Welcome to keeping the body and mind while speaking and listening.
In other words,
50-50.
Relationships can be a big source of stress.
Interactions with others,
Interactions with things,
With life,
Can highlight our reactive patterns.
We get triggered by all sorts of things.
Autopilot,
Or automatic mode,
Can also harm relationships.
And staying mindful with others,
With life,
Is often challenging.
This practice is about keeping the body and mind while speaking and listening,
While interacting with life.
The invitation is to close or lower the eyes and to find an anchor in or outside the body as I'm speaking right now.
An anchor is something you can connect with easily.
Maybe it's the sensations in the feet.
Or the sit bones coming into contact with the chair or cushion.
Maybe you can easily connect with your hands.
Or maybe the sensations of breathing.
We can also connect with a sound.
Or another of our senses.
In other words,
We're connecting to a part of the body,
Or one of our senses,
That feels steady.
Not agitated or charged.
We can feel and sense and experience directly the body,
Parts of the body or our senses.
And we could also think and conceptualize and imagine and visualize.
I invite you now to open the eyes,
If you had them closed,
While keeping your awareness on this anchor,
As I say a bit more about this practice.
Once again,
It's called keeping the body in mind,
While we speak,
While we listen,
While we interact.
But it's a long name.
So it's often called 50-50.
50% on the body,
50% on the mind.
Now,
50-50 can be misleading,
As it might imply that we only give the person,
Or the thing,
Half our attention.
This is not the intention.
The intention is to experience more what's happening,
Both in body and in mind.
It's about feeling more.
What we're thinking.
It's about being able to better understand and think about what we're feeling,
And vice versa.
So don't get too hung up with the numbers.
It might be 80-20,
Or 95-5,
Really depending on the situation.
Perhaps sometimes it's helpful to be more in the body.
If we're trying to experience something.
And other times it might be quite helpful to think,
Analyze,
Brainstorm.
How's it going so far?
How has it been keeping some awareness of your anchor,
While listening to me?
This isn't an easy practice.
Once again,
The intention is for the anchor to help you stay present,
Not take you away.
And I invite you to continue practicing this.
The rest of the day,
The rest of the week,
The rest of your life.
All the best.
