My Short Therapeutic Trip Back Home (2)- Awareness is my most intimate friend

Continuing the action I took away last week- paying much more attention to my five senses – I felt much more centered whether in daily practice, my work, or daily life during this week.

During the daily practice, while in some postures, I was noticing my five senses more subtly. However, for some moments, I was feeling that I was going somewhere deep and dark. Somehow, I was feeling scared and flustered. Most of the time, I chose to leave that unknown place instead of staying there. I perceived it was an edge for me and I was not ready for exploring it further even though I had tried. I did not know what it was but just let it be there. Instead of simply letting it be, I preferred to avoid it. I was quite surprised that it happened during the postures instead of meditation. I remembered this similar situation happened before when I practiced meditation during the 30-day practice in the Life Mentoring course. Therefore, I am curious about myself and I am going to continue to explore my subtle five senses next week.

Imperceptibly, the practice applies more resources to my professional life. I noticed that I brought much more detailed cues to students, for instance, I cued “notice your sense of touch, the sense of touch between you and the mat, you and your clothes, you and the entire space” instead of simply cueing “be aware of your senses“. These subtler cues were not deliberated in my conscious mind but were produced spontaneously. In the meantime, I was noticing and sensing myself while cueing. I thus came to the realization this is the meaning of “dual practice”. When I translated the introduction on the Phoenix Rising official page to Chinese for students, I could not find an accurate word for dual practice. Literally, it is easy to translate, but essentially, I knew the meaning was much more intricately layered than what was literally meant. Through continuous practice, I felt I was further closing the gap between me and this essential meaning again. Whenever I felt as though my self-awareness was well practiced, I would immediately begin to perceive a new and deeper phenomenon awaiting me after this self-practice. The journey never ends even if the form of practice is the same, however, along with my practice and awareness moment by moment and day by day, it is always continuously evolving.

In my daily life, I enacted another action plan from last practice – being present while eating and drinking water, as well as sleeping earlier. I had to keep reminding myself because I noticed that I still had these habitual behaviors such as drinking water and checking the phone at the same time, or checking emails before bed so I could not be in bed earlier. If I did not remind myself, I followed my habits naturally. In other words, if I was not aware of what I was doing in the present, I would be led by my habits. Therefore, I am continuing this practice – noticing and reminding myself all the time to develop the new habits which encourage remaining present while eating and drinking, and lying down on the bed at 10 pm. Through these simple practices, I learn basic self-care. Normally, simple is not easy, but it is crucially important. I also realized if I cannot implement basic self-care, I may disconnect between my yoga practice and my daily life. And then, how can I share with people that yoga is the connection of everything in life?