Practice expanding your awareness beyond your own self and the routine people/happenings in your own life. Expand your consciousness outward, letting it fall upon the objects, the living beings, the sounds, and all else that is unfolding beyond self and your limited world. Rest your consciousness here. Allow the world around you to be brought into your field. Notice what is here. Do not pull it in, and do not let yourself get pulled out into it. Simply, expand your consciousness, let it rest in the spaces outside of self, and be present to what is unfolding, just as you did in your stillness practice.
Exert, Practice #4 in 11 Embodiment Practices For Your Healing and Awakening
Welcome to Practice #4 of 11 Embodiment Practices for your Healing & Spiritual Awakening. With this piece, it is my intention to teach you a specific spiritual practice that you can add to your spiritual toolbox, allowing you to enter into a more holistic state of being and a skillful ability to walk through life.
When it comes to this, there are a set of essential skills, those which we will cultivate with time as we stay devoted to practice. In relation to this particular practice, I wish to name two skills:
First and foremost, as is most fully taught in spiritual spaces these days, we have to be able to disconnect from the chaos unfolding around us. There is just so much noise out there, isn’t there? And if we are caught up in it, then we have no ability to discern meaningful paths forward. Plus, we will never find peace. We will be endlessly caught up in the waves of chaos that are taking down this world.
Yes, we have to be able to take our attention and our energy inward, disconnecting from all that is unfolding around us. It is from this space that we can find center, cultivate peace, and be able to discern our way forward.
But how do we know where we are going if we are not also connected into the world around us? Plus, what meaning is there if we find ourselves cut off, isolated from our surroundings?
The fact of the matter is, we must walk through life with some degree of our energy and attention outwards, for it is “out there” that we find life as it is unfolding.
My point? It is a both/and sort of situation: that we must be able to both withdraw our energy and attention from what is unfolding around us (so that we can create peace, space, and clarity within); and, we must also be able to expand our energy and our awareness, so that we hold awareness of that which is unfolding around us. Only then can we walk a truly skillful path through life. The question is, how do we do both?
The Embodied Path – Practice applied to real life
The Embodied Path consists of 11 Practices that are here for you to try out, discerning which ones create value given where you are in life. Ideally, you would try all 11, and given endless amounts of time, you would practice all 11 regularly.
This being said, The Embodied Path is not taught for the ascetic: one who has withdrawn himself from life to focus fully on spiritual practice. Rather, The Embodied Path is being created for the modern individual who has a life and is an active part of society. This means that, yes, we need to find time to devote to practice, but we recognize that this time is limited, and we recognize that much of practice is applied in the playground that is life!
With Practice #1, we entered into a state of physical stillness. Asking that our physical selves cut ties with the endless need to go-go-go, a return to physical stillness sets the foundation for inner stillness, along with all the other spiritual qualities that we seek to embody.
But it’s not all about physical stillness, is it? Because oftentimes, it is motion that is needed to let those chaotic thoughts and energies settle. With this in mind, Practice #2 invited us to go out and move, doing so in a present-centered, embodied way.
Together, Practices #1 and #2 offer a singular polarity: a spectrum that we could see in an either/or frame of mind (is it “more spiritual” to practice in stillness or while in movement?), but instead, honor in its fullness (sometimes we would benefit from stillness, and sometimes we would benefit from movement).
Similarly, Practices #3 and #4 form a singular polarity. With Practice #4, we focus consciousness:
- withdraw your senses from the chaos of the world
- turn your attention to one specific point/object/aspect/etc.
- focus on this one specific point/object/aspect for a set duration of time
Focused consciousness: it is a practice that is widely taught for its ability to bring about spiritual revelation. But it isn’t everything, is it? For, if we only go around focusing, then how do we have any sense of all that is unfolding around us?
When focus never widens into awareness, that inward orientation calcifies, festers, and becomes quite unskillful.
Let me be frank here: we have an empathy problem in our modern world. In a similar vein, we have a serious problem with skillful connection to other life forms. This serves as the foundation for the deeply rooted, toxic, and festering qualities of humanity that look a lot like:
- disregard for nature, including non-human living beings
- disregard for other humans, especially those that have different colored skin, different cultures, and different religions
When we only focus inward, we can readily fall into the trap of becoming self-centered, which, as you will know, is not a skillful goal of spirituality.
The remedy?
Just like we practice focusing, we must also practice expanding: broadening our consciousness, becoming witness to the life that is unfolding around us.
As we do this, we cultivate awareness for what is here. From the state of awareness, we can then have choices about where we might want to focus:
- What connection is there to be made?
- What action is there to be performed?
I will talk more about this as this post continues. For now, I invite you to try out what, exactly, I am speaking to.
A Practice of Expanded Consciousness
Note 1: I encourage you to read through the practice in its entirety before beginning. As you read through, feel free to “practice” each step. Then, when you are ready, disconnect from the screen, closing your eyes if it feels comfortable to do so, and begin the practice in its entirety. Do not worry about getting every step perfect. Go through the practice in a way that arises for you today.
Note 2: This practice builds on Practice #3, which is a practice of centering. You do not have to complete nor even know about Practice #3 before you begin. Just know that it may serve your practice to be more comfortable with centering before you begin expanding.
Practice:
Take a few moments to settle down into your body. Do your best to remove yourself from all distractions as you take a few breaths.
As you inhale, feel into the expansion of your rib cage, your belly.
As you exhale, you might hold the intention to let go of any noise you might be holding in your mind or body.
Breathe in, fill yourself with your own consciousness.
Breathe out, let go of all that does not serve and clouds your consciousness.
When you are ready, bring your full attention to a center point within self:
- this might be your heart
- this might be your solar plexus
- this could be anywhere that seems like a “center” to you in this moment
Breathe fully into this “center” point, and with each breath bring more of your consciousness into this point.
Now that you are centered, it is time to expand. For this part of the practice, I encourage you to take continued breaths into your center point. This will help you to stay grounded within self as you simultaneously expand.
Expansion Practice:
From this point centered within self, begin to expand your consciousness (your awareness) out into the whole of your body:
- your chest
- your abdomen
- your head
- your limbs
- your whole body
As you continue to breathe into your center point, become aware of your whole body.
Next, begin to expand your awareness just beyond your skin – to your immediate environment. Become conscious of what is here.
Then, fill the entire room you are in with your consciousness. You may open your eyes for this, or you may keep them closed and energetically/psychically perceive what is here.
Next step: Expand beyond the room you are in:
- the whole building you are in
- just outside this building
- to your community/ecosystem
- across the nation you are in
- across oceans
Can you expand all the way across the globe?
- What about down into the Earth?
- What about up into the heavens?
All-the-while, continue those breaths centered within self. When you are ready to close down the practice, take your time to really center back within self.
Know that, as you release this expansive state, you may wish to leave some of your awareness drawn to the places/people/situations that serve to hold some degree of your awareness (if only for a certain amount of time).
Make sure that you are fully grounded back in your body in your immediate environment before moving on from the practice.
When I initially sat down to write The Embodied Path, the ability to expand (as well as focus) was the loudest piece of it all
I am a student of yoga. I am also a student of Buddhism (although I do not align with this tradition as well as I do with yogic traditions). As a Westerner who has been taught these traditions, I have gained much in regard to the ability to turn my gaze inward, center within self, and do the work that is important within the bounds that is my own being.
This is important, but what I recognize in the West’s extraction of Eastern spiritual tradition has a lot to do with focusing on that which serves self and does not necessarily connect us to the world around us.
Let me be crystal clear here. A holistic spirituality is one that works within self, and with self in connection to the world beyond. It is not selfish, just as it is not selfless. The ability to focus within self, and to expand your awareness beyond self, is something that needs to be done with great skill.
We cultivate this skill as we practice:
- practice focused consciousness
- practice expanded consciousness
And, connect these two practices into the holistic framework that is The Embodied Path. Get the idea?
The short of it
We have an empathy problem in our world. That is, we have a problem with heart-centered connection to the problems, needs, hurts, and desires of others.
On the other hand, we have a problem of too many people losing themselves in their empathy without having a grounded sense of connection to self.
Loves, we have to be able to resolve both of these problems such that each of us are able to walk through life grounded in the needs and desires of our own selves as we, simultaneously, have awareness for the needs and desires of others.
It is only then that we can move towards careful and skillful discernment: making important choices about where we spend our attention, energy, and other resources.
- Do you need to take time to focus on your own needs? To pursue your own wants?
- Would it be best to take time to support another being?
We can only know answers to these sorts of questions if we can walk through life connected in both expansive and focused nature.
I invite you to take a few moments to contemplate this practice and how it may play out in life. Where are areas that you are really good at this?
Where are areas that could use some improvement? Are you someone who tends to focus more on “self” or on “other.” How could this practice help you shift into greater balance?