|
What Power-Centering Can
Do for You
The power-centering, belly-energizing patterns of movement
and breath are energetically transformational. They give you
access to your center of being, your point of power, the point
of all possibilities. They clear, seal, balance, and align the
field of life energy emanating from your center.
Consequently, the benefits of practicing the "Honoring
Your Belly" program are many. They include:
Exercising Self-Respect
Honoring and energizing your belly is an exercise in self-respect,
a way to enjoy being in your body, finding pleasure in stretching
and relaxing, reaching and releasing. When you move and breathe
from center, you engage yourself wholly—body and soul, mind
and spirit. As you revitalize and revalue your body's center
you respect and reclaim your center of being, your essential
self.
|
"Honoring Your Belly" gives me new self-appreciation,
and it motivates me to get some movement into my life, which I
need greatly.
Having been overweight most of my thirty-two years, I knew I
needed an exercise program to get my health back. "Honoring
Your Belly" fills the bill nicely, with the added advantage
of its spiritual base and applications. 'Honoring Your Belly'
has encouraged me further by lifting my "belly shame,"
and moving me positively toward my goal of a healthy, peaceful
existence.
The program feels balancing, integrating, and invigorating. Living
with greater belly awareness makes me feel more centered, grounded,
and confident."at home" in myself.
|
Enhancing Creative Imagination
Honoring and energizing your belly unleashes your creative
imagination. When you move and breathe from center, you're activating
the same source of insight and imagery which finds expression
in dream, symbol, story, and myth.
| This whole program has inspired so much creative
work. It's a well for going down and getting whatever images are
there. It has helped me to go to where I just see those images.
When one image came to me it was two worlds coming together, like
body and spirit joining in communion. That image is an actual sculpture
now. Now, finally, I'm able to bring spirit into the physical; there's
a constant flow of energy. |
Increasing Energy, Promoting Health
Honoring and energizing your belly activates your physical
and spiritual power source. When you move and breathe from center,
you prompt energy to flow fully and freely from this source throughout
your entire body. Replenishing the flow of life force provokes
healing and promotes the sense of wholeness which is health.
|
I was in bed all day, in pain, with a flare-up of a pelvic inflammation
that recurs when I'm under stress. I thought I'd have to miss
the "Honoring Your Belly" class, but I dragged myself
out of bed anyway. After doing the belly-energizing exercises,
I felt no pain at all. The pain didn't come back, and it hasn't
come back since.
The breathing and belly work dissipated my menstrual cramps this
morning. Ahhhhhh.
This belly program gives me more courage to be who I am and makes
it okay to be female. Before doing this I had PMS, and now I rarely
have PMS. Now I look forward to having a period. I'm welcoming
it as a part of who I am.
Continuing to practice my belly-energizing exercises, my back
brace (which I had worn for years to alleviate lower back pain)
remains curled up in the bottom of the laundry hamper—which
is a good place for it!
I no longer feel that I have a knife in my belly. If I ask my
belly what it wants to eat for lunch and I eat that, rather than
making it eat what I want, it doesn't hurt. My belly's the first
place where tension shows up. If I feel my stomach hurting, it
lets me know that something has happened that's upset me.
My husband is a paramedic. He works on an ambulance and brings
home every virus imaginable. He gets sick. I don't. I do my belly
exercises.
|
Releasing Stress
Honoring and energizing your belly alleviates stress. Moving
and breathing from center frees you from resentful memories of
the past and fearful fantasies of the future, shifting your attention
to the reality of this present moment. Attending to this moment,
you can notice all that is already going well in your world,
replacing regrets and worries with gratitude as you articulate
and enact your intentions. Addressing the actuality of your experience—rather
than resisting or avoiding it—empowers you to engage yourself
fully and effectively in the moment-to-moment process of your
life.
|
I signed up to use the gym and the pool at the local college.
Before I could use the facilities I had to take several tests.
For their "stress test" they had me walking on a treadmill
while they measured things like my pulse and heartbeat. I was
walking along just fine, focusing my awareness in my hara. The
technician was getting upset, though, because even as she tilted
the treadmill and made me walk up a steeper slope, nothing was
changing in my vital signs; my body wasn't registering any additional
stress.
I'm so glad I have these belly exercises. The last two weeks
have been rough, full of minor disasters and major tragedies.
As soon as I felt myself going off-kilter, though, I went to my
belly-breathing. And immediately: I'm home.
I incorporate the belly-breathing into my daily activities to
help relieve stress. It's made me more aware of myself—my
body and my feelings—and helped me to get in touch with my
emotions and listen to my body. It's very powerful.
Every day goes more smoothly when I do the exercises and meditation,
it really does. I don't sweat the small stuff. There is more honesty
in my work; I have more trust in being able to survive. I'm not
worrying about affording my rent and other expenses. I don't have
those worries now. And I've been able to bring this faith and
trust out through doing the movement program. It gives me courage.
|
Magnifying Sexual Pleasure
Honoring and energizing your belly enhances your pleasure
in sexual expression. When you move and breathe from center,
you are activating the very source of your erotic power.
|
I've consciously chosen to explore my sexuality as a gift to
myself. I attribute this sense that my sexuality is mine to explore
to doing the movement program.
Sexually, the belly-energizing practice has enabled me to undo
some pain I've carried from my early life. My new relationship
to my belly and belly strength has allowed me to go through that
process and has brought me gifts. I know myself as a sexual being;
sex is something I choose for myself. I'm claiming my wholeness
as a woman that I've never had before.
I've gained an openness and release of sensual, sexual energy
and healing. I feel increased connectedness to the feminine (divine,
earth, spirit, collective).
As my husband and I were making love the other day, I realized
how these belly exercises enhance intercourse and reaching orgasm.
I experienced a deep, deep orgasm—and it was heightened
and elongated due to breathing deeply. I realized that I was doing
this deep breathing naturally. Wow.
|
Moving Beyond Addiction
Honoring and energizing your belly provides a genuine alternative
to addiction. When we move and breathe from center, we are activating
the inner source of the fulfillment that we crave; addictive
behaviors and substances can only approximate such fulfillment
on a temporary basis. Enlivening your inner source enables you
to relinquish dependency on external "fixes." Exercising
your inner strength enables you to meet the challenges and enjoy
the satisfactions of living through your center of being.
|
This is better than drugs!
After my first week of inspiration and expiration I can say that
the practice has been better than a cup of coffee to start the
day.
I felt awake, loose, and alive this morning as I charged my belly
with breath, energy, and images rather than with caffeine. Giving
massage today, I was able to really "tap in" while I
concentrated on breathing into my belly.
I went to class hungry, tired, distressed and "down on"
myself—that nasty negative commentator relaying negative
messages over and over in my brain. And I left empowered, centered,
energized—and light. My belly felt full—even though
I came hungry. Breath of fire, of life, of joy.
I've been doing better as far as compulsive eating. Is this change
belly-related? Certainly the belly-work brings me more self-awareness.
You can't eat compulsively when you're being self-aware.
|
Discovering Inner Guidance
Honoring and energizing your belly brings forth your inner
guidance. When you move and breathe from center, you are developing,
refining, and becoming receptive to the sensations and images
which convey your "gut feelings" and "gut instincts."
Attending to the intuitive knowing which stirs in your body's
center gives you access to your inner source of wisdom and direction.
|
When I am centered in my body, I feel a solid foundation under
my life. I feel as if I have an "inner guidance system"
constantly at work in all decisions I make, both large and small.
I know what to do.
I have created a lot of energy with this practice. I am so much
more focused, and I'm envisioning what I want, believing it, and
creating it. I check in with my belly, asking her "Does this
feel right?"
Doing the belly-energizing exercises encourages me to do the
things that feel right for me, and not worry so much about what
others think about me.
Doing this practice, my energy is stronger and more balanced.
I lead from my center, which enables me to be more effective,
more embracing, and more grounded. My purpose (be it daily, in
the moment, or for my whole life) becomes clearer and more meaningful.
Getting in touch with my belly gave me the courage I needed to
quit my job teaching in the public schools. I'd had that job for
twelve years. Finally, I said, " I need to be true to what
I need to be." After I quit, it seemed as if a burden lifted
off my shoulders. Now I'm confident in running my own business.
And my art is out for people to see.
|
Engendering Sense of Self, Kinship with Creation
Honoring and energizing your belly cultivates both your sense
of self and your sense of kinship with all creation. Moving and
breathing from center brings awareness both to the uniqueness
and the universality of your experience. Living through your
center of being means continually expanding to embrace all aspects
of who you are. The more you enact such encompassing self-acceptance,
the more you sense yourself enveloped within the compassionate
networks of relationship which constitute the universe.
|
When we began to breathe from the belly, it was the most amazing
feeling. "I'm home," I thought.
In this male-dominated society women are attacked all the time,
everything seems to be aimed at our femininity. Now I'm aware
of it, but it doesn't seem to affect me as negatively as it did
before. I feel much more shielded or protected from this attack
because I finally found that it is a true gift to be female, and
that yes, I am worthy to receive gifts.
This practice has taken a place that has felt tight and suppressed
and shameful, and spoken to that place as a mother nurtures and
cradles a child, growing that child into a feeling, functional,
and powerful woman.
I enjoy honoring myself, integrating my body and "me"—coming
into my body. When I do the belly-energizing exercises (albeit
slowly, gingerly) and it all comes together, I am right here,
in my body.
For the first time I experienced fully what it means to be in
touch with my belly. Now I've manifested a power which has left
me with a sense of appreciation for being a woman. My entire being—body,
mind, and spirit—filled with a beauty sensed both inside
and out. This sense of being rests with me. In connecting with
my belly, I have found that I am part of a greater whole.
|
Your own experience with the "Honoring Your Belly" program
will be unique to your needs, desires, and intentions. The gifts you
receive in practicing it may well be different from those named here,
and they may arrive in a variety of ways—through your dreams, for
example, or through your experience with nature, your personal relationships,
your sense of humor, your sense of adventure.
Whatever your experience proves to be, you will be developing
a relationship with your body's center on your own terms, cultivating
a self-affirming relationship to replace the misconceptions about
woman's belly that the culture has imposed.
|
