I'm from LA in California where I'm currently taking a two-week intensive course with Bonnie Bainridge-Cohen who is the founder of Body Mind Centering Approach and it's been really intensive days but I've learned quite a lot of new stuff that I was thinking to share with you and I was thinking to start with sharing,
Exploring the awareness of your lungs which is a brief but powerful exercise that I personally love very much because it's bringing me down to the cellular level kind of where time and space feel completely different than the ordinary rushing life and it's bringing me simply to the here and now experience.
So if you feel like following then I'd like to invite you to either do this exercise sitting or you can do it lying on the back.
Take a comfortable sitting or lying position.
If you're sitting you can sit cross-legged,
You could also sit on a chair if it's better for you.
Make sure that you feel the connection between your tailbone and the top of your head so that your spine is kind of comfortable,
Elongated so that you're sitting upright,
Not slouching.
So you might even want to lift up your shoulders towards your ears,
Back and down again.
And if you're lying on your back then make sure that your lower back is as near the mat or the floor you're lying on.
If it helps then you might also bend your legs in your knees and place your feet closer to your bum and then just close your eyes and start focusing on your breathing.
You do not need to do anything about your breathing,
Just observe the rhythm,
The natural rhythm of your breathing.
I will start with exploring your right lung which has three huge lobes.
The top lobe starts somewhere on the level of your collarbone,
The middle lobe is somewhere where your ribcage is ending on the lower side of it and the lower lobe is somewhere where your ribcage ends on the backside of your body.
So if it feels okay for you I'd like to invite you to lift up your right hand,
Right hand and put the palm of the hand on the back of your right shoulder,
The back of your right shoulder.
The hand is yielding in that place so you're not pushing too hard but you maintain the contact as if there was a slight magnetism maybe between the hand and the shoulder.
Just try to see if you can sense the movement of your right lung,
Of the top lobe of your right lung through the palm of your right hand.
Then if you're ready move the palm of your right hand towards the lower edge of your ribcage on the front side of the body,
There where you see and feel that the body is getting a little bit softer.
So on the edge of ribcage where you feel the bone and then the softer tissue and again you're yielding your palm into that body part which means you're not pushing too hard but you're maintaining the contact.
And sense the movement of the middle lobe of your right lung through the palm of your hand.
Maybe you notice that the rhythm of your experience is getting synchronised with the rhythm of your breathing.
Or maybe your experience goes even further and your experience of here and now is synchronising with the breathing of the cells of your lung which is slightly different from your regular breathing.
And then if you want you can lift up your hand and place the right palm of your hand to the lower edge of your ribcage on the backside of your body.
This one might be slightly uncomfortable but anyway.
Place the right palm of your hand on the lower edge of your ribcage on the backside of your body and sense the breathing,
The movement of the lower lobe of your right lung.
What do you feel here?
Are you still perceiving your regular breathing or are you perceiving the cellular breathing?
And then just remove your hand if you're sitting.
You can put it in your lap or you can put it on your thigh in a type of meditation posture.
And if you're lying on your back then just let it lie down next to your body.
And see how the perception of your lung breathing is continuing to influence your overall experience of this moment.
Perhaps you can also sense that you're experiencing a direct experience of the lung.
So it's not an experience mediated by the front part of your brain that is very much about thinking and control.
But you're actually experiencing your lung through the back part of your brain that is developmentally older than the front brain and is much more about the experience of the moment,
Non-analytical experience if you wish.
If you want to enhance the experience from the back part of your brain you can even lift up one of your hands and put the palm of the hand towards the back part of your head somewhere there where your hair is kind of starting you know behind the ears to get in touch with the back brain and release the hand back to where it was before where it feels comfortable.
And if you wish you may as well continue with experiencing your left lung which you will do in a similar way as you did to the right lung.
There are only two lobes on the left lung but the upper lobe is quite huge and has got two parts,
Two pockets kind of.
So you can also go through putting your palm on the back of the left shoulder then you will continue with putting your palm towards the end of the rib cage on the front part of your body.
And in the end you will put the palm of your hand on the end of the rib cage on the back side of your body.
And make sure that you spend five to ten seconds maybe in each of these places and that you sense the movement of your left lung connected directly to the back of your brain.
And when you have finished just wait for the outside world to call you back and enjoy your day.
Thank you for spending this time together and hear you soon.
