Weekly practice: "Gut feeling"
This week, every day we will sit for 5 minutes and feel (determined):
We are our stomachs. We will breathe deeply in the direction of the stomach and just feel her physical sensation. We will not dissect what we feel, every time a thought arises - we will leave it - and go back to feeling the stomach.
When the clock rings after 5 minutes we will ask ourselves 3 yes or no questions, and we will answer them immediately out loud. We may say "ah ha" that it is, or we say "mm mm" that it is not. Actually we are training to answer from the stomach.
We will not prepare the questions in advance, and we will not think about them beforehand. We would like to surprise ourselves with the question, it shouldn't be an important question. We just ask a question, answer it, and move on to the next questions. It doesn't matter what the question will be, as long as you train to answer from the stomach.
Some thoughts on the exercise.
It's acceptable to think that the head is the most important part of the body, the thinking brain... Our society sanctifies rationality and logic. But there are drawbacks in the form of calculated thinking.
1. This thinking is too slow: sometimes, in cases of danger, we will have to make a very quick and authentic decision that must go over the head.
2. This is the thinking of the machine in us: if it does not involve the stomach and the heart, it may be cold, overthinking, less thoughtful of those close to us, a thinking of black and white.
3. A thinking that is stuck in our history, and perpetuates it: it is difficult to get out of existing thought patterns because they are already embedded in our brains in the form of paths that go and deepen with time: for example, negative, pessimistic, manipulative thinking, fear and avoidance thinking. This is the habit.
4: The inclination: We are so prevented from survival, that even when we think there is logic in our thinking process, often the survival part of us "takes over" the thinking and pretends as if he is a certified logic. It is easiest to notice in an argument with someone, that you understand that there is no logic in his logic, and there is something else, hidden, that drives his argument.
Survival prevents him, physical survival or survival of the self-image he holds.
Of course it's harder to see it on ourselves...
If we become aware of this process within us, we can make wiser decisions. We are not as rational as we think.
In short, in a lot of cases the head will not bring us the best solution to our challenges.
An interesting way to try to get around this problem, is to think from the gut. Our stomach developed long before the thinking brain and has millions of years of intuitive knowledge. The phrase "gut feeling" doesn't exist for nothing, and the recommendations to follow the gut feeling, trust it, listen to it.
This is very intelligent knowledge of ours, that we don't really know how to explain. For example: When we see someone who looks suspicious and walk to the other side of the sidewalk to avoid bumping into them. We have a gut feeling that says "stay away". Only later will we explain to ourselves why we thought so, but these explanations come hinting and in many cases are simply our inventions.
Even when we want to get close to someone, sometimes we don't know exactly why, but it feels right. Something in His being draws us to Him, something that cannot be explained.
In order to know what our gut is, we will first want to have our stomach in communication. This is the purpose of the exercise, to develop communication with the stomach and to learn to listen to it. Give her 5 minutes of focused attention (she will be very happy), and then give her a little practice and learn to listen to her.
Notes:
I don't think you have to rely on your stomach for everything. Simply in our culture, the primary inclination is to sanctify the mind and rationality of the head. Therefore, the purpose of the exercise is to take the pendulum to the other side, down to the abdomen. Corrective discrimination, if you like
The part of the exercise, that ask questions and answers in certain voices, taken from clips I saw on the "Human Map". Their goal: to develop the sacral authority.