The Awakening Practice comes to me from many wonderful teachers.  I feel very fortunate and so, in appreciation, I pass my practice to you. I hope you will do as I have and embrace what you have learned.  Make all that you have seen and heard, yours.  Allow the wisdom of your experience to be your truth.

The best way I can describe The Awakening Practice is that it is a work that is both mystical and alchemical.  Though we are not trying to turn lead to gold, we are seeking transformation.  We are seeking a connection to our Divine Nature, through our hearts, that moves us mystically to completion. This is also a work of compassion.  Not only compassion for ourselves but compassion for the messengers who bring us the clues to our work and compassion for the work of all humanity.  This is the full embrace of Divine Love.

The Awakening Practice is the uniquely personal work of transformation that comes from fully engaging the experience of life through our feelings.  It is a wondrous thing that we have been given the great gift of feelings.  We should treasure each feeling as gold.  The best tool I have ever found for mining this treasure is The Awakening Practice.

Feelings are the first place we experience reality.  How we feel about reality will be the basis of many of our thoughts and, subsequently, our decisions.  When we don’t have good skills for working with our thoughts and feelings, life can be a pretty bumpy ride.  A lot has been written about where feelings and thoughts originate but little has been written about how to change them.  The Awakening Practice is a way to work with your feelings and thoughts as you physically experience them.  The Awakening Practice is a “practice” and that means, the more you practice the better the results.

An old travelers proverb says, “Where ever you go, there you are.”  In this playful resignation, delightfully honest, we come to the realization of being hopelessly "where we are",  once again.  So, if you are feeling "off the map" or just need a bit of reorientation, here is a guide that might be of help.  In that spirit, I commend to you The Awakening Practice.

The first step is to notice what feeling are you physically experiencing.  Is it: anger, anxiety, confusion, obsessive thinking, limiting joy or fear?  It is important to understand, thinking is a physical experience too.  Whatever you feel or think, you must say to yourself, I feel …………or I think and feel…..…… If you cannot identify what you feel or think, progress is almost impossible.  Once you have identified the feeling or thought, you can shift.  Until you get the hang of identifying your feelings and thoughts, stop and write down what you feel and think.  Clarifying what you feel and think is vital.

Now that you have identified what you are thinking and feeling, let’s go with what you have found.  The great thing about this practice is that it is about where you are right now.  Over time, and as your skills increase and you are drawn, you might find yourself in much deeper work dealing with issues at your very center but for today, your work is here.

Next, acknowledge that your feelings manifest themselves physically.  Remember, thinking is part of the physical you, too.  Your entire body, including your thinking, is reacting to your feelings.  This is always true.  Check yourself out.  Where, physically, do you notice the feeling?

Once you identify where, in your body,  you experience your feelings, you are on the right track.  This is the time for examination and experimenting.  Everyone is different and your experience is unique to you.  You will find that, for you, when you get ……………………… you might clench your jaw or your breathing gets very shallow.  If necessary, put your experience down on paper.  Write down, “when I feel angry my stomach gets tight and my breathing is shallow.”  Often it is when our feelings are not in balance we also experience:  disheveled thinking or the inability to concentrate or focus.  Our thinking can become circular or looping, locking us into an unbroken chain of thoughts.  Many times, especially when we have very intense feelings, there is very little congruity between what we are thinking and what is happening in other parts of our body.  As you practice, you will begin to find the connection and balance of all of the aspects of who you are.  It is now time to move to the next step in your practice.

Find in yourself a place of non-judgment and compassion.  From that place become an detached observer seeing your body, your feelings and thoughts.  Watch yourself and begin to understand how your body is manifesting your feelings by staying with them.  This is a time to “sit” with yourself observing how you are responding to your life experience.  From the place of compassion and non judgment it is time to take action.

Breathe deep because you are going make your first shift. Here it is:  Even though it may be that you are really noticing your thinking, shift your gaze to your feelings because working with your feeling is, simply, the best place to start.   You will learn that as you shift your feelings, thoughts will follow. When you have moved your gaze to your feelings, you are now you are ready for the next shift.

Checking in again, ask yourself, what could be another feeling that is slightly better than the one you have?  Don’t try to move yourself to bliss.   That is not possible from where you are.  What you can do is shift, just a little, reaching for the next best feeling that is right for you.  As a example, shift from anger to frustration or shift from fear to anxiety.  This is the work you can do now.  But, this is not all we are to do.  As we complete this shift, The Awakening Practice asks us to press on.

Now that you have shifted, and you feel settled in the shift, it is time to gently and I mean ever so gently release the anger, fear or shame.  Do not try to overpower your feelings.  A gentle compassionate touch is all you need. There is no need to rush.  Take the time you need.  If it takes hours or even days, stay with what the work is calling for.  After you have released your anger or fear, notice your new feelings. Now you notice you are anxious, distracted or, perhaps, frustrated.  You are not all the way home but in shifting you have made huge progress because these feelings are a lot easier to deal with than the more powerful feelings of anger, panic and fear.  Notice the shift in how your body feels. You are coming closer to feelings and thoughts that better match to your situation.  It is important that you consider the match of what you are feeling and thinking.  This is the time to check and see if what you are thinking and feeling feels “right” to your heart.   What you consider, at this moment, to be “a matching feeling or thought” will begin to change too.  Now is when your hard work will pay off.  Once, what you thought a perfectly reasonable feeling or conclusion, will become a feeling or decision that tells you to reach for something better.  The something better is the connection of your feelings and your body to your heart.

It is necessary to add, here, that though you may think yourself alone in this work, that is not so.  Often it is the case that the ones we love and the one’s we don’t love are divine messengers, angelic beings if you will, who let us know the work we are to do.  They can be very beautiful or fearful, indeed, but this is heart work and they bring you a wonderful gift and the gift you give to them in return is compassion.  In compassion is found the Mystical Alchemy that transforms hearts.

Sadness and grief as well as extreme joy and bliss have their perfect place in a full life.  That is all we can ask for:  A full and rich life that takes us deep into our human experience.  The range of feelings and thoughts that are part of the human experience is amazing.  Without that range, life would be pretty dull, indeed.  Experience all that life has for you.

The work of The Awakening Practice is heart work.  It is the mystical alchemy of transformation.  Our connection to the Divine is through our experience.  Fully alive, our Divine Nature is manifest.