Everyone, starting in childhood, goes in search of his or her center. Our desire to find our center is because we all sense the importance of it. To be centered means to move about our lives with strength, tuned into internal forces that are essential to feeling empowered. All truly successful people have found the way to their center or they would not have arrived at their destination. In sports, the martial arts, dance and meditation the center is the place from which we focus out body in movement or stillness.
Today’s Inner Practice is about finding our center. Each of us has a center located at the navel. Here is the practice to explore:
Sit or lie down and breathe with awareness into the mid section of your body. See a target with a red dot in the middle and expanding circles. Sense a place between your back and belly, breathe in and find the center. Become acquainted with what it feels like to be in your center. Imagine aligning your center with the crown of head, balls of your feet, with your spine and through your heart.
Now get up and move with full awareness of your center.
As I am writing this last night, I take a break and go out into the cold night for a walk to experiment with my centering to gain further insight as to its affects on me. I feel as I breathe deeply down into my center that it is as if I am breathing in and out through my navel. This seems to make me stand up taller and walk with more a sense of inner power. As I continue to become more watchful of the affects, I notice that I linked in automatically with my Higher Self. I now understand that when I feel centered I am also aligned with my higher nature. As I return to writing this I have remained centered and it is as if the flow has opened up to a relaxed exercise in awareness and expression. That feels inspirational and energizing.
Now return to your awareness of center as you move about. If it is quiet initially that seems helpful. Then as you deepen your resonance with your center any outside distractions seem much less impactful. If there is someone to interact with, see what talking to others feels like as you maintain your center. Experiment with this centerness for as long as you have the time.
Try driving to work centered and being at work centered, if you have a difficult interaction coming up, try to be centered before the meeting. Cook, eat, wash dishes from a centered place. Center yourself in the morning and before you go to sleep. Experiment with as many different ways to explore being centered as you can come up with and see how it feels inside.
Your comments are valued, please share your experiences of centering so we all can benefit.
Peace Letter #52
Dear President Obama,
Please take the reigns of government and pull back hard: on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; on listening to CEO’s of insurance corporations who care little for the people they serve; on seeking the approval of the GOP because that is not possible; on tax breaks for the wealthy; on Blackwater and other private security forces who are professional hit men we pay for; on those companies that get tax breaks while polluting the planet; and on any other situations in this country that is not acting for the good of all.
Yes I know there is a lot to control out there but if government does not look out for the good of the people, nation and planet, who will? Big government is neither good or bad, a well run government can make a difference.
Joseph Bernard, Ph.D.
Join me and send President Obama emails of support and encourage the end of war and the other dysfunctional ways of government at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact