body awareness

Using Body Awareness For Deeper Meditation
By Todd | April 4, 2008

I would like to share with you a very powerful meditation technique I use called ‘body awareness’.

Even though this practice is primarily used during meditation, I have found great use in utilizing body awareness in my every day life as well. For those of you who already have a meditation practice, I highly recommend trying the following steps.

For those of you who do not currently meditate, the practice brings a great sense of peace, joy, perspective and fulfillment into your life. I highly recommend you giving it a whirl and have written two excellent pieces on ‘meditation for beginners’. I encourage you to check them out:
How To Meditate For Beginners
20 Steps for Quieting The Mind

Body awareness is extremely healthy and initiates the flow of fresh oxygenated blood to body areas that usually fall below the radar of your consciousness:

Using the Body

The big question for beginners is: where do I focus my attention during meditation? There are myriad schools of thought which answer this question. Many teachers suggest using the breath as a focal point to deeper awareness.

I have used the breath to some degree of success, but have always found deeper experiences through focusing on my body parts. Here is how:

First, it is always helpful to make your practice of meditation ‘formal’. Meaning, set aside at least 15 minutes every day to practice meditation. Make sure you will not be disturbed and commit yourself to sitting in stillness with your body, breath and even your thoughts for the allotted time.

After taking a few deep breaths, begin noticing the air as it travels in and out of your nostrils. Notice how the air feels colder during the inhale and warmer during the exhale. Focus your attention on where you feel the air most prominently.

Next, follow the breath inwards and notice it in the belly. Begin feeling the sensation of your stomach expanding with each inhale and deflating on each exhale. Really be there with your stomach as it goes in and out. Try and feel the air enter your domain and sense the space it is taking up.

Lower Body Awareness

After a few minutes of conscious breathing, you will have greater control on your attention span. That is the goal, and the next place I suggest bringing your attention is to the feet.

Start feeling your toes, heals, and arches in whatever position they are currently in. Notice a tingling sensation that seems to follow your attention, and bring your full awareness to it.

Next, lead your attention up the leg, through the ankle and on the calves. Stay there for a moment and breathe into the calves. Feel the blood flowing in your lower legs, and then bring your attention upward to the knees.

I love focusing awareness on the knees. They are a mystical and sensitive part to the body and bringing awareness here also brings health!

Follow the path upwards through the thighs and focus astutely in your pelvis area. Allow the tingling sensation to emanate throughout the pelvis and massage the internal organs that work so hard to keep you healthy.

The tingling sensation I describe is SO important in body awareness. It represents your life flow, your vibrational force, and the very essence of your being alive. Bring your attention to it over and over again.

As you continue to move upwards combine your attention with love and appreciation of the body parts you are feeling. When you begin this process, it might be as if you are feeling your body for the first time. Awareness is love, and love is wellness.

Upper Body Awareness

As you work your way upwards, feel your stomach and internal organs hard at work. Just sit with them, notice them, and appreciate them for what they do.

Sense the beating of the heart and bring your full attention to this beautiful masterpiece. Really feel the beating and begin to understand that this is your life, and not all the stresses of your every day ‘life situation’. Right here, right now, you and your heart.

Be still, and be at peace. No where to go, no where to be…

As you follow your awareness up your chest and shoulders, and down your arms into your hands notice how gentle and light your fingers feel. They are delicate and beautiful, and allow your awareness to wash freely over them.

As your attention creeps up the neck, bring it to your lips and mouth. Sit in pure silence and stillness as you feel the sensation of having a mouth. Next, follow the tingling to the nose and again feel the sensation of the breath as it travels in and out of the nostrils.

You may feel much more alert to your breath then when you first began this process. That is great, and appreciate how easily you have become an observer to your body.

Go to the eyes and allow your awareness to spread appreciation to your vision. Go behind the eyes and feel the brain working and sense its vibrational frequencies. This is a very powerful part to the practice, and I love feeling the sensation of my entire head hard at work as I sit here, in silence, observing it.

Full Body Awareness

Once your attention has traveled from toes to head, get a sense of the entire body. Feel everything all at once and spread the tingling of awareness throughout the wonderful organism in which you live. Feel your life force beating, breathing and flowing within you.

Appreciate with loving kindness all your body does for you. Say thank you. Say it again.

What a transcending way to start a day, and I hope you cultivate the thirst to feel your body. I have found higher levels of consciousness by learning how to focus on my physical body during my meditation practice, and I hope this experience is useful for you.

As always, I look forward to your comments!

SAD

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Seasonal Affective Disorder Sun Therapy

Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is a form of depression linked to lack of sunlight. Onset of symptoms occurs annually during winter months with more cases occurring in areas with longer and more severe winters.
Symptoms include low mood, feeling abnormally sad and weepy, hopeless, worthless and guilty, often with a preoccupation of death and dying. Concentration is poor and motivation is low with agitation, irritability, and restlessness. Sleep is difficult with delayed onset, early waking, and/or sleeping too much. Weight loss or weight gain is common. Physical symptoms are also prevalent and include headaches, generalized aches, pains, and lethargy. All symptoms of vitamin D deficiency.
Light therapy, UVB light, has been used successfully to reverse or diminish symptoms of SAD and to increase vitamin D levels. (Remember vitamin D is actually a hormone produced by the body after exposure to the sun).
Light therapy can be provided through artificial light—light boxes—or by the sun itself. Weather and work permitting, an hour or two in the winter sun, even on an overcast day, can produce benefits.
If you suffer from annual winter blues or from full-blown SAD, consider a move closer to the equator.

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Cinnamon

Cinnamon cinnamomum cassia
(Laurel Family)


A powerful digestive aid. Useful to stop uterine bleeding and to prevent heart attack. Also used for fibroids, indigestion, liver cancer, peptic ulcer and yeast infections.


The bark is used medicinally as an oil or tea.


Cassia or Chinese cinnamon comes from Burma, while true cinnamon is a native of Ceylon. Cassia is more pungent, while true cinnamon is more light and delicate; it's also more expensive than cassia. Cassia nips the tongue and is more suited to spiced meats, pilaus (rice or cracked wheat with boiled meat and spices) and curries, while true cinnamon is more desirable in sweet dishes, pastries, breads, and cakes. Cinnamon was included as a major ingredient in a "holy anointing oil" that Moses used.

In place of Listerine you can try another antiseptic mouthwash that really does "kill germs on contact." Half a teaspoonful of tincture of cinnamon added to half a tumbler of warm water makes an excellent mouthwash when the breath is unpleasant and the teeth decayed.

To make a tincture, combine 10-1/2 tbsp. powdered cinnamon in 1-1/4 cups of vodka. Add enough water to make a 50% alcohol solution. Put in a bottle and let set somewhere for two weeks, shaking once in the morning and again in the evening. Then strain and, pour the liquid into a bottle suitable for storage. This tincture will last a long time. One of the most delicious, if not helpful, remedies for acid indigestion, heartburn and cramps is to sprinkle a little cinnamon and cardamom on hot, buttered raisin toast and slowly eat, chewing thoroughly before swallowing.

To make an effective French folk remedy for colds and flues, combine 2 cups of water, a small stick of cinnamon and a few cloves together in a saucepan and bring to a slow boil for about 3 minutes. Remove and add 2 tsp. lemon juice, 1-1/2 tbsp. dark honey or blackstrap molasses, and 2 tbsp. good quality whiskey. Stir well, cover, and let steep for 20 minutes or so.

Drink 1/2 cup at a time every 3-4 hours. It's pleasant tasting and really breaks up the fever and congestion accompanying either the common cold or influenza.

An incredible experiment in the journal of Food Science for 1974 demonstrates the power of cinnamon over most yeasts and fungi. Slices of white, raisin, rye and whole wheat breads, manufactured without the usual mold inhibitors, were subjected to various aflatoxins, a group of toxic molds so dangerous that they can cause liver cancer and kill humans and animals alike. These toxins often occur in food.

The toxic molds grew like crazy on all of the other breads, except for the raisin bread where growth was described as being "scant or not visible at all." In trying to identify whether it was the raisins or cinnamon responsible for this, food scientists discovered that as little as 2% or 20 mg. of the spice per milliliter of a yeast -extract and sucrose broth inhibited 97 -99 per cent of these molds.

Cinnamon - delicious aromatic spice is a wonderfully warming and strengthening remedy to dispel cold, winter chills and a variety of conditions associated with cold, congestion and deficiency of vital energy. Cinnamon acts as a tonic to the whole system. A hot drink of cinnamon will stimulate circulation and cause sweating, preventing and resolving flu, colds, catarrh and other infections. Cinnamon helps to reduce fevers. Oil of cinnamon can be inhaled for head colds and chest infections. Its general warming and stimulating properties can give direction in the body by other remedies -such as thyme for bronchial congestion and infections, or blue cohosh as a uterine remedy to treat irregular and painful periods, heavy bleeding, uterine infections and vaginal discharge.

Cinnamon acts as a relaxant, reducing anxiety and stress, relieving cramp and colic. Eugenol in the volatile oil relieves pain, for example when used as a liniment for arthritis, to deaden the nerve in toothache and for such conditions as headaches, muscle pain and neuralgia.

Cinnamon warms and stimulates the digestive system, useful in weak digestion, colic, griping, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, wind and distension. The tannins have an astringent action, stemming bleeding in nosebleeds, heavy periods and resolving diarrhea and catarrhal congestion. When taken cold, cinnamon has been used to stop sweating.



Read more: Herbal Remedies ~ Cinnamon