How to Escape Stress Through Embodiment Practice

More on EMBODIMENT.

Between my first and second years of graduate school, I spent the summer teaching juggling and yoga for Supercamp. This was an innovative camp aimed at helping students discover joy in learning along with tools to enhance their education.

As for my own education, I was overwhelmed and felt out of my league. I was dreading going back to school with the endless requirements of reading and writing. I felt stressed out just thinking about it.

As the summer days faded, I sat on a beautiful deck looking up at the mountains of Kirkwood Meadows near Lake Tahoe with a friend. As I told him of my stress thinking about going back to school, he introduced me to the I Ching and suggested I “consult” it.

The guidance was simple, “MEDITATE.” That consultation began my lifelong journey with meditation. Meditation is a form of resourcing, it increases our capacity to be here and now rather than there and then and so much more.

Nonetheless, my journey with meditation has evolved to include practices and processes that generally release the practitioner from long-held patterns while revealing states of awareness that are spacious and uncluttered. They also support the development of authentic CONFIDENCE and EASE of being.

The integration methods used by AAIT practitioners, act as a bi-directional arrow. They can address reactivity or install habits, qualities, and traits that will forward goals. This reactive and proactive attention is like a daily dip in the well, restoring and replenishing.

Below are practices ANYONE who knows how to google can use to RESOURCE through EMBODIMENT:

• 3 Minute Breathing Space – this focused meditation comes from Mindfulness-Based Treatments for depression.
• Ho’oponopono – this collection of phrases can be repeated like a prayer or a mantra as you think of yourself or another. The traditional statements are “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” I add, “I forgive you.”
• Metta – lovingkindness meditation is a luscious way to increase a feeling of connection and lovingkindness towards self and others.
• Exercise – regularly tending to our bodies with kind attention through exercise is a well-documented means of returning to the well and restore ourselves.

For AAIT practitioners and our clients, consider the creative application of the following methods for proactive resourcing:

• Basic PEAT
• Deep PEAT 4 – Golden Shadow
• Pair a Day
• Fingertip Method
• Integra Protocol

What else do you use to resource? AND what tips can you share that support the development of an embodiment home practice?

P.S. David shot this pic this morning from the back porch.