788th Week: Cultivating Steadiness

ByNancy Napier

One of my favorite dynamics when working with clients or managing my own internal process is to notice what’s in the foreground of awareness and what’s in the background. For me, there are certain qualities that are always in the background of my being, whether I’m aware of them or not. 

One of these that is also always present in my body, within the core presence that is always inside me even when I’m not aware of it, is the quality of steadiness. Whenever I work with myself or anyone else, I inevitably invite bringing awareness to this ever-present steadiness before jumping into anything else. Also, related to the reference I made in last week’s practice about tapping into universal archetypes, I hold the belief in, and experience of, what I call the Spirit of Steadiness—what you might think of as the Archetype of Steadiness, the embodying presence that radiates this quality as its primary expression.

For this week’s practice, I’d like to share with you a “foreground/background” practice of bringing the steadiness that is always there in the background into the foreground of awareness as well as your embodied felt-sense. I’ll share it the way I’m used to doing, but I hope you’ll adapt what’s below to match what works best for you:

  • Begin by settling in and bringing your awareness to the surface supporting you.
  • Notice how your body meets that surface and how your body actively receives this support.
    • You might find yourself shifting and settling even a bit more as your body actively takes in the support available right now.
  • Notice now how you settle into your body, orienting to what you understand to be your “internal landing place”, your “internal center of gravity”.
    • Become aware of what sensations arise in your awareness as you do this.
  • Your internal landing place tends to be the place where you can find a sense of the quality and tone of your “core presence”, of the place in you that is your solid home base.
    • Notice now what you would identify as the quality and tone of your core presence.
  • Next, notice that there, in the core of your body-mind being, is an ever-present steadiness.
    • This steadiness is always there. There is no moment when it is absent.
  • It may slip into the background of awareness, but it is always there.
  • Take some time to experience this underlying steadiness and notice how it feels to tap into its presence in you.
    • Notice the sensations it generates in your body.
  • Notice the state of mind that accompanies this experience.
  • Now, if it feels all right to do so, allow the radiating tone of this steadiness to spread throughout your whole body and into your psyche, as well.
    • There’s nothing to do here but notice the experience of being filled with the core steadiness that is alwayspart of your core presence.
  • You carry this quality with you wherever you go and whenever it is.
  • Take a moment to imagine going through your usual daily activities with a felt-sense of this inherent core steadiness.
    • How do you imagine having this steadiness in your awareness would impact your state of mind and your responses to what you encounter along the way?
  • How do you imagine the tone of your steadiness would affect the world around you as you go through your daily activities?
  • It helps to remember that we radiate the tone and quality of our entire body-mind being all the time, without exception, and that this radiating quality of our being affects the world around us in every moment.
  • There might be a color or a sound that accompanies the qualities of your core steadiness.
    • Notice these if they happen to arise and no problem if they don’t; this is just one more opportunity to deepen your experience and enhance your connection to your core steadiness if sound and color are aspects of your ways of knowing yourself and your world.
  • When you’re ready, bring yourself back into the environment around you but continue to radiate the sense of steadiness that you’ve touched into and explored.
    • Offer yourself a reminder to touch back into your core steadiness often throughout the course of your everyday life.
  • It’s a wonderful resource to carry with you…

As with all these practices, this is one more opportunity to bring conscious awareness to the ways in which you can have an active and dynamic impact on the quality and tone of your internal life. Please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on by and all the way through.

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