Body and Earth - Day 8: Visceral Body

After reading about differences between the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems, I was enlightened about the reasoning behind why we often have different feelings in different situations. For example, the book described how we are often more relaxed after eating a big meal because our parasympathetic system is stimulated to help with digestion (page 52). Although I know that this is often the case, it was interesting to read about the reasoning behind being tired and how that contributed to our overall feelings. Additionally, this chapter talked about the effects of our gut and led me through several exercises that helped me to feel my gut and explore that area.

Pouring the gut body (page 53), required me to shift weight from the center of my body to other areas such as my waist and chest. I was able to imagine and feel my weight being “poured” from my center into other parts of my body and then have it move back to the center of my body. Similar to other exercises that we completed earlier in the quarter, I was really able to feel the effects that imagery had on how I was able to place my weight in different areas. The box exercise required me to place something that was present in my mind in an imaginary box that I then had to put in another location and return to after completing some of the other exercises included in the chapter. I was then required to think about how the object changed from when it was first placed in there to when I was looking at it after completing the exercises (see below for further response). The Inner observer (page 54) exercise required me to imagine a nonjudgmental figure that moved throughout my body. It also required me to reflect on my feelings and awareness as there was an “observer” moving inside of me. During this exercise I felt as though I became more aware of my surroundings and more aware of the noises and smells that were present with me at that moment. It showed me the power of only focusing on my inner voice and my inner presence.

Supplements to Reading

The box (page 53)
At the moment I was doing this exercise, I was able to feel the warmth of the sun as it embraced my body and warmed my soul. In that moment, I was thinking about the sun because I was excited to feel its warmth and presence after such a long winter. When I put the sun into my “box”, I was able to see its brightness and the ripple effect that it had as it illuminated its rays out over the land, trees and landscape in the area. After returning to the box, I found that my perception of the sun had not changed very much. I was still able to see the warmth of the rays of sun, but I feel that I was more sensitive to how the sun made me feel. I was able to feel the effect that the sun had on my skin and was also able to see the colors of the sun more clearly. When I put the sun into the box, I saw the sun as an orange globe, but when looking at the sun after I was able to see that sun was indeed made up of my many different colors. There were different shades of yellow and different shades of orange that changed towards the middle of the circular area. In addition, I was aware of what the sun smelled like. Before, I did not have any sense of smell that the sun let off, but after finishing the exercise, I felt as though the sun smelled like summer – sweet tea, fresh flowers and the smell of salt water wafting through the slight breeze. Overall, I think that I became more aware of my surroundings after completing these different exercises. I think this makes sense especially because these exercises also caused me overall to be more observant of my surroundings.

The above picture is what my suns looked like both before and after the exercise in the chapter. As you can see, before, my sun was fairly plain and not very detailed, but after completing the exercise, I saw the sun with much more detail.