FINDING PEACE
WITHIN MOVEMENT – DAY 2

So often we yearn for our mind to shut up – to be calm, still, untroubled. Of course we do. When the mind is tormented, it torments us.

Yet the ‘need’ for the still mind can cause yet more tormented thoughts. As we strive to gain control of the mind, an inner measuring mechanism clicks on to check our progress. We can get into a total knot of self-deprecating, self-judging thoughts about how we are performing, which can be particularly tormenting.

You can interrupt this spiral by dropping the ‘get calm’ project and instead trying out the ‘get interested’ project. Are you interested to try it, just for 1 minute? (You can do longer if you like, but you don’t need to.)

Sit down with both feet planted flat to the floor. Rest your hands, one on each thigh. Bring your attention to the very tip of your nose. Begin to move your head as if the tip of your nose were tracing around the infinity symbol (which is like a figure of 8, lying on its side). Your can close your eyes or leave them open.

Continue to trace the symbol, which has no beginning and no end, but flows in a neverending curve. Notice if anything in your face, neck, shoulders or jaw might be willing to soften and drop. Be careful not to hurt your neck.

Begin to play with choices, be interested. Only you can know how this movement (and this moment of your life) feels. Feel free to drop the investigation if it feels like a target or task. This is all just to see what it’s like.

Some choices include playing with the breath-movement connection – see how it is to trace one half of the symbol on the in-breath and one half on the out-breath.

Or play with the speed – going super-slowly, super-fast, then super-slowly again.

Or perhaps play with making the symbol tiny, then huge, then tiny again.

And at some point reversing the direction.

Finally, stop the movement and notice how that feels within your body. Does it feel as if you are still moving?

Now take a moment to ‘install’ the experience, remembering what just happened. This is an essential part of ‘growing the good’ and reversing the negativity bias of every human brain (more on this later in the course).