Taking learnings from my Advanced Yoga Teacher Training, this month, I’ve been encouraging my yogis to tune out their thinking mind and switch on the awareness part of their brains. After all, yoga means to still the swirling currents of thoughts in the mind so we can observe the world clearly and without the distortions of our egos. But flicking the switch, and deciding to stop thinking and start feeling, is often hard to do
Inspired by a passage in the book – The Spiritual Teachings of Yoga by Mark Forstater & Jo Manuel – I’ve been sharing a short meditation technique that really made sense to me.
Following the teachings from the great Zen Buddhist, Thich Nhat Hanh, we started by bringing to mind the image of a pebble. If you’d like to explore this exercise, follow along:
Find a comfortable seat, sit with a tall spine and soft smile on your face.
Start by breathing slowly and deeply, observing the rise and fall of your belly, chest and collarbones.
Follow each breath for a few, complete rounds and then let go of everything and come to stillness.
Imagine yourself as a pebble, thrown into the riverbed.
You sink through the water effortlessly, weightlessly, sinking to the bottom.
The centre of your being is your breath.
You’ve let go of everything.
Unaware of how long it has taken you to fall to the bottom, you’ve come to rest at the bottom on a bed of fine sand.
You feel yourself resting, settled and at peace.
In that moment, you are no longer pushed or pulled by anything.
Our aim is to extend this feeling, and bring this sense of stillness with us, into everyday life.
In doing so we alter the way we use our body, the way we breathe and the way we use our mind.
We free ourself from the swirling current of our surface ego and insecurities, and re-connect with ourselves.
It’s not easy, it takes practice and time, so be kind to yourself.
Give it a try, I’d love to know how you get on.
