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The Benefits of Sensory Awareness

A great deal of research is now available on the subject of mindfulness and the impact of contemplative practices on our health and well-being. Measurable benefits result from consistently engaging in present-focused states of being. Brain waves, heart functions and respiration become synchronized. The functioning of our immune and endocrine systems improves. As we feel more connected to ourselves and the world around us, compassion and empathy often develops naturally, resulting in more authentic interpersonal relationships.

We spend our lives unconsciously developing habits of thought and behavior. What fires together, wires together.  When brain cells communicate frequently, the connection between them strengthens. Neural pathways are formed through repetition and then those pathways are more often taken, becoming reinforced even more. With enough repetition, they become automatic. Each experience, including our feelings, thoughts, sensations, and muscular actions becomes embedded in the network of brain cells. In the same way that dysfunctional patterns can become entrenched through repetition, we can also cultivate a responsive way of being if we practice on an on-going basis.  The more we pause and pay attention, the more we remember to pause and pay attention. As we gradually become more aware of automatic patterns and reactivity, we have the option to change them.

Sensing does not have a ‘goal’ of relaxing or an ideal of how we should be, but of just being more fully attentive to what we are actually experiencing in any given moment, thus deepening our understanding of ourselves. Through direct sensory experience we find out how we, in particular, are. What we notice is that we are always in relationship: with gravity, the air, everything (whether we know it or not). Whatever is needed has the space to emerge naturally. Sensory Awareness experiments are just that: experiments. A seasoned leader has learned how to ask questions which deeply explore a broad range of sensory experience. Over time, we can internalize this consciously exploratory way of being and carry it into our daily lives.

You may find that:

  • your ability to focus and pay attention is enhanced.
  • cognitive flexibility increases.
  • you have greater self-insight, curiosity and patience.
  • you experience more empathy and compassion.
  • you experience wonder and gratitude more often.
  • you are better able to cope with stress and challenging situations.
  • your listening skills improve.
  • you are able to engage in your life with less effort and energy.
  • you have a greater awareness of the interconnection present in all of life.
  • you experience joy and pleasure in simple, every day activities.
  • you become more responsive and less reactive.

Above all, you learn to trust the natural wisdom of your own responsiveness and aliveness.

Featured image, “Popcorn” © Robert Smith: visit his on-line gallery

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Gravity, Energy, and the Support of the Ground

I would like to speak about the main natural forces we are exposed to as we live on this planet. There is this force of gravity. Gravity is a very attractive force, and everybody is constantly exposed to its influence. The pull of this force makes us all stay on the ground. It even tries to pull us under the ground. But fortunately there is another force in us which does not permit that. That is energy. Each of us is able to allow energy to counteract the pull of gravity. So this would be the second very, very important force there is, to which we are constantly exposed. And then, of course, this energy manifests as breathing too. The possibility of constantly getting new air – can you feel it right now as you are reading? Are you open for this possibility of the energy source breathing to go through you or are you collapsing? Are you open to this coming and going of air and the possibility – whether we sit, or stand, or lie – to allow this exchange of air through us?

The third very important force, which we constantly are exposed to, is the support of the ground. That means, as you are sitting right now, there is something under you which supports you. Can you feel it? It is very solid and reliable; it is there at all times supporting us – the support underneath your feet, underneath your whole self, when you are lying, underneath your behind when you are sitting. You cannot go wrong trusting this support. Are you enjoying it? How wonderful that is!

Gravity, the support which the ground gives you, and energy – can you really experience these three forces?

– Can you feel that there is always something which invites you down?

– Can you feel something going through you which gives you the strength to stay upright?

– Is there really something which offers itself under you?

You may feel how easy it would be for gravity to become overwhelming, pulling you down to the ground and how the earth even wants to swallow you. But no, there is something under you which supports you – and something inside you which reconditions you from moment to moment.

Could you be open in your bones and other tissues for that which supports you? Be grateful for that support – grateful in every cell, grateful in your skin, and in your bones!

Can you feel the air which goes through you? Can you feel how it comes into you and how it goes out of you? Could you become sensitive in your muscles and skin and all tissues for the air which goes through you and leaves you? Are your tissues awake enough to let the air through and receive what is needed and let out what needs to go out? Can more and more of your inner be open for this wonderful process? We call it breathing.

….When you feel what is, what occurs, what calls on you, your sensations, then you are in touch with life, which is always better, always deeper, always new. Wanting to know something is usually outside. Real experience is always surprising, is nothing which you know beforehand. And there is a difference between talking it – speaking from direct experience – and talking about it. When we speak about something we are not in it. It is important to feel what we say. Very much of our daily living is not experiencing, is not this warm-blooded being there for what we are doing.

As old as I am, all these moments of a new reality, of a new experiencing make everything so alive and full. I feel how it affects me when I’m only in my head, with my thoughts, and when I really feel in my tissues, in my nerves, in my bones. When I am really sensitive from moment to moment I live a completely different life.

This article is an edited excerpt from the newly published audio tape Coming Back to Experiencing, recorded in Santa Barbara, CA, on April 2, 2000.

Featured image, “Massive Cliff Rocks” © by Robert Smith: Visit his on-line gallery

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Sensory Awareness Foundation

Sensory Awareness focuses on the cultivation of an ever deepening awareness of our sensory experience as a gateway into ourselves and simultaneously into deeper connection with others and the world around us. This depth of connection is our birthright and anchors us in a more responsive and compassionate way of being.