Centering

When you can find your center, the center of your body, your thoughts and emotions and your language, you can revolve around your own axis. When you revolve your life on someone outside of you, you lose your own alignment.

Just as the earth revolves around its own axis daily and through this eternal gentle revolving, it also revolves around the sun, if you don’t find your own axis and you don’t gently revolve around it, you cannot be for anyone. – Malti Bhojwani -  2012

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?

If I am not for others, what am I?

And if not now, when? - Rabii Hillel

Now is the time. Seize it, Claim it! 2012

How to Center?

Ø Close your eyes. Sit in an open body position, feet flat on the floor. Palms open and upwards on your thighs.

Notice the fabric of your pants or the feel of your skin....notice the feel of your feet on the ground. Close your eyes softly, relax your eye-lids, balance your head on your shoulders, not leaning forward or backwards,relax your shoulders.

Ø Breath into your Dan Tian (2 inches below your navel), in and out. Place your left hand on your belly and imagine your breath flowing into there, imagine the center of your belly in depth and in width, imagine the spot that is equidistant from your front, back, left and right. This is the center of your BODY.

Ø Accept things as they are, all your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, put everything else aside.  They are already in the past. Accept them, don't change or resist, just accept your emotions. Acceptance is the center of EMOTION

Ø Silence. Imagine that is it silent all around you, quiet. Silence is the center of LANGUAGE

Ø All you have to do now is notice your breathing and notice the 3 centers – your body, your emotions and your language.

Ø Open your eyes. You are centered. You are now in neutral...from here, your choices increase. You can "go" anywhere from here with grace and with ease.

Practice this often and do it anywhere, you can practice centering standing up, anywhere, before you go from one meeting to the next, from work to home, from one call to another.

We say practice because there is no being centered all the time, you go off-centre and you come back when you notice it. Whenever you feel overwhelmed or disheveled, confused or annoyed, overly excited or concerned, you are off-centre, so just take 2 minutes and centre! Just notice and make the conscious effort to come back to center again and again and again.

Our claim is that it has to be “embodied” before it can be really useful in your life.

Remember that learning is not the acquisition of knowledge; rather, it is practice plus time.

In other words, knowing about centering is different than centering itself. Knowing about cycling or driving is different from actually riding a bike or driving a car.

Enjoy!!!

Centering exercise derived from the BEL Model - Newfield Network.