Referring back to the cup illustration (previous blog), imagine each area of self due to heal/remember wholeness is a cup. With each nurturing practice, we add another drop of water to the cup. Eventually, the cup’s surface tension grows to a point that it can no longer remain bounded by the walls of the cup and an undeniable shift occurs. Try several practices, find what resonates with you, invest in developing a nurturing habit and trust that in time, just like cup illustration, the shift will come.
Centreing is about coming back to your center, the unchanging essence of who you are. There are several centring strategies and I recommend you find one that feels natural and enjoyable. For example, below are a few centring techniques:
- Feel your feet on the ground anytime anywhere (when able, put your bare feet on the earth)
- Lift your eyes to the sky, imagine this sky as your witness, the all-knowing entity that knows YOU, the YOU that exists behind the conditioning. For some, this looking to the sky is a reminder of a loving and all-knowing God or a higher power, providing a sense of love and acceptance as one is.
- Focus on the breath, let it anchor you, reminding you that YOU exist outside of the noise of internal and external stimuli. YOU are not the noise, you are the observer of the noise. Each time you focus on the breath, you are stepping back from the noise, cultivating non-attachment and objectivity.
- Loving-Kindness. Through loving-kindness practice, we learn to lead with the heart, our physical and spiritual centre. So often in the west we are conditioned to lead with the head, analyzing the most efficient, most socially acceptable plan of action. As a result, we can lose our sense of self and the desires that stir and excite us. By reconnecting to the heart, we access the most powerful part of self, centring via loving-kindness practices directed inwardly and outwardly.