Recently on a trip to San Diego to visit my son and his wife, I was sitting in the shade behind the VRBO I was staying in, doing laundry. Yes my life is a thrill a minute adventure. Lol.
So this year, one of my commitments to myself is reading a book that a dear friend of mine recommended called the Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. It is a daily read, much like a devotional.
Each day is a short read that has mindful practices listed at the end to help us solidify the experience of the day’s message.
Let me transgress for a moment before we go forward; when I did the 13 days of dreams leading into a winter solstice, the thing that I was left with was to let go of my pattern of anxiety, and to experience myself, calm, peaceful, grounded, solid, and centered. I did not choose this to be the thing that I am responsible for fulfilling in this year, the Universe left it to me.
With that said, this day’s message was particularly good for me in that regard.
It was talking about beauty and truth, and started with a quote from Keats.“Beauty is truth, truth, beauty-that is all you know on earth, and all you need to know”.
The author goes on to talk about truth and beauty not being the same but being fundamental compliments to one another that we cannot live without, that as he says “one cleanses the wound while the other heals the wound.” That these two things are the ropes and wheels that carry us through this life.
At the end of this, the practice was to sit quietly and feel my own tenderness in being alive.
I have been doing a lot of work lately around my life experiences and some of the false beliefs that I have held as truths. A proverbial weeding of the inner garden if you will. So when I sat and really felt my tenderness as a being in this life, it was alarming to me how much I could genuinely feel. As a highly sensitive person I have come to understand that one of the normal coping mechanisms for highly sensitive people is to disconnect from their bodies because we simply feel too much and it is incredibly overwhelming as we perceive everything all of the time. While this helps me in my work, it doesn’t necessarily help me in my moment to moment life so feeling into myself in a moment of quiet is an incredible, but vulnerable experience. To simply sit and let myself not go inward to focus on my breath, or notice my body sensation, or have a specific agenda in what I was doing by going inside, but rather to simply just sit in awareness of my own aliveness, know the same everything that was already there, just waiting for me to pay attention. There were layers upon layers of things that I noticed; that I have a general fear of being alive that my body holds. That I love the sensation of air on my skin, not breeze mind you, just air, the space around me. That clothing is hard to wear because it provides one set of sensations, but if I didn’t have it on, there would be other equally as uncomfortable perceptions. That one made me giggle.
The list goes on and on, so many more awarenesses simply in allowing myself to notice that I am a being that holds life. I have a hard time describing exactly what the experience is or how to get there, but I simply encourage you to try it. Sit. Don’t focus on anything other than the fact that you are a physical living being. Do not attach to any aspect of that aliveness, not your heartbeat, not your breath, not your thoughts, just notice that you are alive in the experience of whatever environment you are in, and then simply notice what that feels like, and what the experience of that is for you.
Some of you will totally get this with ease others will have no idea what I’m talking about and all of that is fine. I have no expectations for any of you.
I would love to know if any of you try this what your experience of being alive is as you just sit and experience your aliveness within the moment.
Tell me!
Oh, and may I recommend grabbing a copy of Mark Nepo’s book, The Book of Awakening. After all, we are just stretching into March so you have plenty of the year left.
Seriously, let’s share what you discover in your own awareness of your aliveness.
Forever the journey, Anne