And now, lets awaken our five physical senses with a short and easy sensory awakening exercise. Wherever you are, in a room, in a woods in the middle of the city, or on a treadmill,
you can awaken your senses to attune yourself to your environment and be connected with yourself as a human being in the physical realm.
Our senses are the gateways to our awareness of this physical realm. They can bring us information and help us enjoy being in our bodies and in our lives.
We know are spiritual beings having a human experience and our senses can joyfully connect us to that experience, especially if you are doing this exercise in nature. because nature is the source of all sorts of delightful sensory experiences.
So if you can do this exercise out in nature that’s all the better, but don’t skip it because you cant go outside today or because you are in the gym exercising on the equipment. Go ahead and awaken your senses wherever you are.
We’ll start with the sense of hearing. I like to start with this one because
its the one we least pay attention to and it’s
the one that’s often overwhelmed by noise.
Hopefullly you are not in a place that is completely noisy. But, if you are, you can use this hearing time to tune into the subtle sounds in your landscape.
I like the sense of hearing because it reminds me that I can be attuned and aware of subtle sounds of events and phenomena that are outside of my view of sight and in that way are more
spiritual than other realities in my life. Listening to subtle sounds reminds me that spiritual messages may be on my horizon.
Get yourself comfortable, either standing or sitting. Just be where you can safely close your eyes. Now, allow your eyes to close and take a few deep breaths. Bring yourself into awareness. Let yourself listen.
I’m going to give you a full minute to listen. I’ll let you know when the time is up. (one minute of silence)
Come back. Time’s up!
Open your eyes and start to look around. Now that your hearing is awakened, Start to find all the colors of the rainbow. Use your eyes and your sense of sight. We’ll waken up your sense of sight by finding the colors of the rainbow.
Look around in your environment and find something red.
If you’re outside, look for something Nature produced, not necessarily a manmade object.
Did you find red?
Now move on to orange.
Find orange in your landscape. Depending on if you’re inside or outside, orange might be easy or difficult.
Now find yellow. Find yellow in your environment.
Turn around 360 degrees. Look up and down and find yellow.
Now green.
Find the color green. Depending on where you are, green might be difficult or very simple.
Notice how many shades of green there are.
Now find blue.
Sometimes blue is a little challenging to find and if you’re outside and the sky is gray, you’ll have to look around. But find blue.
even if its a shadow, or the deep blue in the background. Find blue.
You might have to turn some things over and search for blue, and then purple. And all the shades between blue and purple. Again, depending on where you are, purple may be one of those colors that’s hard to find, but you will be rewarded when you search to find purple.
So you’ve got all the colors of the rainbow. Are you feeling awakened and more in tune with your landscape?
You can also see shapes
in your environment
I invite you to play a shapes games. One is to find a straight line in Nature. Now, if you’re indoors, a straight line might be easy to find, so you might look for a curve. Or an unusual shape. Find curves, straight lines, triangles, squares. Ovals. What are the shapes and patterns that are there in your landscape?
With our sense of sight, we have our colors and we have our shapes.
Now, let’s move on to the sense of touch.
Feel around and touch some things. Of course, I’m not there with you, so choose safely and be sure you are touching objects that are safe. As long as you are safe, feel around in your environment for different textures. Are they rough, smooth, bumpy, soft?
Feel the textures all around you. Even indoors, you might be surprised how many textures there are.
That’s three senses, our sense of hearing, our sense of sight, our sense of touch. Now, let’s move on to our sense of smell, especially if you’re outdoors! This is a sense that we often skip. We often walk around in Nature as if we’re watching through a window, only noticing what we see, not even engaging with our outdoor environment. Here is a way I like to awaken my sense of smell. I reach right down to the ground at my feet and pick up a handful of soil, or gravel, or leaf litter or even sand, whatever is right there at my feet. Try this yourself in different places and notice how the smell of earth changes depending on where you stand.
What did you pick up? What did you notice? Is it sweet, sour, dusty?
If you’re indoors, can you become aware of the range of smells?
Awaken your sense of smell.
The final sense in our five senses awakening is a little tricky, but I invite you to even awaken your sense of taste! The easiest way would be to taste food that you have right there with you. Something that you know is safe to eat. Even though you’ve probably already eaten today, go ahead and take a bite of food and really taste it! Really get a sense of the taste of the food in your environment. Now, if you’re outdoors, I can’t tell you what’s there to taste, or if what you’re picking up is safe to taste, but you may feel safe simply using your tongue to taste a bit of bark, or a stone. If you know a leaf or something that’s safe to taste, just explore the sense of taste where you are. You might even just lick the back of your own hand. Does it taste salty, or is there a residue of some cosmetic you have on your body right now? What can you taste?
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Now, you’ve awakened your five physical senses of hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste. Ahhh. Now, go into your day with your senses awakened, a little bit more awareness of what’s around you in your world and an invitation to explore and appreciate our physical nature and our ability to experience the world. Blessings to you and blessings on your day!