Every day our outer world exhibits a swirl of energy filled with all that life is made up of including uncertainty, anxiety, and suffering. The range of information and stimuli we take in is infinite, and we are observing and interacting with it at all times in nature, relationships, work, daily activity, and news. How do we respond to it and how do we hold steady and keep the course?
In wind and storm, a mature tree stays rooted, holding at the center, swaying at the top, bending and flexing, moving like a dance with what surrounds her. The tree can be a helpful metaphor for how to respond to the world around us, and the relationship to that of our inner world. Using the process of body-mind alignment, we can experience the “holding of the center” with a very simple exercise.
Get into a relaxed yet aligned posture and take a few deep breaths. Allow stress and distraction to fall away as you continue to breathe and relax. With each in-breath, imagine fresh, clean, renewing energy entering your body, filling your body, and releasing with your out-breath. Continue a few more times, feeling the fresh renewing energy fill your body and release. Now, on your in-breath, imagine directing that fresh, renewing energy to your abdomen, breathing into and out of your abdomen, or center point, about an inch below your belly button. In Chinese medicine this is called Dantian, or energy center.
Tap into what you feel and sense in the center point. Using this as a place of power and strength can both remind us of our roots and stability and also allow flexible and fluid movement like the tree, bending and flexing with greater ease. We can continue to come back to this breathing and awareness of our center, even a flash of the tree imagery or a simple mind-statement to “hold the center” can reframe old responses into new patterns that become natural.
"Hold on to the center. Man was made to sit quietly and find the truth within."-Tao Te Ching