(excerpt from Listening In: Dialogues with the Wiser Self, by Ellen Meredith. You may wish to tape record this exercise or ask a friend to read it to you slowly)

Take a moment to get comfortable, wherever you are sitting or lying. If you would like to shut your eyes, do so. Take a few breaths, just feeling the breath come in and go out, remembering that with the out-breath you can let go of tensions and random thoughts.

Then gently begin to touch one hand with the other. Bring your hands together, exploring, caressing. If you want, rub them together and generate a little heat in your fingertips. What does the hand feel like to touch, and also what does it feel like to be touched? Use a little movement and pressure to feel the energy, the flesh and the bones of your hand.

Wiggle your fingers around, to feel the sensations created as they move. Then start touching the rest of your body. Touch your arms and your face. Your neck and head. Feel yourself as a being of flesh and bone and blood. Feel this concrete self. Let yourself have the sensations of touch: of touching and of being touched, as if you are giving yourself a touch bath. Feel yourself awakening and activating the cells of your flesh, the sensors that are located all over your body.

In this society you are taught to be very timid about touching yourself. About feeling your own corporeal being. We invite you to take some time with yourself as a physical being. You can use your hand to actually wipe away tension, as if your hand were a towel, and your tension were perspiration.

Use your hands to do a little massage around your face, around your ears.... then sit and feel yourself, feel the sensations in your body. All over, your skin takes in sensory information. Every part of you is one big receptive, sensitive being.

Sometimes it is just so pleasing to come back to the physical home you have created on this planet. Let your attention dwell in this physical body, with love.

Listening In: Dialogues with the Wiser Self, by Ellen Meredith, can be ordered through bookstores, by calling 1 (800) 442-6304(Beyond Words Bookstore), or through
Online Purchasing

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