Greetings,
The recordings below are a first-time attempt at presenting recorded guided Bringing Ourselves To Our Senses (BOTOS) sessions. There are 4 variations to explore with different components – possibly for different stages of practice. If you try any out, please share your thoughts and suggestions. Feedback is monumentally helpful.
Thank you!
—-As humans, we get rattled, escalated, shaken up, perturbed, unsettled, disturbed, bummed out, stressed out, burned out, freaked out. There are so many ways to refer to our internal mental/emotional struggles. We may even say we are, “losing our senses.”
One fine strategy we can use is to Bring Ourselves To Our Senses. This simple routine can help us care for the internal world of our thoughts and feelings.
Some thought patterns are like weeds; they can blow in unasked, dominate the space, and don’t offer much of anything in return. And like weeds, thought patterns can even be harmful.
Bringing Ourselves to Our Senses is a fun and easy practice in which we let thinking take a break as we open to pure awareness. When we give our attention completely to sensory input, thoughts temporarily drop away, creating a pleasant openness – like a clean slate or a nice open patch of ground. And just like with weeding, we need to be persistent. In a garden, the more regularly we clear the weeds, the better we are able to cultivate desirable plants. The same is true of our mental/emotional space. Each time we practice BOTOS, we clear the way for something creative and beneficial. BOTOS offers a mental reset – an opportunity to shift our frame of mind.
Even momentary experiences of absence of thinking of are of value. Returning over and over to touch into this stillness builds the muscle we need to work with internal challenges. With practice over time, BOTOS strengthens our ability to return and we start to recognize and loosen the grip of troubling thought patterns leaving us better able to cope with stress, fear, anger, chronic physical pain or insomnia, etc. In essence, we no longer feel like we have to remain in the weeds.
Self Practice: If BOTOS resonates with you, eventually you will want to guide yourself through. This is when you will really see the workings of the mind. When you get off-track, start over or return where you left off. To make the routine easier to recall, click here and learn how the each sense corresponds with a finger on the hand . Click here to find a map that may also be helpful.
If any of your senses are diminished or missing, I invite you to spend the part of the practice allotted to that sense affirming the wholeness of your body the way it is. I have hearing loss and hearing is the sense I gravitate toward most. Remember that the experience of presence is the goal and sense perception is simply a breadcrumbs along the trail.
Complete Introduction (6:37 minutes)
This session presents a comprehensive introduction to the Bringing Ourselves To Our Senses practice including helpful information, tips and transitions. Transitions can be considered seeds – planting something desirable in the openness.
For practice [4:37 minutes]
This version moves through the sequence with transitions (but with no tips etc.)
Just senses [3:28 minutes]
This session is a short form of the practice – goes through the senses without tips or transitions.
One visual + free form [5:55 minutes]
A more free-form guided experience set to one image with chimes between the segments.
Thank you for your time!
This is one of a variety of strategies that are part of HeroDragon. By dabbling in these kinds of activities, each of us can find the practices that resonate, the ones that we can stick with. If Bringing Ourselves To Our Senses doesn’t appeal, please dabble on… If it does, let me know how it goes!
