berkeley eye center

Recently I have been encouraged to revisit the topic(s) of centering, grounding, mindfulness, and presence in a new article. In particular, I want to answer the following questions often posed to me:

• How do I actually do it?

• How do I get centered and become grounded, more mindful and present in life's difficult moments?

• As Dan Harris puts it in his book, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works--how do I know when I've achieved it?

Today I offer a review and a few quotations from Dan's book, which I received from a friend a few weeks ago and could not put down. I especially appreciated the fact that Dan began his practice of meditation "kicking and screaming."

As a TV news anchor for ABC, he had opportunities to interview renowned teachers and gurus, including Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and His Holiness The Dalai Lama. Dan's humorously detailed skepticism was eventually replaced with wonder and a dedicated practice of his own, which led him to describe his changed way of being as 10% happier.

From 10% Happier:

"I... learned that you didn't need to wear robes, chant Sanskrit phrases, or listen to Cat Stevens... The instructions were reassuringly simple:

1. Sit comfortably... Just make sure your spine is reasonably straight...

2. Feel the sensations of your breath as it goes in and out. Pick a spot: nostrils, chest, or gut. Focus your attention there and really try to feel the breath...

3. This one, according to all of the books I read, was the biggie. Whenever your attention wanders just forgive yourself and gently come back to the breath... The whole game is to catch your mind wandering and then come back to the breath, over and over again."

Dan's prescription reinforced everything I've learned about meditation and try to do in my own practice and bears repeating. Simply:

• Sit quietly, comfortably.

• Feel the breath coming in and out of the body.

• When you notice the mind wandering, gently come back to the breath.

It takes courage, time and repetition to develop a new habit, as it does for any new endeavor, exercise, or change in routine. The book put it into language I could understand:

I didn't like it per se, but I now respected it. This was not just some hippie time-passing technique... It was a rigorous brain exercise: rep after rep of trying to tame the runaway train of the mind... Wrestling your mind to the ground, repeatedly hauling your attention back to the breath in the face of the inner onslaught required genuine grit. This was a badass endeavor.

As an Aikido student, voice student, yoga student, I totally get that if you want to get better at something, you do your techniques, your scales, and your postures over and over again until they lead you to proficiency, effortlessness, and presence. And so I strongly connected with his reference to meditation as "a rigorous brain exercise: rep after rep of trying to tame the runaway train of the mind... " I may not achieve Nirvana. And, the practice is an end in itself.

Another helpful resource on centeredness is Doug Silsbee, PCC of Presence-Based Coaching.

Doug is a thought leader in the fields of Presence-Based Coaching®, leadership development and resilience. He is a speaker, leadership coach, trainer of coaches, and author based in Asheville, NC. Doug's coaching and teaching work integrates somatics, mindfulness, developmental psychology, interpersonal neurobiology, and leadership theory.

One of the questions I'm most often asked is: How do you center yourself, especially in a difficult moment? I found Doug's core body practice on centering thoughtful, practical, and easy to understand. As Doug suggests, you learn to center yourself in difficult moments by practicing an exercise like this one over and over again until it becomes your default under pressure. Centering is not automatic. A strong center is similar to any strong muscle. It is developed through practice.

Core Body Practice: Centering*

We can learn centering by organizing ourselves in relation to the three dimensions possessed by all physical objects:

• Length. Check out your posture, and organize yourself in relation to gravity so that you are supported effortlessly. Place your feet slightly apart, knees unlocked, and pelvis rocked forward slightly to straighten the spine. Sense the bottoms of your feet, where the floor presses against them. Relax your shoulders, letting them drop. Hold your eyes open, letting your gaze be soft and your peripheral vision be available to you. Allow your jaw to relax. Imagine that the top of your head is connected to the heavens as if by a string. Drop your attention to your center of gravity, two inches below your navel.

• 
  Width: Gently rock your weight from right to left. Find the neutral balanced place in the center of this dimension. Sense the equal weighting on each of your feet. And be aware of your width, of the space you take up. It can be helpful to sense what it is like to walk into a room and take up space, feeling an expansion in your chest that gives you more room.

• 
  Depth: Align yourself from front to back. Again, a gentle rocking back and forth from heel to toe can help us find the balance point. We are accustomed to focusing out in front of us, but there is also space behind us. Bring awareness to this, sensing the room behind you. Imagine weight and mass behind you, as if you had a giant, massive tail extending out along the ground. Allow yourself to feel supported by this mass and to let your belly soften and open.

This is scalable. By this, I mean that you can take five minutes or more on each of the three components, or you can quickly and easily shift into the centered place. Centering is an internal state rather than a specific body position, and you will soon find that you can center yourself sitting, walking, or brushing your teeth. With practice, centering yourself will feel like a quick and effortless "coming home" and be almost an instantaneous shift in awareness.