Thursday, December 23, 2010

Moving with the Mind

Today was a T'ai Chi Chih kind of day. I started out the morning feeling overly tired due to extra work hours this week. An interaction with Frances went badly. Instead of slipping into self-protect mode I mentally rehearsed TCC for 10 minutes and found myself settling back into balance.

Back home post-work I felt exhausted. When I lay down to rest, though, I felt my mind speeding. I may have left work ... but work hadn't left me! Again I relied on a mental rehearsal of TCC to create a space for calmness and relaxation.

Now that I've completed the moving part of TCC practice I feel peaceful and energized. I'm not sure that I could have managed my physical rehearsal of TCC if I had not invested time practicing TCC mentally earlier in the day. Those two mental practices transitioned me into a different space from which I moved beyond the mental/physical tiredness and gladly welcomed the physical activity of a T'ai Chi Chih practice. (In other words, I didn't allow Monkey Mind to convince me to skip my regular practice.)

Another TCC teacher recently wrote me an email in which she mentioned that she'd done a mental TCC practice on the bus on the way to work and she found that it "helped tremendously." Yup. I'd say that all three of today's TCC practices helped me tremendously. Now if I can only remember that a mental rehearsal may be just the thing for a tired, burnt out, upside down and inside out TCC practitioner....

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