After reading and still reading The Lazy Man’s Guide to Enlightenment, I am inspired to play with expansion and contraction. Alternating between contraction and expansion as I dance, as I work, and in my relationships with friends and family. What does it feel like in my body when I’m expanding and when I’m contracting? And is this what I want?
When I am contracting I feel a flavor of resistance or tension in my body. I feel very solid, withdrawn and sometimes in pain.
In expansion I feel connected, easy, and open to what is. I feel spacious in my body and full of movement possibilities.
Noticing what state I am in helps me decide if I want more or less of what I’m feeling. I found it easiest to notice and play in my relationship with Heath. There are times when I would fold my arms and cross my legs… contracting. And other times when I would be leaning in and asking him to tell me more…expanding.
How do you experience contraction and expansion in your body? How do you experience contraction and expansion in relationship with someone you love?
As I feel myself oscillating between expansion and contraction throughout my day, I’m finding joy in the noticing! Every time I notice, I feel more connected to what is happening, rather than feeling as though my experience is happening to me.
And then there is this juicy, satisfying part of choosing!! Choosing to do more of what I want!! Asking myself over and over again (whenever I notice), “Am I expanding or contracting?” And, “Is this what I want?”
In the asking, I feel myself turning towards what I want. When I turn towards what I want, I feel enlivened and present. I feel happy. I feel like, dare I say…I feel like I am Creating. I am creating more and more with every choice.
I invite you into creating more and more of what you want. Through the portals of expansion and contraction find out and notice what feels good to you moment by moment.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke
Let’s Play!
First notice when you are expanding and when are you contracting.
Here are some example questions I ask myself to find out if I am expanding or contracting:
“Do I want more connection with this person, this thought, this experience or less of it?”
“Do I want to turn towards or away from this project?”
“Do I feel drawn in or pushed out in this area I’m working on?”
“Am I expanding into this moment or contracting?”
“What does this feel like in my body?”
Next Ask yourself; “Do I want more or less of this feeling?”
Finally, you get to Choose! Choose to do more of what you want.
There is no right or wrong…there is only the choosing!
Wishing you a year of creating more of what you want!