What is Physical Awareness?
Physical awareness is attention to the senses and stimuli obtained from the senses. The terms Physical awareness and Physicality do not distinguish between negative stimuli (pain) or positive stimuli (pleasure). Physical awareness and Physicality certainly have nothing to do with self-gratification, immorality, or overindulgence. Our senses provide the information by which we base all of our intuitive thoughts, creativity, and desires, as well as our clear problem solving ability. They help us to determine what is right and what is wrong for us far better than any holy book, psychologist, or pop culture. By becoming fully present in our Physical perceptions we become more sensitive to our passions, our inner compass, our personal truth, or what we call our core values. Core values are true and authentic and are not influenced by the values and judgments of others.
Being Detached
Envisage a scenario where you are in a job that is unfulfilling and has been for several years. However, on paper that job is prestigious and friends and family envy your position. You know that something has to change but you don’t know whether you should go reverse to school, start your own business, or change careers altogether. The years keep on passing but you fell stuck in the situation and just continue to have no idea what to do. Or imagine that you are running ragged, between your work, your commute, carting children to and fro, PTA meetings, scaring down fast food in the car 3 or more times per week, and never being able to start that new hobby or get some needed exercise, after that lying awake wasteful precious sleep time at night fretting about the next hectic day. You know amazing has to change because this is unhealthy, you are exhausted, and it is starting to show, but you carry on to make negative response changes because you are torn sandwiched between where to cut your behavior for some relief and being a superhero. Your brain be racing a mile a small and you just cannot make a decision on how to make life enhanced. These are two simplified examples of how life can be when we are disconnected as of our core principles.
How Physical Awareness reconnects us to our Core Values
In our frenzied culture, many of us are not immediately capable of sitting and meditating with a clear mind for long periods of time. In this instance, Physicality just serves as a different form of meditation that may be more a more easy to get to means to reconnect with what is genuine inside of us, allowing us to observe our state from a neutral, relaxed viewpoint. Often we are either too busy in our daily lives to fully recognize our core values or are too accustomed to letting outside influences, i.e. faith, commercial, communal values, view of relations and friends, etc. guide our desires to easily make decisions that correctly align or actions with them.
Though Physicality does not actually refer to stimuli that are positive or negative, the more engaging and pleasurable the experience, the more easily we can stay in that place of presence and allow our core values and passions to surface clearly. The key to Physical meditation is actively observing through our senses enough to keep us present but yet not so much as to overwhelm or distract us, and that is relaxing enough to quiet mental chatter. We must become aware of our sensations but without thinking about them. We are giving all sensations, both the pleasurable and the unpleasant or stressful ones, a place to simply BE. Without fighting or ignoring or manipulation, we can just observe them and release them, where they will cease to cloud our thoughts and judgments. Essentially here we are giving attention to our body-mind connection. Physicality is the bridge sandwiched between the body plus the brain, because all thoughts originate with the senses. Get them working together in harmony and observe what miracles can happen!
Getting Started with Physical Meditation
Although Physical awareness as a meditation may be a more easily accessible form of meditation than other forms, it still takes practice. Here is a very simplified practice to get started:
(1). Try not to think about anything, and as the thoughts arise, just release them and relax. Don’t try too hard. Just go with the flow. (2). Notice what you hear. (3). Notice what you see. (4).Notice how you feel. (5). Notice what you smell. (6). Notice what you taste. (7). Be aware of your sensations and notice a sense of calm connectedness. (8). Continue to experiment with your Physical meditations in various locations and activities over a month’s time. (9).Find a quiet spot and sit comfortably. If necessary, make the environment more inviting with candles, incense, dimmed lighting, or fresh flowers. (10). No need to close your eyes but it helps to relax the eyelids halfway. Begin with slow deep breathing, expanding the ribcage and filling the entire abdomen with nourishing oxygen and releasing the used air and clutter with each exhalation.There is much more to Physical awareness, so you would be cheated if you stop here. Regular practice is needed to knowledge the full intensity of benefits such as increased aptitude in the direction of think evidently and imaginatively in all aspects of your life; the discovery of solution to problems you may have been struggling with; generating more laughter and fun in your existence; experiencing increased self-assurance; and becoming more relaxed with yourself and less stressed. Learning about the concepts of balancing male and female energies in considerate the chakras, and using and playing with universal power are also needed to benefit from a rich Physical appointment with the world.
