An inner exploration of the physical, mental, and emotional experiences of embodied peace, with curiosity to understand the inner mechanisms that might get in the way. Exercises like these are facilitated and shared in small groups at Embodied Solutions communities and events.
Peace. A deep inhale comes as I focus on peace, and the word "peace" itself lingers through a slow, prolonged exhale. I feel relief, something I need and want, but it doesn't seem to come to me naturally or regularly without an exercise like this.
I remind myself often that ruminating on peace outside of me is not helping anyone if I can't bring myself peace inside. How can I offer to even one other person what I do not have myself? My awareness turns to my default pattern to prioritize my goals above my own sense of peace, and that is not only incongruent with my true desires for my life, but counterproductive to the effectiveness of my goals. So to sit with peace and explore what it feels like in me, and what mechanisms within myself interrupt it, feels deeply essential.
In this moment I feel a round space of peace in the center of my body. I don’t remember feeling it like this before. It’s in the center of all the discomfort and tension in my back, my head, my neck, basically everywhere outside this center of peace. I feel this sense of running into the round center of peace for relief.
It is easier than usual to stay with the tangible sense of peace, and from this space I continue to feel and observe tensions, what feels like entire walls in my being, with thoughts about many current circumstances in my personal life and the world coming to mind. I notice my mind's agenda behind every thought, and it is so natural and easy to witness the thoughts from this center of peace and offer my ruminating mind understanding and validation for its concerns. This immediately softens the ideas and the physical tension in my head. I recognize a painful wall slanted between my head and this center of peace, and specifically from this center I feel curiosity toward the wall. I observe it without the usual agenda, the usual need for it to decrease in intensity or go away completely. I feel detached from an outcome, like it’s ok if the wall is there to stop my brain’s ideas, and it’s ok if it’s there to be felt and digested so the thoughts can continue. I can feel that my head was not moving in that direction, and it is softened, following my lead from this center of peace.
A thought comes to mind about something that happened recently that I haven’t fully processed or digested. It feels so frustrating and upsetting, but then I also immediately feel the peace. Peace supports the rest of my body feeling tense as it tries closing off feeling the discomfort of the situation.
Another situation comes to mind and I notice that all of these situations and reactions to them are in my upper back and head, hovering over this center of peace. It’s hard to breathe, and I return to the refuge that this peace has become. Feeling peace doesn’t change my breathing, as I have experiences often and realize I expected and hoped for, but the peace is also not affected by the breathing, as most of me usually is, reacting with fear. This experience feeling both peace and difficulty breathing simultaneously brings a sense of comfort, settling above and below my lungs. I even feel the confidence in peace, facing directly this reality of difficulty breathing. This feels new. This center of peace feels very settled yet very aware and observant of everything going on in my body and mind. Not at all intrusive, just very present with everything that is present with it.
I become aware of shaking in my back, and I feel very ill. I was feeling fine earlier in the day, and then suddenly fully sick, like there was no warm-up getting sick, just suddenly in the middle of being very sick. Nerve vibrations are not new to me but they are hard to tolerate and be present with most of the time.
As I feel this center of peace, it neutralizes the fear I normally feel at any sign of the nerve vibrations or being sick. These symptoms had gone away for a very long time and came back again recently, and there is so much more resistance now than before. But with this center of peace I don’t feel the resistance. My awareness of the symptoms is also softened, not so intense; not so hyper-focused on the sensation and experience as at first, a more gentle awareness. There is a gently surging force in me with the thought that I don't want to give up peace for anything, even for the sake of fighting an illness. I stay curious with this sensation and sense that it comes from a deeper space than anything I have felt so far, but I can't locate the source of it in my body. I accept it either comes from a numbness within me or from the earth beneath me, but I only feel within me right now a part of me insisting that nothing is worth prioritizing over this center of peace and my relationship with it.
Even though I already feel relaxed, I bring my awareness to this center of peace again and everything sinks into it, settling into being right here right now.
Another situation comes to mind, and so quickly it escalates into the feeling of rejection and instantaneous resistance to that feeling. It’s like a bubble in my back floating behind the center of peace. And they are there with each other side by side. The image comes to mind of a child reaching out to a sea creature in an aquarium, both curious of each other, neither feeling threatened. The resistance to rejection feels softened with its edges fading. I know where it was but I don’t feel it now, like an outline is there holding its place.
Day 2, Exploration 1
I am feeling quite the opposite of peace so far today. I read the exploration from yesterday hoping it will put me back into the peace zone instantaneously. I like what I read, I feel warm and hopeful as I read it, but I am not feeling the center of peace at this moment. It feels more like I'm reading what someone else wrote.
Simply recognizing my current experience and writing it out, I feel a settling in me, and the settling makes me aware of the center of peace, in the center of my chest. Relief again. The image that comes to mind makes me laugh, like a force field all around it, intentionally pushed out by the center of peace to keep the entire world at bay, including my own thoughts and emotions. Not making any of it go away, just creating space within it for a settling in me. A deep breath comes. I feel relieved, and I feel a bit protected. I also feel a bit confused writing the word protected. My mind is feeling slow to catch up. I feel protection most often in my shoulders and neck and arms, recognizing now that these are the areas that are meant to physically protect the heart in the human body. Yet this center of peace, which all I know of it is a warm round space with a 360 degree view of everything going on inside and outside of me, not trying to protect itself but offering me some kind of protection. A deep breath comes, and a few different thoughts come to mind of things that feel challenging, even threatening at the moment, in the world and in my circumstances, and
I become aware of a few abilities the center of peace seems to have. One is bringing anything I'm experiencing, physically or emotionally or mentally, into a space of “it’s ok,” just glancing at it with its awareness, even if I don’t understand how it can be ok or if it is going to end up ok. Thoughts and tensions even drop off, if only temporarily. Another is a very gentle but very tangible gravity allowing everything to settle in toward the center of peace.
Day 2, Exploration 2
I've noticed that I'm notably more numb than usual going through the day today, with nerve vibrations that are stronger than usual. I want to re-engage with embodied peace if at all possible.
I notice my breathing, think of the word peace, and immediately that gentle gravity brings everything into focus. It’s like it organizes a bunch of random thoughts and preoccupations, all of my different emotional energies and physical symptoms alive at this moment, into one clear and orderly system. A deep breath comes. It’s like peace turns and looks at everything simultaneously with a 360 degree viewing capacity and communicates to every single thing “you’re ok” and they all believe it. I don’t feel it spreading everywhere like many inner resources that I embody at different times. I feel pain in my back but nothing around it is tense or holding it. Even the nerve vibrations feel less overwhelming, they’re just doing their thing. They are ok and everything around them and affected by them is ok too, including my mind.
I begin to notice I feel a bit sleepy, and also that I’m holding my breath just to recognize what is coming up. Just writing these words, my breath and the sleepiness both settle back down together toward the center of peace. I feel discomfort in my eyes and shoulders and the same thing happens, my breath and my eyes and shoulders all settle back toward the center of peace.
This is not like other inner explorations I am used to where there is movement and change… even to write these words I can feel my breathing stop. A deep breath comes. The thoughts observing the differences in this exploration all settle back to the center of peace. The wish comes to mind that everything in my body was feeling peace, and even that wish settles back toward the center of peace. There is a sense of sadness and letting go with this wish as it feels the enormity of being accepted and being ok to wish, and being ok to be.
I don’t want to move on even though there is not much more to write of this experience. I just want to stay here with this center of peace. I feel my breathing as if my chest is caving in. It feels the gentle gravity of peace and again I feel the fears that arose with this feeling also being ok. They don’t get digested or go away, they’re just settled into the gentleness of being present with the awareness of peace on them.
