TOUCH AS A LIFELINE – DAY 5
Today’s challenge is to find opportunities to use more and more of the sensory neurones in your skin – to reawaken your body.
When more of the nervous system gets involved in a moment of NOW, the more engrossed we become in this moment. The whole being – body, heart and mind – becomes occupied in something other than storm-thoughts or unhappy feelings.
The simplicity of noticing can be blissful. It can feel like a little holiday of contented peace and quiet when we fully live something lovely (which may previously have been filtered out from our attention because it was ‘safe’.)
Today’s invitation: next time you take a shower, a bath, or wash your hands, see if you can bring your attention to the sensations of touch: the water, bubbles, scrubbing brush or loofah on your skin. Maybe notice too, all the different fragrances in the bathroom: the soaps, shampoos, candles, or the smell of washing powder on the towels. Or the rainbow colours of the soap bubbles. As you dry yourself, feel the sensation of the towel over your skin, rough or soft, gentle or vigorous, stimulating the blood circulation or tickling. Make it fun.
The mind usually wanders a million times when we do these ‘sensory safaris’. We keep being triggered into memories, or our mind just shoots off elsewhere. But that’s OK. The trick is to just begin again. To come back into NOW – over and over again. NOW is always here. Freedom from difficult thoughts is only a bubble away!
Inspirational Poem
Linda France: Dreaming the real
I’m lying down looking at the colour
of sky falling through trees, dreaming
the real, tasting what it feels like to love it.
Why did it take me so long to let go, simply
exhale, so the day could breathe itself in
and open without me standing in the way?
How could I forget the grace of my own body,
strong as this blue, tender as the white
of the wild blossom, warm as midday light?
Let me practise a patience bold enough
to hold every weather, trusting the elements,
the beauty of rain, all its shades of grey.
I want whatever’s real to be enough. At least
it’s a place to begin. And to master the art
of loving it; feel it love me back under my skin.
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