Mindful Movement

Excuse me, do you have a light?

I think of being mindful, or mindfulness, as a light; the light of life force that resides within. The light of your awareness. Simply put, placing your presence, attention, focus or mindfulness on anything infuses it with your light. Light shows us the way in the dark. Light shows us what we may not be aware of. Light allows us to take a step. One may be practicing mindful cooking, mindful parenting, mindful relationship, mindful relaxing or mindful movement. When mindfulness is placed on that person, thing, or experience, awareness can ground into the present moment and bring the light of awareness to the surface. Navigating the murky past or the anxious future can take one out of the present, lending to stress, depression, and anxiety. Mindfulness, and specifically mindful movement, may be supportive in many ways.

This is where breath and movement come in.

Mind-ful-ness (noun)

• The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something

• A mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations used as a therapeutic technique (New Oxford American Dictionary, 2021)

“At the core of the life force is the presence of a constant moving and creating energy. Intrinsic to the “dance of life” are all of the variations of energy moving - flowing, fragmented, gentle, forceful, expanding, contracting, dense, light, dissipating, and regathering. Out of this generative process, all life forms emerge and manifest in the natural world and in the human consciousness and action.” (The Expressive Body, Halprin, 2003, p. 86)