015 - Gravity as Dance Partner

Most of us do not think of gravity as a dance partner, but it is to our detriment that we do not. Gravity gifts us deeper access to our connection systems when we are aware of her. Let me explain to you what I mean. As you are reading the book, right now, you are likely sitting in some way. Maybe you are sitting in a chair, maybe you are reclining, possibly you are in your bed. I find it unlikely that you would be totally horizontal: that’s not comfortable. So in some way your head is above the book, and you are looking down at it. Your body might be directly under you, or tilted.

Take a moment to experience gravity. Not abstractly, but the actual contact between your body and whatever is holding it up. If your feet are on the ground, start by feeling the way that they press into the floor, which is a proxy for the good earth. Is it simply a coin-sized disc of contact under the outer edge of your right foot, because your feet are stacked on top of one another tucked under your chair? Or do you have full contact between your insoles and the floor? You don’t have to shift it, change it, or make it different, but feel it. Bring your interoceptive attention to the weight. Feel its pressure. And then, to make it your dance partner, as my friend mindfulness teacher Paula Rámirez reminds us – Rest into gravity. Let yourself feel her. Let yourself feel the weight, the pressure, the mass of you relating to gravity. Let yourself feel the way that your body translates itself into pressure through your joints, and the way that this force distributes as muscular tension and sensation across your foot. Feel the way the body bears your weight, and soften into this.

Weight here is resting just on the tips of 3 toes…how does this feel?