Inner Body Awareness

Inner Body Awareness... what on earth is that? And why should I care?

To me, inner body awareness is the act of withdrawing a portion of your consciousness or awareness from the external, and focusing on the feelings and sensations inside your body.

Why would you want to do that? From my experience with practicing Inner Body Awareness (IBA) the benefits are too many to name, but they are all so greatly beneficial.

Many cultures have practices, traditions and rituals that in part, help raise your awareness of the sensations that are taking place in the body. Yoga, breathe control and various forms of meditation all can help bring you back into your body, feeling the life flowing through it.

Eckhart Tolle, in his book 'The Power of Now', was one of the first teachers to alert me to this powerful practice, with practical information on how to do it and incorporate it into your life.

By changing your focus from what is outside of you, to what is inside, a powerful shift occurs within your consciousness. A significant amount of energy that is usually chewed up in useless thought and incessant ramblings within the mind, is then directed elsewhere, usually a certain body part. This process automatically calms the mind, while directing powerful, life giving and healing conscious awareness is to other parts of the body.

I initially found it easiest to feel this energy in my hands and fingers and in my feet and toes. When I first started out, whenever I could remember I would try to do what ever it is I was doing, with a portion of my attention fixed on the feeling in my toes. It is slightly different for everyone but basically it feels like a tingling sensation of warmth. For example, as I type out this article, I try to keep a portion of my awareness fixed on the tingling in my toes. This way I am able to stay grounded in the moment, with out getting carried away with my thoughts, but rather I can write from a deeper space, where ideas flow effortlessly, with out having to labour over mental concepts. I can just write.

The more I practiced this technique, the more i came to realize its importance. In fact I feel it is crucial in order to happily inhabit this reality. So i ask you to try it now, as you read this. Try to feel a sensation, any sensation within your body. You need not interpret the feeling with words. Just feel it. This process alone will help you to stop taking your thoughts so seriously, and to experience a reality that is deeper and free of judgements and meaningless thought forms.

Here is a list of some of the ways you will benefit from practising inner Body Awareness:

- You will take your thoughts less seriously.

- The thoughts you consciously receive from a state of IBA will be clear and concise.

- You will become less judgmental.

- You will see problems in your life from a greater, wiser perspective.

- Your health and energy levels will increase as you allow energy to flow more freely

Really there are so many benefits I couldn't possibly name them all. Just try practicing some of the techniques and see for yourself what benefits they bring.

Once you get good at feeling the energy flowing and bubbling in your toes or hands (or where ever) you can start to move your attention around the rest of your body. Up your arms or legs, across your torso, into your face and head. Where ever you please.

I would go so far as to say that the fate of the planet could be changed for the better if everyone started to practice this powerful technique.

So there you are, this should give you enough information to start practicing these techniques yourself and really start experiencing the benefits. I have seen amazing change in friends and family that have started to feel their Inner Body.

Take care

Ricardo

We are the imagination of ourselves?

Life is but a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves...

What better way to start off than with a subject that confuses the hell out of me. Subjective reality. I mean, I understand it, or at least I think I do. But the implications of it being true are just too much for me to fathom. And I imagine they are for you too if you are giving this much thought. Or maybe you haven't the slightest idea of what I am talking about. I think it is pretty well summed up in the opening statement - Life is but a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.

So what does that mean? It means that everything in your world as you look around right now is created by YOU, the dreamer. You designed it ALL! That's right! You imagined the keyboard, your lampshade, your street name...country...earth...the solar system. Oh and guess what? You even dreamed up this rambling you are reading right now. Yup, its all your doing. Sure, it seems way to tangible, real to be a dream, but then didn't your last dream seem pretty real too. Quite a wake up call really isn't it. Kinda like the Matrix, but this goes way deeper.

You may still have some questions, but don't worry, using the Subjective Reality Model, the answer to everyone of them is "You dreamed it up".
Certainly, this world you live in seems quite fixed, reliable and very lucid, and in comparison to the dreams we dream at night, it is. But I like to think of it this way. The dreams we dream while we sleep are very 'light' (as opposed to dense) and when we have thoughts in our nightly dreams, our reality is immediately affected by these thoughts and we watch our reality change before our eyes. Have you ever noticed that the second you imagine something bad coming around the corner in your dreams, it does! Well the same happens in our 'waking life', only this reality is a little more dense and less easily swayed by our thoughts and feelings, but none the less, ultimately, it is governed by the imagination of our consciousness.

I put this theory forward, not to force this idea upon you but rather just to put it out there for you to ponder. Yes, I speak as if it is the truth, but of course, there is no truth but that which is true for you. And for every topic I choose to cover I will put forward my ideas in this way. This particular topic is especially hard to write about because it can seem to contradict itself in so many ways. But alas, I continue...

Once you realize the massive power this Subjective Reality bestows upon you, you are free to start using it to your hearts content. If you start dreaming of a world and a life that you want, you can start to create that world and that life. By focusing on what you do want, and turning your attention away from what you don't want, your dream will start to unfold with new instructions. There is really too much for me to say about creating your dream life in this one article, but it ties in with so many other topics that I will rant about it again, in much more specifics.

For now, go away with this idea in floating around in your head - You created everything that exists in your reality right now, this makes you as God, you are designing and creating your life at every given moment, with every thought and feeling. Be happy with this knowledge and use it to shape your experience how you want it to be.

Thanks for reading and until we meet again.

Chao

Rich.