One of the best meditations I’ve come across was one bringing awareness to the posture of the tongue. The meditation guided awareness of how the tongue has the capability to communicate the state of thoughts and emotions.
The shoulders seem like an “easy grab” for displaying and feeling tension, but the tongue? Does the tongue really have a strained posture?
It seems it does.
The body communicates if we’re open to listening. Becoming aware of body communication is the practice of mindfulness.
Resourceful and intuitive. The body communicates before awareness of thoughts and emotions. These concrete messages (a stressed postured tongue) informs our thought and emotion.
The body’s resourcefulness gives power to the physical posture of the body.
Why practice mindfulness of the body?
Thoughts and emotions have the power to feel overwhelming and confusing, like driving in fog on a new road. The fog can be lifted when we lean into communication of the body.
The practice of mindfulness provides space to learn how the body postures when stressed, relaxed, or happy. Our body has amazing muscle memory. Like practice at the free throw line, the body responds to what it remembers and practices.
The powerful physical posture ignites a reaction in thoughts. Thoughts can be ignited in both positive and negative directions. Too often the mind and body function out of patterns and familiarity instead of choice.
Example: A tense postured tongue equals ugly, anxious thoughts about that one thing we can’t change.
If that’s true, can we use the physical posture in the other direction?
If we first become aware of the tongue postured in a distressed state, we can practice relaxing it, offering compassionate, more generous thoughts for that one thing we can’t change.
Example: A stressed tongue relaxed, tells the shoulders it’s okay to come off guard, which informs less destructive thoughts and emotions.
This is the practice of mindfulness.
- Becoming aware of the tongue (any body part) when stressed.
- Choosing to practice a relaxed physical posture.
- Igniting the body to communicate to emotions and thoughts, it’s okay to stand down.
Mindfulness expectations: It’s normal to go in and out of a stressed physical posture. Mindfulness is a practice not a one-time event. The awareness of our physical body is developed just as our muscles are developed, if we work on it over time they will get stronger.
Peace. Love. Gratitude.
Feeling resistance to mindfulness? Read more here.
Mental Health & Journaling 