APNC Spring/Summer 2019 Lesson 1:2

[rhonda]

I will share more about my Objective Awareness exercise soon but wanted to ask for support. I included this in my reflection about the last class but have not heard back …
I’m struggling with the Seven Breaths exercise. I think it would be very helpful if you shared an example of one of these … starting with what words came up and going through all of the steps. The directive of “non-emotion” words is throwing me off a bit. Thanks!

[David Fontaine]

Rhonda, this is one I’ve struggled with a lot, too. I first learned of the exercise in the leadership course last winter and found myself shying away from incorporating it daily because I didn’t feel like it was productive for me. Thanks for speaking up and I hope maybe Michael and/or Daniel can dig into this deeper for us!

[rhonda]

David thanks for letting me know it’s not just me! 😀

[Kimberly Beck]

I hear you Rhonda. I struggled a bit too.

[Daniel Brisbon]

Hey Rhonda! To answer your question (for you and everyone else that is curious) about the 7 Breaths exercise, the intention is to become more deeply aware of what you are feeling in the body and nervous system. “What am I feeling” leads us into deeper inquiry of how we are holding emotion in the body. For example, I practiced this exercise this morning while in a state of mild overwhelm, the flow went like this:

Deep breath in and then hold it. What am I feeling? Exhale:
1. Tense
2. Hot
3. Tired
4. Awake/Alert
5. Relaxed
6. Grounded
7. Peace

As you see from this I noticed that in a state of mild overwhelm my body and nervous system felt tense. As I took the next deep breath I noticed I also felt a bit hot and a little clammy on the skin. With the next breath I noticed I was feeling tired and lethargic. As I took the next big deep breath I noticed a sudden shift in my internal state. I went from tired to awake in one breath cycle. (This is also due to the fact that I have practiced these awareness exercises for quite some time and have trained my body and mind to shift my internal state.) After that moment with each surrender breath, I noticed my body relaxing and feeling more present and grounded. By the end of the 7th breath I was noticing that my body and mind was now feeling peace and I was then ready to start my day.

The intention is to notice sensations in the body and nervous system rather than your current emotional state. But it is designed to become more acutely aware of your current emotional state by becoming very attuned to what you are feeling in the body. Emotions are energy and they sit in our body in different and unique ways from each other. It can be difficult to understand and know exactly “How you are feeling” in the moment, but by understanding “What you are feeling” you can start to create a deeper connection and understanding of your current mental and emotional state.

And this is the purpose for the 7 Breaths exercise. You don’t always have to use physical sensations, as I used peace for my last word, but the ideal is for you to become more deeply attuned to your mental, emotional and physical state. I hope this helps and brings some clarity to this exercise!

[Kimberly Beck]

Raw input data

In practicing Objective Awareness in sit spot and in communication with others, overall I find one more enjoyable and the other more fascinating. This practice at sit spots feels amazing and I feel so much larger and more integrated than my personal self typically feels. I enjoy this expansive feeling, seeming to be a greater part of the sensuous environment. Hearing, feeling, seeing, smelling more than my tunnel-vision self allows. It promoted my ability to be aware of and in relationship with the birds, wind, chill, movement of things, insects, plants…

Objective awareness in ordinary conversation with others is fascinating. I am at a family reunion for over a week in Kentucky. Constantly surrounded by 26 people with vibrant personalities, I thought this seemed like a good opportunity to practice awareness. Here in the mid-West is also where I fell in love with and learned about plants and ecology so returning here after so many years is invigorating to my heart! And still, Difficult would be the first word I use to describe the experience. Receiving and participating in sarcasm, memories, multiple family dynamics, laughter, games, and sometimes drinking makes feeling my skin and focusing on 360 listening a challenge. Overstimulation occurs. I am generally overstimulated with family prior to the extra sensory awareness- but this just seemed like an interesting experiment.

I have done this 3 times with the family. What I noticed was voices, so many of them talking over one another. I noticed loud laughter – much of it pleasing to my heart, and also some at the expense of another. I noticed what was happening outdoors while connecting with others indoors. I noticed unfamiliar and far bird sounds more frequently. I noticed the wind blowing in the tops of trees but not below. I noticed the Ability to listen to my brother speak while being inwardly excited about the sweetgum tree standing behind him. And I noticed no one else noticing. Also, each time I engaged in this way, greater ease came. It was like working a muscle, with a bit more strength each time.

So far what this tells me is that my capacity for what I pay attention to is much greater than I think. This tells me I can, with intention and focus, notice and respond to my own sensations and reactions, and that I can multi-task, in a way. It seemed overwhelming, but practicing multiple times showed the beginning of a trend toward perceiving more information versus stimulation.

[ezavaglia808]

Hi Kimberly,

I’m feeling inspired by your response. In particular your ability to continue to practice the objective awareness around your family. I too have found the overstimulation intense and I feel pulled away from everyone. As I type this I’m realizing when I’ve practiced this around people I feel disconnected from them and when I practice this alone in nature I feel much more connected to my environment. I hope I can also build my awareness muscle like you have and be able to be present to the entire environment, even when people are around.

[David Fontaine]

This is awesome, Kimberly! What a great and challenging opportunity for this practice! I, too get over-stimulated being around family so I honor your braving that for a whole week, haha! I love these observations that you’ve made while engaging with family at the same time! Being able to take in some of the familiarities from a fresh view and perspective must be a really cool experience!

[rhonda]

I found Objective Awareness exercises to be very natural and productive. While I use Sacred Questions already with my coaching clients to invite them to tap into their own wisdom, it’s not a regular part of my meditation practice so that is where the beauty started unfolding.

Experimenting with this practice myself was fascinating as things came up that were powerful. I’ve been in New Orleans, the city of my birth where I also experienced trauma as a child and teenager, and I’ve been reconnecting with my roots both in terms of reconnecting with family, places and experiences. The Objective Awareness exercises and Sacred Questions helped with my healing and release of the stories that I didn’t realize I was holding onto about who I was.

I also shared this exercise with my WeWiN women’s empowerment group at a gathering with about 9 people. Holding safe space for groups in Nature continues to be a growth opportunity for me, but the wisdom of Nature guided the process and I believe is a huge component to encouraging these women to be vulnerable.

*Per my message above, I’m looking forward to a response to my Seven Breaths question.

[ezavaglia808]

Practicing the objective awareness at my sit spot has been lovely. I feel grounded, awake, and connected to my environment. The connection piece has been the biggest gift. Before adding this component in, my daily sit spot was a chance for me to connect to myself. I enjoyed listening to the birds rustling in the leaves, singing above me, the sound of their wings flapping as they flew past me – yet I always felt like the observer- a sort of me-them. The objective awareness exercise created a shift from a me-them to a simple us. I no longer feel separate from the sweet little woods near my house. I feel a part of it.

Another observation I have with this exercise is that it is much easier to do alone. I find when I’ve tried to do this in different situations- at work with kids, or with my boyfriend, I get too pulled into noticing my senses and pulled away from them. I have a first-grade student who has a traumatic background and she has a fiery temper. I took her outside when she was starting to lose control and first had her run. Then I asked her to stop and I walked her through it. We did the exercise together and the change was incredible. We had a great bonding moment without exchanging words. She gave me the biggest hug.

I’ve been loving the seven surrender breaths. They are a great reminder of how quickly our emotions can shift throughout the day and how emotions build upon each other. I’ve noticed I tend to get frustrated when I find myself shifting from feeling at ease and playful. For example, one morning before school my seven words were about the sensations of feeling happy. I arrived at school and the energy was intense. So many students were acting out. I was surprised at how quickly my mood and sensations shifted. As I thought about that situation later I wondered how I could remain grounded in my emotional state instead of conceding my power to situations or other people’s emotional states. Just because someone else is having a hard day doesn’t mean my energy has to change too, right? I can’t be frustrated by someone else’s bad mood. I’ve been trying to work at maintaining a sense of calm by connecting to my breath and noticing the sensations in my hands. I’ve also dabbled with the wide-angle vision which has been helpful too.

[s.mirandola]

Practicing objective awereness at my sit spot has been energizing and, on the other hand, calming. I could feel all the sensations on my body: the heath from the sun on my skin, the fresh of the grass on my legs and the sounds around me from the leaves, the birds’songs. I tried to get into that natural groove becoming a sounding board. I felt like a flower grounded on that meadow and I felt protected by the oak standing behind me. I realized through the sacred questions that I was feeling what I really needed at that time. I needed protection, support, hospitality. Nature was giving a quick feedback on my need. Objective awareness in my daily life (at work, with friends) it is not so easy to me. However, I have tried in different contexts and what I have noticed is that, closing your eyes, and attuning with the environment around us might help to notice sounds, energies voices in the background that I was completely ignoring because distracted by the loudest voice or sound. This has taught me that sometimes I am losing important information or precious details that could be very important for understanding the whole pictures: people are distracted by what is bigger or louder and they lose somehow what is hidden. Practicing the objective awareness may unfold another dimension of the reality thus changing our perspective

[David Fontaine]

Practicing objective awareness over the past several days has first of all been a really healing experience for me. Taking this time for calm, introspective observation was something I had been lacking on a regular basis. Having just moved a couple weeks ago, I’m feeling very much like a fish out of water right now and filling my time with a lot of tasks that need to be done at the new house to make it livable and comfortable. Spending time on these awareness practices has revealed to me that I am absolutely wearing myself out physically with all of the activity. Focusing in on my body revealed that quickly to me. I’m sore and lethargic. This has shown me that I need to slow the hell down and balance my time better to take care of my body. I also notice how heightened my senses get when engaged in the awareness practice. I was doing a session in my hammock in the shade and, as I was focusing on the skin, I felt this really hot sensation on my arm. It felt so hot and so concentrated to one little spot that I opened my eyes to look. I was in complete shade but there was one tiny little ray of sun shining down on my arm through the tree. While I was focusing it felt like a match was being held to my arm but upon opening my eyes to look at it, it was suddenly not so intense. I love how the smells waft through as well. This was something I can say with certainty I never paid a lot of attention to unless I new something particularly aromatic was nearby. Now I’m picking up so many different things in the air. I can’t identify most of them but it’s still incredible to experience. Like Erinn and the others, I am also finding it easier to do this when I’m alone and the surroundings are pretty absent of other human noises. I tried the awareness practice with my girlfriend and her daughter as we sat on the front porch (which is also my sit spot) and it didn’t have the same depth to it as some of the other sessions. I was distracted by everyone using the space in their own way which was quite different than how I use it, haha. But there were a few opportunities to point out some things to them that made me really happy to get to share with them.

[Tracey]

Objective awareness while in a group setting, (we were outside for a sound meditation), I could feel myself being calmer. I could hear the chatter of those talking, I could hear the birds, the water fall, and there was a “buzzing” of sound coming from the whole experience. Around me I could see light and clouds, the gong, the bowls, the other instruments to be used and the people.
I could see a few people moving around quite a bit, up and down, and back again, then repeat this pattern..I could see this was creating ripples in the baseline. While all these things were happening, I recognized that I was simply observing. I was calm, mostly. My skin was cool, and comfortable. I could smell the wetness in the air from all the rain. I was opening up to my surroundings and my surroundings were opening up to me.

While sitting in one of my sit spots, I found with quiet observation and practicing finding the baseline, my skin was warm from the walk and sun hot on my shoulders. I used my jacket to shade me. The sound of birds and frogs and squirrels was in the air. The more settled I became, I could hear shifts before I could actually see them, or maybe even sometimes I wasn’t even truly aware of “how” I knew to look to see people coming around the path. They were too far away to hear, and I was not looking in the direction from which they came. This tells me, there is more to objective awareness than simply hearing and seeing.

While objective awareness seems to come easy for me, dialoging and putting the experience into words continues to prove much of a challenge for me.

Peace, Tracey

[Daniel Brisbon]

It is so interesting and exciting to hear everyone’s experience with Objective Awareness during these 3 different scenarios. Each place offers it’s own unique opportunity and each experience is unique in what we take away and learn. I hear a great awareness in where the challenge may lie for each of you as you share in your posts and it is so wonderful to see how you are all responding when this happens. Being in a space of objective awareness and wide angle vision can require such focus and concentration that when there are shifts in baseline in our surroundings it can bring us back out of the present moment. I personally still experience these challenges as well when I am practicing this exercise and the most important thing I’ve learned is to use it all as fun learning opportunity. And that is what I am hearing from everyone! I look forward to reading more of your reflections and post!