Week Sixty: Reconnecting with Yourself

In times of change and heightened activity – and the kind of time crunches most of us experience on a daily basis – a practice of coming home to ourselves with some regularly can be both deeply nourishing and re-centering. During my busy days, I find that the more I remember to “come back to myself”, the more energy I have, the less stress I experience by the end of the day.

One of my favorite practices comes from the work of Vietnamese Buddhist monk and teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh. He has a mantra that goes like this: “Breathing in I arrive, breathing out I am home.” Just one breath, in and out, can offer an important break in any mounting tension or stress in the day, and offer your body-mind being an opportunity to settle before beginning the next round of activity. Thich Nhat Hanh also talks about using sounds and experiences in the environment in the same way the meditation hall uses a bell. The bell rings occasionally to remind people who are meditating to return to their focus. Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that you can use the ringing of a telephone, the stoplight when you are driving, and other kinds of regularly-occurring interruptions in the day as moments when you come back to yourself.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to practice deliberately coming back to yourself by using cues in your environment that are like the meditation bell. Before beginning the experiment, choose what kinds of cues you want to use. If you live in a city where you’ll be walking a lot, you might use to the “walk/don’t walk” signs that flash at corners as your signal to take a breath and use the mantra. If you drive, you might use stop signs or stop lights as precious moments to return to yourself, take a breath, and use the mantra. If you work at home, you might use sounds around the house – clocks ringing the hour, lawn mowers or chain saws outdoors, dogs barking, phones ringing – as your cues to return to yourself.

The key thing is to remember to use the in-breath to mentally say to yourself, breathing in I arrive, and the out-breath to say, breathing out I am home. Equally as important is to take a moment to notice how your body responds to this breath. Pay particular attention to any sensations you may have of settling, becoming more grounded, at ease, or comfortable.

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