When we’re not absorbed in thinking, there’s a sense of being quiet inside yet fully alive. We’re available to expand into the here-and-now even if thoughts are present.
Without thoughts driving us, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that who we are is not the limited person who lacks, strives, fears, and defends. We’re aware of being one with life, not separate from anything, which transforms our whole experience of how we meet everyday life.
This magnificent truth is available to realize in any moment. Experiment with these five practices that joyously bring you home to yourself every time.
1. Consciously Be Aware
Living unconsciously leaves us spinning in unhappy mental habits. We play out old conditioning like a robot without being aware of what we’re doing or why.
Take some time every day to be consciously alive to your present moment experience. It’s so simple! You’ll realize how relaxing it is to just be aware.
Sit quietly for 10 minutes or more of daily meditation where you rest as open space, doing nothing, allowing what arises to come and go.
Take a deep, conscious breath. Use your senses to come back to presence by naming things you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel.
Stop once an hour and shift your attention away from the world and back to yourself so you’re alive to what’s present right now. This is what I do frequently, and it transforms my daily life experience.
2. Expand Your Mind
When we’re stuck in beliefs about ourselves and the world, we’re ignoring the fullness of what life is offering us right now.
What if you didn’t expect anyone to do anything? What if you forget to believe that you’re fearful or unworthy? What if things are just fine as they are without your trying to control them?
When you notice a familiar thought pattern, let it fall away…just let it go. Keep inviting your mind to open…open…open beyond thoughts into emptiness, clear and vast like a cloudless sky.
Consider the possibility that all this thinking is unnecessary (because it is).
3. Love Your Body
Many of us live in our minds, stuck in ideas about things, consumed by trying to figure everything out. And here’s what we’re missing.
Whenever you’re lost in stories or unconscious habits, you’re experiencing sensations in your body.
While you’re worrying about yourself or other people, there are places in your body that are tense and contracted.
Instead of being caught in your mind, shift your attention down into your body to bring a boundless field of awareness to physical sensations that are present. Let them come and go without telling a story about them. It’s the healing balm you’ve needed for so long.
And isn’t it delicious to simply be peaceful with what is?
4. Forget What You Know
Every moment is so incredibly fresh! Forget what you know, and live in alignment with this freshness.
- Stand before someone who triggers you, forgetting any history together;
- Clear your mind of any false, limiting ideas about yourself, and just be;
- Taste, touch, see, hear, and feel things freshly, as if for the first time;
- Wake up in the morning and spend a few hours not knowing what you’ll do or say.
5. Notice Awakened States
Your true nature is awake, aware, and peaceful—whether you consciously know it or not. The simple act of noticing what’s already true aligns your mind, body, and heart with this infinite presence.
As you go through your day,
- Recognize when your sense of the separate self dissolves into the flow of an enjoyable activity;
- Appreciate when your heart is touched by beauty, tenderness, and love;
- Be grateful for creative ideas and let them flourish;
- Surrender your desires and dissatisfactions and experience the brilliance of life as it is actually unfolding.
Just like the true nature of a wave is ocean, your true reality is the limitless splendor of infinite presence.
Remind yourself that nothing is personal to you—everything appears by grace. Then go out there fully alive in your humanity, free and receptive to what life offers you.
