Find Stillness In The Chaos….

You may recall a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I attended a course on practical philosophy.

From the very beginning, and every week throughout the course, the lecturer really impressed upon us the value and importance of undertaking a regular meditation/relaxation practice, and he recommended that we undertook a process called the awareness exercise when we woke up in the morning, and at the end of the day.

FYI – according to Eastern philosphy, the best time to meditate is during the confluence of light i.e. dawn and dusk.

However, the lecturer also stated that ‘anytime you can’ is a good time to find stillness.

So, let’s now find out how we:

The Awareness Exercise

To begin, sit in a balanced position with your eyes closed.

Let the body be still.

Let the mind be free of any concern or preoccupation.

Be aware of where you are now.

Feel the touch of the feet on the ground.

Feel the weight of the body on the chair.

Feel the touch of the clothes on the skin.

Feel the air on the face.

Be aware of the sense of smell.

And the sense of taste.

Be fully here.

Now be aware of hearing.

Let sounds come and go without comment.

Let the hearing extend right out the furthest and gentlest sounds, embracing them all.

Simply rest in this awareness for a few moments………(the end)

The practice from beginning to end should only take a few minutes, and provide a feeling of relaxation, as well as having benefits that last beyond the meditation practice itself.

So, I suspect the big questions are: how did I find it, what were the results?!?

Well, the truth is that I initially found the daily practice quite challenging, but mainly because I kept forgetting to do it (embarrassed face). It definitely took some time to change my ingrained habits and routines, which started with becoming aware that I spent so much time on autopilot i.e. doing without thinking, which was quite a confronting realisation (I will talk about this is greater detail in a future post titled Being Awake – How Awake Are You?).

However, once I started to adopt the practice regularly, both at the beginning and end of the day, as well as on an impromptu / adhoc basis during the day, I definitely felt better for it.

I suspect that my life is the same as a large portion of the population i.e. it’s all GO…GO….GO….  I can hand on heart say that it was really nice to start and end the day with a moment of peace, and I felt it both in a physical sense, and in the heart and mind.

I now feel like a much calmer human being, definitely more in control, generally more content, and definitely less frazzled.

Therefore, I feel it would be remiss of me to not encourage you all to try this exercise just once, and see if you feel any different afterwards. If you do, then perhaps you might consider changing your daily habits and giving yourself the gift of 5-10 minutes of stillness in the chaos every day.

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