ECOFLUENCY FREE EXERCISEs
Exercise 1: Tuning in to the body's wisdom for clarity & integrity
We are Nature, and our body is one of the best instruments that we have to tune into the deeper intelligence and wisdom of Nature. This applies to all humans, regardless of whether you choose to communicate with more-than-human Nature.
The exercise below has developed over the last few years of my own Nature communication practice, and while teaching.
It is a work in progress, and all feedback is welcome – please message me here.
Along the way, I’ve learned that it’s very similar to previously taught practices in some spiritual traditions, like pranayama in yoga, and exercises that have been developed through scientific research done by the HeartMath Institute.
This type of exercise changes our brain’s state from beta to alpha, and stimulates our parasympathetic nervous system, which is a state more conducive to deep listening and dialogue with Nature than when our sympathetic nervous system is more active.
Before you start!
You can do the full exercise every day, or just the first step, or two. It can also be used together with other exercises. However, it’s important to only tune in as far as feels appropriate for you, especially if you’re doing this on your own.
This is because every human hold the patterns of trauma in their physical body and energetic fields. These can be our own from this life, or inherited from our family, or carried over from another life. Just because an experience didn’t seem significantly dramatic to someone else, doesn’t mean it wasn’t damaging to you.
Therefore, tuning in to our body’s wisdom is more easily done if we are aware of how and where our personal triggers are held in our body, and far easier if we look after our physical and mental health, like eating healthily, exercising regularly, staying hydrated, getting enough sleep, spending time outdoors, actively engaging in personal development etc.
Of course, this is more easily done, but doing something small towards our well-being is better than nothing! Starting simply, and then tweaking your own habits, is the most effective, sustainable way of living a healthy life. And make it fun! If you really hate doing something, it’s far less likely that you’ll keep doing it.
Looking after our health is as much a spiritual process as it is a physical and mental one, because as we seek health, we come closer to wholeness.
This exercise may seem like a small, simple thing to do, even once, but it can have deep impacts. With each conscious breath, you are healing yourself a bit more, transforming how you relate, and therefore healing the world.
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Step 1: Circular breathing with the Earth
Start by sitting or standing as comfortably as you can. If you are seated, sit upright, or make sure that your back support allows your back to be straight. If you are standing, make sure that your knees are not locked, so that energy can flow through your body more easily.
Notice how you are feeling.
What thoughts do you have? What emotions are you experiencing? What kind of feelings or sensations are in your body? How intense are they?
You can write these down if you wish to track any changes that may occur after the exercise.
Let your belly be relaxed, even if it pushes out. No-one’s watching you, so it’s ok to let it all hang out for a bit :)
This allows your diaphragm muscle to fulfil its “role as the primary muscle of inspiration”, filling your lungs, brain, body and whole self with more oxygen and vitality.
Breathe in and out more deeply. As you breathe in, let your belly button pull away from the spine, expanding your abdomen. As you breathe out, let your belly button pull in, without pushing the breath out of your lungs.
Allow your inbreath and outbreath to be equal and to become longer. See if you can breathe in for at least 5 seconds in, out for 5 seconds.
You can choose to hold your breath in and/or out for a few seconds, or let the transition be smooth. Play with this and see what makes you feel better.
Next, start to breathe as if the air is coming from the Earth and into your body through your heart area, carrying rejuvenating energy and vitality with it, filling all the parts of you, even those parts that aren’t physical.
When you breathe out, let it flow down through your spine and into the Earth, releasing whatever needs to be let go of for her to compost. These can be thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations or anything else energetic that you wish to release and have transformed.
The Earth is much bigger, stronger, older and wiser than any human, and our bodies are made of Her body. So, as one of our oldest living ancestors and mother figures, She knows better than us how to compost what we no longer need, and turn it into nourishment for other life, so let Her do that.
This starts to bring us into more balanced relationship with her, and with the wider webs and cycles of life. As we let Her first strengthen our bodies and energy fields, we become more capable of helping Her and others who live on Her surface in the correct balance of give and take. When it comes to practicing sacred reciprocity, it first requires us to be humble enough to receive from those in Nature who have the true power, before we can grow and offer back to them and pay it forward to others.
As you breathe in, draw in the life force energy that the Earth wants to give you, Her child, and notice how you’re feeling as you receive Her support. Also notice how it feels to let go, trusting the Earth’s ability to transform and transmute what we cannot.
Keep sharing breath with Her in this circular manner.
What message does your body want to share with you?
Feel into whether you are happy to stay with this, or whether you’d like to add the next step. For some it can be a big step in transforming our way of breathing, as well as how we perceive our relationship with the Earth.
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Step 2: Your body as the Golden Bridge
If you wish to continue, first feel into how your body feels right now.
Then, start to create a golden thread from the base of your spine and grow it down into the Earth. You can do this through intention, visualisation or feeling.
Let this golden thread grow down as far as feels appropriate for you, whether it’s a just below the surface of the Earth, or a few hundred kilometres deep, or all the way to the heart of the Earth, or anywhere in between.
Choose whether you want it to be a fine thread, a woven cord, or even a chunky rope. Your imagination is the limit to how this golden connection looks and feels.
Wherever you find it ends, let it branch out, becoming like roots that ground you into the Earth.
Notice how this feels.
If you wish, you can also extend this golden thread, cord or rope from the base of your spine upwards, going up through your neck, and out the top of your skull into the sky.
Let it grow as far as feels appropriate in this direction, whether it’s the outer atmosphere of the Earth, the edge of the solar system, or beyond the galaxy to the far reaches of the cosmos.
Wherever it ends, let it branch out, like antennae, absorbing energy from the rest of the universe that is aligned with your highest and deepest well-being, replenishing you, filling all of your being, and filtering down through you to nourish the Earth, too.
You are a bridge between Earth and Sky, between Above and Below.
What message does your body want to share with you now?
Feel into whether you are happy to stay with this, or whether you’d like to add the next step.
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Step 3: Tuning in to the body’s wisdom
If you wish to continue, first feel into how your body feels right now.
When you are ready, ask your body what it needs to feel:
Grounded
Safe
Clear
Healed
Rejuvenated
Fully present, here, now.
Give yourself time to listen deeply to yourself for each of these, and be curious and trusting, rather than judgmental, about what information you get. It may change, even on a daily basis.
Notice how it feels after you’ve asked your body the questions, and after getting any answers, if you received anything.
This information might come up as thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions, a deep intuitive knowing. It may not even come up when you ask, but rather later in a dream, or in a random waking moment in the following days.
How do you know it’s a message from you body?
Well, a certain amount of skepticism is healthy – it’s what helps us determine what is true for us. But it can mean that our logic gets in the way. So, if you can be open to the information that comes up in your own body, especially if it happens in a way that you wouldn’t expect, or is outside of your comfort zone, then there is a greater likelihood of getting to know what your body needs, rather than just what it wants, and you can develop deeper trust in your own body’s wisdom and intelligence.
Truly loving yourself, in a healthy way, doesn’t happen overnight.
Maybe you don’t get anything the first time you do this exercise (or any other similar exercise).
That’s ok. It may take time to deepen your relationship with yourself, and just showing up for yourself, even if you get nothing sometimes, is a courageous act of cultural repair.
But if you find yourself being triggered at any level, bring your attention back to your breath, breathing deeply in and out. You may also wish to hold that golden thread in your mind, to remind yourself of your connection.
As you become more familiar with your own inner landscape, you develop more trust in yourself. And it can help you understand where trauma triggers are held in the body, detect illness before symptoms arise, dissolve blockages to feeling more joy and pleasure in your body, and ultimately feel more at home in yourself and with the rest of Nature.
Calibrating the body as an instrument of perception is also very important in communicating with Nature, because it allows you listen with more of yourself, as you widen your range of senses and awareness.
And it helps you discern what is a projection from yourself versus a message from a more-than-human aspect of Nature. And trust is a great antidote to doubt, which is something we feel in all of our relationships, with ourselves and others.
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Thank you for reading this!
I hope that this 3-step exercise has been helpful to you. Remember, I welcome feedback, so please reach out through the contact page on the website if you want to share any insights, comments and/or critique.
Please be patient, gentle, and kind with yourself!
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Exercise 2: Microbial communication
In this 30min video, I share some basic information about how and why microbes are so important to us, and why it would be important to grow a deeper relationship with that aspect of our inner nature but communicating with them.
Then, I guide you in a journey through your digestive system, to meet the symbiotic microbes who live in your digestive tract.