Yesterday, I introduced an idea that may be hard to wrap our heads around. It’s the idea that we are often responding to beliefs in our subconscious that cause us to do things that make us physically unhealthy.

Whether these beliefs are ancestral knowledge or responses to past life experiences or responses to childhood trauma, they can come into the here and now and gum up the works.

Good News

You can make these beliefs conscious, and then you can stop doing them.

How?

It’s Peace in 3 Acts: Presence, Contemplation, Attunement

There are three things that you do, and you don’t do them together.  You do do them every day. They support one another.

The first one is called Presence.

Becoming present is living in the here and now. Kids do it.  Animals do it. You can do it too.  It means bringing your total attention to whatever you are doing.  If you are washing dishes, you are washing dishes.  If you are driving the care, you are driving the car.  Everything you do is imbued with your presence.

What happens, energetically, when you are present?

I must use an analogy.  From the movies. Bear with me.

Imagine that your body and mind are in one car, and your spirit is following in another car.  When you are not present, it’s like you are in a busy city.  Your brain is multi-tasking, flipping from topic to topic to topic and your spirit is trying to keep up, trying to keep track of you, trying to figure out where to apply its support.   Your spirit may lose sight of you from time to time.  This disconnect causes anxiety.

Okay, now imagine you are present, focusing on one specific thing.  It’s like you are on a country road.  Your spirit can follow you more easily. It knows what you are about. It can apply spiritual support as needed.

(What is spiritual support? It’s energy.  It’s fluidity. It’s ease.  It’s context.  When all your pistons are firing and things feel easy, you’re spiritually supported.)

The second one is called Contemplation.

Also known as navel gazing. Also known as noodling.  This is when you carve out time in your busy life to do nothing but let your mind wander.  You can think about whatever you want, but you do it in a quiet way.  This is the time when your spirit and mind connect the dots.

You know those old stories and beliefs that you carry around. The ones that aren’t always so helpful? Contemplation is a time to turn over the dirt, aerate your soul soil, let those beliefs out,  and take a good look at them.  And if they aren’t useful, it’s time to love them and release them.

Yesterday, we talked about how I have moments where it feels like I’m channeling my grandmother and her miserly dime-squeezing ways.  In contemplation, I’ve brought her up, watched her frantically figure out her gas milage, and then whisked her back to her starving youth and offered her an oatmeal cookie.  I’ve imagined her face relaxing.

That’s loving the story and letting it go.  That can only be done in contemplation.

When I am present, and I find myself reacting like my grandmother would, I don’t fight it. I don’t get angry. I just have a moment where I laugh and appreciate that it’s not 1930′s Northern Minnesota, and ketchup is not a luxury.

And the more that I contemplate, the less I have to deal with my stories in real life.

I try to spend time contemplating every day. I contemplate in the bathtub and in bed and out on my deck. It looks like I’m doing nothing, and yet I am doing so much.

The third one is called Attunement.

Attunement is integration. It’s integration of your mind, body and spirit.

You see, the mind often acts like the big brother.  It believes that it knows best and the body and spirit just have to follow along behind it.  That’s because the mind has consciousness, and consciousness is very bossy.

Attunement is the act of letting your mind take a back seat to your body and spirit.  You are letting your brain rest. You are telling it to relax and let somebody else take charge for once.

To integrate your body mind and spirt, to attune, you do things that require your body and spirit to be engaged but don’t require a lot of thought.  They require your mind to be somewhat engaged, but not in charge.

What takes you into a state of attunement?

The list is long, my friends:

1. Tai Chi

2. Yoga

3. Knitting

4. Biking. Really, any exercise that is not completely mindless.

5.  Water-related activities (taking a bath/shower, swimming, washing dishes, sailing, etc.)

6.  Dancing

7.  Martial Arts

8. Knitting and other things you do with your hands.

9. Ice Skating, Cross-country skiing,  going to the batting cage,  the list could go on forever.

When we integrate our mind, body, and spirit, when we put big brother mind in the back seat, we can experience the wisdom in our body and spirit.

Moving our body can feel really good. It can release endorphins. It can remove toxins in our lymph nodes. It also helps us to connect to the physical plan,  which makes us feel a lot less like a spirit in a meatbag.

Energetic wisdom flows more easily when integrated with body and mind.

Remember those beliefs we talked about? The unnecessary ones? When your body, mind and spirit are one, they fade to the background.

The more you attune, the better it gets, especially when combined with presence and contemplation.

Tell me: What is your favorite way to attune?