Gifts for you and last words from the SAF in 2016!

Thank you to everyone who has responded to our annual fundraising appeal!

If our letters and e-mails have gotten lost among the many others that come at this time of year…or you have simply been distracted by the activity of the season, here’s a gentle reminder:

You can still make a tax deductible donation for 2016 until midnight on December 31.

Bringing Sensory Awareness home: Save this newsletter!

Here is a final gift to you in the last days of 2016 to thank you for your support and interest in this life-changing work. Here you will find many resources to help you through these difficult times in this wounded world.

 At our workshops many of you have asked: 

Several of our leaders gave these suggestions:

At our East Coast Workshop, Stefan Laeng Gilliatt, our incoming Executive Director,  gave an example of lifting a stone as a practice. He said that after one or two or three years, we could change to something else! That might have sounded facetious, but his suggestion is truly a rich practice.

As you may have experienced at workshops, simple tasks can be profound and are never really the same twice. We move and lift weight every day. Our own weight, a child, a cat, a cup, with each step that we take…That daily exploration with a stone can offer us a great deal that is relevant to so much that we experience.

Find more resources & audio files of experiments led by Stefan on his website:

Lee Klinger Lesser speaks often about developing a practice of pausing and just noticing the next three breaths. The ‘pause’ doesn’t necessarily mean to stop what you are doing, but just to shift into noticing how you are breathing at that moment and for the next three breaths. It is a simple but powerful beginning (and just as powerful after many years of practice.) Try it right now! You will probably be taking three breaths anyway.

Click here for:

Lee also sent us this link to a free, downloadable document of twenty-two activities that are common for most of us.

From drinking a hot beverage to washing the dishes or eating or typing or opening our eyes, Lee invites us to explore what it is to be fully present for these every day experiences.

“Through the most simple things which we do all the time, we can feel out to which degree we honor everything with our inner attention.

Every moment can be cherished.”

                                                   –Charlotte Selver 

 

The hard part?  Remembering to be present for whatever we have chosen as a focus. Eventually, your focused practice will find its way more and more into your life, but in the beginning we usually need reminders. In fact, at any stage we need reminders! Falling asleep is so easy. What do you do everyday anyway? It takes no more time to engage in it while paying attention!

Make a commitment to set up whatever you need which will help you to remember to practice. Notes written in soap on your bathroom mirror! Alarms set on your phone! Sticky notes on the steering wheel of your car! A rubber band on your wrist!

A buddy who is interested in Sensory Awareness! Whatever it takes.