Mary Ellen Hannon

Mary Ellen is a Somatic Movement Teacher and Author. She was trained at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment to teach Concentration Meditation many years ago. Then more recently she received teaching certifications from Movingness and Somatic Groundwork. She joined Insight Timer and started teaching somatic movement to her students before moving into stillness because she personally experienced much deeper meditations practicing this way. She has come to believe Concentration Meditation can be somewhat dualistic with its emphasis on mantras or breath. Just like in non-dualistic thought there is no fundamental separation between the observer and the observed, the subject and the object. Instead, everything is part of a unified whole, interconnected and interdependent. The focus is not the breath, it’s the quality of awareness you can sustain paying attention to it. She begins by guiding students to tune into and track specific sensations, like their breath or physical pressure, as a way to anchor their awareness in their body. Gradually expanding focus to include the full range of sensations throughout their body, encouraging them to be present with each moment of their movement experience and allowing the body to appear as a flow of energy. Tingling, pressure, temperature, thoughts whatever appears. This helps to cultivate a deep connection to their 'body of awareness' and all the richness it contains.

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