Find your center before you act.

August 28th, 2008 — tonymayo

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Your disposition in this moment constrains the actions you might take in the next. If you are sitting at a desk you cannot immediately leap forward. If you are angry, you are not able to gently embrace your antagonist. If you are speaking loudly and quickly, you cannot listen to subtle cues.

There is a place from which the broadest variety of actions is possible: the physical, emotional, and linguistic center. From this calm and neutral disposition you can choose the most appropriate activity instead of being hurtled into the next stress, task, or argument like a leaf in a tempest. Practicing the skill of rapidly bringing yourself to center allows you to move more gracefully from a reactive mode into the the realm of choice and creativity.

The attached recording is a guided centering exercise you can use to learn this simple and powerful skill. You can try this anywhere in eleven minutes, wearing street clothes, and without frightening the neighbors.

Click here to listen or left click to download onto your hard drive. You can put the downloaded MP3 onto your iPod by “importing” the file with iTunes (see image).