Week 47 - Moving with Awareness

MOVING WITH AWARENESS

Tuning into our physical experience is a great way to move 

ourselves out of the head, with all its future and past 

thinking, and bring us right into the present. It's also a 

good opportunity to integrate our mindfulness practice 

into every day, when we often move from one task to 

another: doing the household chores, going to pick the kids 

up from school, moving from one office to another, or even 

simply going to the kitchen or the bathroom. 

The invitation this week is to pay attention regularly to the body in movement, in whatever form that takes (see Mindful Movement, page 40).

Experiment with that beam of awareness, sometimes keeping your focus tightly on physical sensations, for example, in the soles of the feet, and at other times widening it to include the whole body and perhaps the environment (a breeze on the cheek, the sun on your face, the sound of the traffic or birds singing ...).

Moving with awareness may mean moving just one part of the body, particularly if your movement is limited for a physical reason. Our sense of touch can be acute: notice what you feel when you slowly rub your index finger against your thumb, for example.

Experiment with moving very slowly (perhaps somewhere private!); at other times, move at your normal pace. See how one or the other affects your attention.

Pay attention to what arises when you move in this way. Do you feel impatient or frustrated if you are moving slower than normal? Can you stay with sensations like this, noticing how a particular emotion manifests itself physically in the body and reminding yourself that, at this moment, you are simply moving without any particular goal?

Any physical exercise you might do—either on your own or as part of a class— represents an opportunity to introduce some mindfulness. Simply pay attention to your experience as it unfolds, without judging it—and let go of striving toward any particular goal.

Make a list of opportunities of introducing movement practice into your everyday life, and choose one to focus on one day. The next day add another, and so on.