Your Body Is Your Anchor

Like many others before me I showed up to meditation practice as a way to help calm my mind and break anxious thought patterns. 

And what I’ve learned through these first few years of practice is that the most effective means of neutralizing the mind is not by counting my breath cycle or deeply pondering the silence around me... but rather by tapping into the physical sensations of my body. 

Unlike the mind, our bodies are made to be felt. Through our nervous system we can sense ourselves in relation to the world around us. 

While lying in stillness we can feel the shape of our bony structure against the earth..the tautness between muscle and bone...the lungs and diaphragm at work creating breath...and the pace of our day or week moving through the connective tissues. 

And for this reason our bodies can be relied on like an anchor for the mind. 

When the mind becomes scattered....or gets pulled at by the strings of cultural discourse…it is our bodies ability to feel itself in space that can help guide us back to steadiness and stillness. 

This practice is all about remembering that in a world of speed..an anchor can be our greatest gift.