for acceptance, cues for letting go.
Pranayama practice combined with soothing touch, lessening my sensory load and sitting in silence has really helped in my journey of nervous system regulation. Learning how to move my energy in my body has helped me better focus on gratitude.
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With the mindfulness of body practice, my body felt less tight, my head felt less aching, and my shoulder felt less painful.
Maybe by giving my body parts attention, I gradually accepted the discomfort as part of my body and part of my life.
I just need to craft out more time on practice.
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I noticed (again) that when I’m tired or stressed or dealing with chronic pain, I disassociate from my body’s actual feelings. When I stop to check in after a few hours of work, I feel my shoulders hunched up near my ears and my upper back aches. After a tense conversation, my throat feels tight and my breathing is very shallow. When I’m upset with myself I feel it in the pit of my stomach. All of this seems to be better on days that I do some intentional movement or at least get outside for a walk. The best days are when the mindfulness bell extension on my laptop dings on a schedule: “Breathe, my dear!”
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