Another ‘anchoring’ method for meditation in general is being aware of your body – whether your body as a whole, a certain part of your body or else proprioception (the feeling of space and position your body is occupying). Personally for me, my chest area always works as a good anchor. The feeling is that my awareness suddenly ‘locks’ in that area. My sense of ‘I’ (or rather the awareness behind the ‘I’) feels centred and strongest in that place in the body. It can then be extended to other areas even outside the body but that is beyond the purpose of this mindfulness hack.
Like the three breaths, the purpose of this exercise is to access mindfulness briefly from anywhere, anytime. As I mentioned, you can focus on any part of your body but there are areas which are particularly useful to access mindfulness – the guts, stomach, the chest and the throat. These are places where emotions, tension or unresolved issues tend to manifest certain sensations.
Not coincidentally these are some of the seven energy centers or chakras in the body. For instance a sense of powerlessness from a difficult relationship will manifest in a feeling of constriction around the chest area (Heart Chakra) or anxiety as ‘butterflies’ around your stomach area (Solar Plexus). Placing our awareness briefly in these major energy centers can help you connect much easier to your inner being which in turn will center you in a state of inner calm and mindfulness.
For example you are in a coffee shop somewhere watching the world go by around you in a frenzy. Take a few minutes to place your attention to one of these areas. How does it feel? Is it tense or constricted or ‘cramped’? Keep putting your mindful awareness to it – do you feel it opening up and relaxing?
The Lucidity Test
Let’s stick with the coffee shop scenario. You are there absorbed in something – perhaps chatting with your pal, texting on your smartphone or just engulfed in the experience of the world passing by. Just like in a normal dream, you are not aware it is a dream. You are sucked into its plot and its ‘emotional energy’. You just follow it, unaware it’s all a dream.
But then something unexpected happens. Something triggers your conscious awareness to ‘pop’ out and realize you are actually in a dream. You ask yourself ‘am I dreaming?” and then you awake and become lucid. Back to the coffee shop. You are there going with the flow of whatever you are doing. Then you ask yourself “am I conscious right now or am I following the flow of the ‘dream’?”
This triggers a shift in your attention. You become aware that you were not aware or your awareness was diluted into many things. This triggers lucidity or mindfulness. You awake from the ‘dream’. Suddenly your awareness is in one place. The things which were affecting you – people passing by, chatter, your screen – does not suck you in anymore. You are in a state of mindfulness.
In short, the funny thing is that the lucidity tests or ‘reality checks’ used in lucid dream techniques can be applied to your waking life just as well and as effectively.
