Sentience and Awareness Exercise
The practice outlined below was inspired by Process Oriented Therapy. Process Oriented Therapy was founded by Arny Mindell a Taoist Jungian Psychologist and Quantum Physicist. It is a form of individual and group therapy that supports people in connecting with their deeper self, sentient elements in their surroundings, and the innate intelligence and presence of the Taoist field of the earth or universe.
To be done in dyads or individually.
- Come up with a question that you are wrestling with in your life currently. Write it down.
- Let the question go. Let your mind drift into a fog of unknowing and become cloudy.
- Now look around the room… and notice something in your surroundings that is flirting with you, i.e. something that is catching your attention, that you are drawn to, curious about, or repulsed by.
- Once you have found something- it can be anything (an object, sound, a shadow, a corner of a leaf, a metal pipe, an entire tree, or even a sound if it repeats). Focus on the element that was flirting with you. Open to it with loving kindness, really engage it with your full body awareness.
- Now as you see it, let it see you.
- Now focus on the space in between the interaction between you two. What is the essence of that space?
- Return to focusing on the other, you are relating to. Open to its consciousness or awareness looking back at you. Look at each other, visually and energetically, with your whole body and all of your senses. What is this being like? Try to sense its essence from a sensory level. Texture? Density? Rhythm? Color? Atmosphere? Do not try to figure it out, but feel it and let your imagination explore it. Let it surprise you.
- Now let your self become this one. What does it feel like to be in its rhythm, its style and perspective? Let your body move to be like this one, let it surprise you, dream into it. Let sound come from this one. If this one were to make a sound, what would that sound be like? Let it express itself through you. How does it see the world? What land does it inhabit? What is its ideal environment? Really take time here to let the experience unfold. Let yourself really become this one, loosing your ordinary state of identity and consciousness. Don’t think about it too long, just let your gut response tell you who this is.
- What does this one want? What is its purpose? As this one, look back at the ordinary you, what do you see there?
- Now let yourself travel back to your normal identity. And see this one again from your personal perspective.
- Ask this one your question from earlier. How does it respond? Let it surprise you.
- When you feel complete, thank this one.
- Now make notes, sketch and share about your experience. Reflect on how the experience may be commenting on your original question.
When I have guided people in this exercise or similar ones, it is amazing to see them light up in a deep way. Something in them is ignited as they see the living vibrancy that can come from something in their surroundings. They feel connected to the earth again, present, and begin to realize that the earth is always available for communication and interaction; and that this interaction can aid them in their own difficulties and feeling of isolation and confusion about life. They begin to realize that they are never alone, or cut off from the world, and that everything they need is always being presented to them. They begin to feel at home again in their own skin and in their environment, cultivating a deeper sense of presence and openness with the world and themselves.