Welcome,
Friends.
Today we're going to do a little bit of a centering practice.
It is somatically based and will require you to stand up.
So go ahead and take a moment to get yourself situated and we will begin.
So the basic idea behind this is that all things in nature exist in four dimensions.
Length,
Width,
Depth,
And some sort of organizing principle.
So we're going to center today on those four dimensions.
This is a great practice for you to do before an important meeting or when you need to remember your purpose or when you need to have an important conversation or just to begin your day in a purpose-driven way.
So you're going to begin standing up and the invitation is to have your eyes open during this practice.
While it might help to focus your attention with your eyes closed,
We most of the time exist and move about the world with eyes open.
So the invitation is to practice finding center with your eyes open.
And you're going to begin by shifting your attention from thinking down into feeling and sensing.
Just beginning to notice what's here in your body right now.
The sensations.
Noticing temperature and where you might be feeling warm or cool.
Noticing where in your body you feel the warmest or the coolest.
And noticing the movement inside of your body.
How you feel inside.
Are you restless?
Active?
Frozen?
Stuck?
And noticing the range of pressures from tight and constricted all the way to open,
Relaxed,
Expansiveness.
And we're not trying to change or shift anything.
Just noticing how we're carrying ourselves right now in this moment.
And I invite you to bring your hand to your gravitational center of your body.
Just a couple inches below your belly button.
And to let your breath meet your hand from the inside.
Keeping your attention focused here on your center.
And you can drop your hand now as we begin to embody the dimension of length and center on the dimension of length.
So let's begin with our feet.
Feeling our feet rooted into the ground.
And then aligning yourself over that.
So your knees are aligned over your ankles.
Your hips are aligned over your knees.
Your shoulders are aligned over your hips.
And your ears are aligned over your shoulders.
You're looking straight ahead to the horizon.
The crown of your head reaching upward.
Not stretching or extending,
But just occupying the fullness of your spine.
Chin slightly tucked so there's no crease in the back of your neck.
So we are lengthening here and aligning along this dimension.
While simultaneously inviting in some softness and relaxation.
So beginning with the eyes.
Relaxing the eyes.
Letting your vision go soft.
Relaxing at the hinge of your jaw.
Near your ears and at the chin.
And then on an inhale bringing your shoulders up to your ears and then with the exhale letting them drop.
Unclenching your stomach.
Your glutes.
Your sphincter muscles and the big muscles of your thighs.
Unclenching and relaxing all of that.
Unlocking your knees.
So your skeletal system is upright,
Fully lengthened and your muscles are just resting on the structure in your body.
So letting gravity have your muscles.
While your spine and skeleton remains dignified.
When we are centered in length,
We embody our dignity.
Our inherent worth from the inside out and we are able to invite in and honor the dignity of others.
This is length.
Without losing your length,
We are going to begin now to center in the dimension of width.
So just begin by shifting your weight from side to side.
Until you find a point of balance between left and right.
Your feet are hip width apart and you spread your toes out to find the edges of your width here at your feet.
And you begin to feel the outer edges of your body starting with your pinky toes and scanning upward gently to the outsides of your ankles.
The outsides of your calves and knees and legs and hips.
Feeling the outer edges of your torso.
The outer edges of your hands,
Your pinkies.
The outer edges of your arms and shoulders.
The outer edges of your face.
Noticing how your clothes feel on your body.
Or the air touching your skin at the edges of your body.
Letting your peripheral vision soften and open to the sides.
Really feeling into the space between your ears.
Relaxing your jaw and your cheeks and letting your breath fill your ribcage like an accordion from side to side.
Noticing how your shoulders are open and your arms are open.
And feeling the edges of your body from left to right and with your breath and attention filling the space between left and right.
When we're centered in width,
We can feel our interdependence.
Our sense of connection and reaching out to others.
And we can feel our boundaries.
Rather than being stretched thin and spread in too many directions or being narrow and shrinking,
You are taking up just the right amount of space in the world.
And you know how to interact with other people and the space that they take up in the world.
This is width.
And so checking in on length and width and without losing your centeredness here.
Eyes open,
Feet on the floor,
Spine erect,
Muscles relaxed,
Edges filled in with air and attention.
We now move into depth.
Beginning with your heels on the ground and feeling and sensing and noticing your entire backside.
Heels,
Your Achilles tendon,
Your calves and the backs of your knees,
Hamstrings,
Your glutes.
Your entire back.
The back of your neck and the back of your head.
Feeling your clothes touching it,
The air,
Heels on the ground,
Feet on the floor.
And with your awareness still on this backside,
Letting your awareness move through your body from back to front and including all of the sensations happening inside.
The expansion of your chest,
Your belly with your breathing.
Your heart beating.
All of the pulsing,
Streaming,
Tingling,
Swirling,
Clenching,
Vibrating that's happening inside of your body.
As you move your attention through to the front side.
Feeling your toes on the ground.
Your shins and knees and quads.
The front part of your belly and chest and shoulders.
The air along your face.
Your depth represents your capacity to be responsive rather than reactive.
To be able to build room inside of yourself to choose.
Rather than to act impulsively.
To bring your insides and the depth of who you are,
Your longing,
Your history into the present moment.
Behind you are all of your teachers,
Questions,
Traumas,
Healings,
Your whole life story.
And that that exists beyond your lifetime.
Into your ancestors.
Bringing all of that into the present moment as you create the future in front of you.
Consciously.
With choice.
This is your depth.
So taking a moment to center again on length,
Width and depth.
And we're going to move into our fourth dimension which is purpose,
The organizing principle of humans.
And the invitation here is to let your body answer the question.
What do you care about?
And let the answer come from below your head.
What matters to you?
And stay present with how your body answers this question.
It could be in sensations,
It could be in images,
Emotions,
Metaphors.
Allow yourself to receive this.
What are you here to do?
What are you here to do?
And who are you here to be?
And let that answer fill your entire being.
And use your breath to amplify it.
So as this answer starts to fill your being,
Using your inhale to stoke the flame.
And using your exhale to project that out into the world.
This is your purpose.
It's imprint exists in your cells and in your tissues.
You do not need to know from your head what is important to you.
You only need to let it come into your body to stoke it with your breath and to project it into the world.
So breathe here with this embodied sense of purpose.
And if you've closed your eyes,
I invite you to open them again.
And to continue to breathe and stoke this with your eyes open.
Taking a few more breaths here.
And remembering this internal sense of center as you move about your day.
Thank you all for doing this work with me.
The world is yours.
Thank you all for doing this work with me.
The world needs your leadership.
Soulful blessings to you.
Take care.
