Recommended Meditation Technique
In the past, I have had difficulties with body scans. I understand that many people find them calming but I never did.
Until…I found the Wheel of Awareness.
I think the Wheel of Awareness works for me because it starts with our basic senses, which I find calming. It then works through the body going up and down several times. After scanning the external and internal body, you focus on your mental processes and finally on a feeling of connection with others. Below is a short text version of a scan. I highly recommend listening to Dan Siegel’s audio versions. He has 30, 20, and 7-minute recordings.
Note: My drawing of the Wheel has the spoke of attention moving clockwise whereas as Dr. Siegel’s is counter-clockwise. My brain feels calmer going in this direction. Which direction do you prefer?
From Dr. Siegel: “The Wheel of Awareness is a metaphorical tool that can enhance mental clarity, emotional regulation, and a deeper connection with ourselves and others.
Imagine a wheel. At the center of the wheel is its hub, representing the experience of awareness itself. The rim of the wheel contains all the knowns, everything you can become aware of. There are four main segments on the rim:
1. First Segment: Our five senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
2. Second Segment: The internal sensations of our body, like the beating of our heart, the feeling of hunger, or tension in our muscles.
3. Third Segment: Mental activities, encompassing feelings, thoughts, memories, beliefs, and images.
4. Fourth Segment: Our sense of connection to other people and the world around us.”
Dr. Siegel suggests the following approach for doing the Wheel of Awareness on your own (the following is from a pdf I found online not on Dan’s site):
“1. Begin by getting into a comfortable position, and sensing the rhythm of your breathing
2. As you breathe in and out, begin by visualizing the wheel. The “hub” is at the center and four quadrants surround it with a rim encompassing everything you know and can be aware of. For each portion of this practice, you will send out a spoke from the hub to the rim to focus your awareness. After each part of this practice, we suggest you center yourself with a deep breath before moving on.
3. Now, turn your attention to the first quadrant – your five senses. One by one, take time to focus your awareness on what you’re seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.
4. Next, focus your attention on your “sixth sense,” the inner sensations of your own
body. This is the second quadrant around the hub. Take a few moments to move your focus throughout your entire body, becoming aware of sensations you feel from inside your physical being, from the muscles and bones of your head, limbs, and torso, to feeling the sensations in the organs of your body.
5. Now it is time to focus on the activities of your mind itself. These include emotions, thoughts, memories, hopes, beliefs, dreams, images, longings, attitudes and intentions. This portion of the practice is separated into two parts. First, begin by just becoming aware of what enters your mind – invite any mental activity to come into awareness.
6. Once you have taken some time to do that, the next step is to pay particular attention to the characteristics of how these mental activities enter and leave consciousness. How do they arise and pass? Do these activities come up suddenly or gradually? Do they then stay constant, fade in and out, or reverberate? Then how do they leave? And are they replaced immediately with something else or not? If not, how does the gap feel between two mental activities?
7. Now it is time to try something a little different. As in other parts of this practice, send your spoke of attention out from the hub, but this time, bend it back toward the hub itself to direct your attention to focus on your awareness. With this part of the practice, you are working on “awareness of awareness” and feeling what that is like. This will take some practice, so try to be patient.
8. The fourth quadrant represents our sense of connection to things outside of our body. Start with focusing your awareness on the people who are physically close to you, then expand to others who are further away. Next expand to those whom you feel close to – family and friends – and then to others whom you’re engaged with, such as co-workers, students, teachers and others. Then widen your sense of connection step by step to include those who live in your neighborhood, city, country, continent, in the whole world, and finally to all of living beings.”
End with a few deep breaths repeating “May MWe be happy, May MWe be healthy, May MWe be safe and flourish.” (MWe is the interconnected Me + We, see his latest book, Interconnected. )
