Heroes in Business - Centering Practices, How to Begin

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

We begin our sessions/ meetings with a ritual that is a centering practice. We choose to bring awareness down & take several deep breaths & just open to life, what we know is true & what we long for in this episode of Guided Self Healing with Dr Andy Hahn.

Hi, my name is Dr. Andrew Han, and this is episode 24 of Guided Self-Healing Fearless Living. And once again, I would like to answer a question, which one of you wrote to me. And the question basically is, how do I start my sessions with my clients? And I'm actually going to speak about how I start my sessions with my clients. And I'm also going to speak with how I start sessions, even if I'm running organizational meetings or invite people to do it, because I think it's very useful. So let me start by what I say to my clients, which is that when they come in, I see them fairly infrequently, typically maybe once, you know, I see a few people every week, but most people it's every other week or even less frequently than that. And they have

an hour with me. So what I say to people is that this is really your special time. And in my experience, most therapists start with something like, how are you, or how are you doing, or what are things like, or anything like that. And I don't start that way. So what I invite people to do is to say, since this is your special time, it's worth taking a moment. And I'm going to take you through a long version of what I do, because usually what I do only takes 30 seconds or so. And it's in some ways the most valuable 30 seconds, I think, of our whole time together. So I say to people, look, this is your special time. So I'm going to invite you to really not treat it like it's just any other conversation, that we're coming into a kind of sacred space.

And this is coming into your sacred space. And I'm here, obviously, just in service of your healing and your growth. And that's what you're here for also. So it's not just any ordinary time together or time with yourself. It's not just any ordinary time together or time with yourself. So what I invite people to do is to take about five deep breaths, as far down as they can. If they can breathe all the way down into their diaphragm, that's great.

And what I invite them to do is to pause and shift their attention from up and out, which is where we usually are, to down and in. And to just enjoy breathing. And on the in-breath, I invite them just to open to life. Just to open to all of life, because what is the breath? It's what animates us. It is spirit. The word breath and spirit are related with each other. Or we aspire to something.

It's about breathing or inspire. So aspirations, you know, it's all about the breath. So I invite them to take about five deep breaths. And on the in-breath, it's like breathing in life. It's like breathing in life. It's like breathing in inspiration. And on the out breath, it's like letting go. So it's like a receiving and a giving. So you let go of whatever tension there is.

You let your body relax. You let your mind relax. So that you can just be really present, fully present, fully open-hearted, fully open-minded, fully engaged, whatever's here. And I invite people, even if they think they know what they want to talk about, because sometimes they do, they've come in and they're certainly know, they've thought it out. And I say, you know, we're going to just open to a deeper place.

And here's how we're going to do it. This may sound funny to some of you. But I invite them when it's like you're breathing in, I invite them to imagine or experience it's like the crown of their head is softening and opening like it too is a Zen's organ. And if I'm doing the long version of this, what I invite you to do is this. When you're breathing in, you bring your attention to crown of head and just imagine or experience it softening and opening, like it's a sense organ that you breathe through or see through. And I invite people to imagine the animating force of life, which is like found in the core of the universe, the core of life, just coming down into crown of head. And I say you might imagine a light, or you might feel a tingling, or you might sense a vibration in the crown of head. And then it flows down through crown of head, through your forehead,

which is your third eye, through your throat, right down into the center of chest. through your throat, right down into the center of chest. So that we're really at that point, open to everything. And we just open in that way to the animating force of life, which is what enlivens us. We could call it chi and to all of life because it's all the same animating force. And then in a like manner, I invite people, if we're doing the long version, to bring their attention to the soles of their feet. And just imagine and experience them softening and opening also. So it's sort of like, you know, if you're breathing into your diaphragm, into your belly, it's like you let your attention go down from your belly all the way down to the rest of your torso.

And down through your legs, all the way through the soles of your feet like you have roots and it's like you really feel yourself not only centered but grounded and rooted and really kind of planted sending down roots all the way into the core of the earth and then you can experience or imagine energy coming back up from the core of the earth and then you can experience or imagine energy coming back up from the core of the earth and if the energy from above is like a creating energy the energy from the earth is like a sustaining or nourishing or nurturing energy that flows into the soles of your feet and up through your legs and right into your root and your perineum and right up through your center until it also comes into the center of the chest so it's like the two energies in there sort of like a sacred conception it would be like an energetic coming together

of spirit and matter in biology before or you know but it's really about the coming together of spirit and matter and creating a third energy that you could feel or see you might see a lighter feel a vibration or tingling in the center of your chest and then i just invite you to have that expand in every direction so it expands forward and back and left and right and up and down until you are that vibration, which is who you are anyway. This is just bringing your awareness to it. Of course, when you do that, now what we want to do is we just want to deepen. So I invite people to bring all of their attention, having opened to all life, just bring all their attention to the part of them that just knows what's true for them,

or what's really important for them to share. It's not the truth, it's what's true for them. And it's sort of like you have this free-floating attention to everything. And just see where your attention is drawn. And sometimes it really surprises people where their attention is drawn because they were certain they knew what they wanted to talk about. They had thought it out. But when I go to this deeper place,

something else comes to them. So I just invite them to really bring all their attention to what it is they know is true for them and what it is that know is true for them, and what it is that's most important to share. And I invite them to bring their attention up a little bit into center of chest again. And this time, once you know what you know is true for you, right, when you're really aligned with life, which is what you're doing right now, when you say when you're really aligned with life which is what you're doing right now you say when i'm aligned with life and i bring my attention to center of chest what is it that i

really desire my deepest longings you know if i could have what i truly desire when i am aligned life which if i'm doing a therapy session is that you could have anything of course you really desire from this deeper place. Even if you didn't think it was possible consciously, what would you really intend to get exactly? What was the best use of the time? And then of course we now go up into the head because the head is that which is discerning and now says now that it doesn't know what's true for you. It doesn't know what you desire, but once those things are available. That's the aspect of your being that's really in service or a kind of servant that says, okay, how can we make this happen it's like we're a team of three. okay, how can we make this happen?

It's like we're a team of three. That which knows the truth, that which knows what we desire, and that which says, now let's open to how that could happen. Not that we're going to force anything to happen, but just how might it be possible? And then what I invite people to do is to just share

whatever is important to share or whatever they desire from the time if they could have exactly what they were desiring they could have that time now of course this shifts everything because in a way what this says is we're not going to know and come in and sort of say, I know what it is that I want, having thought it out. It's like opening to this deeper place. And I actually invite people to do that. I say, what I want to invite you to do now is just bring your attention to what you know is true,

what's most important to share and what you desire. And it's almost like you're listening to and then sharing from this deeper part of you. So it's like a deeper part of you is sharing something with you and with me and with like a kind of covenant almost that you're saying, oh, this is what's true. This is what I desire. Now I'm going to say it. I'm going to speak that truth. So I invite people to speak actually slowly enough that it's like they're listening to their own words. And when you speak slowly enough that you actually are listening to this deeper part of yourself, the world's open to you. And then of course, my clients will at that point share whatever they know is true of what's most

important to share and what they really desire for the time and just the act of shifting in that way which just sounds like this so i'm going to invite you really if you are in a place you can literally do this unless of course you're driving at which which point I wouldn't suggest it, but you can still take it in. So we're just going to pause and shift and bring our attention from up and out to down and in, or for some people they prefer in and down, whatever it is for them, and just enjoy breathing. We want to take about four or five really deep breaths into the diaphragm, as low as we can if we are able to do that. As we do this, we just open to life in the way that we're talking about.

We just see where our attention is drawn when we just open in such a way. Then we, of course, bring our attention a little bit further up into the center of our chest. We just open to whatever we truly desire we could have what we intend even if we weren't sure it was possible and for those of you who might find it like that i take you through the whole process of bringing their attention all the way through the soles of their feet and then back up so they feel the energy flowing into them um through the soles of the feet

and the crown of the head so that they're truly active and it's a deeper part of them and I just invite them to share from the deeper part and I would invite you to do that and I actually now believe it or not

we start our organizational meetings the same way we try we set an intention to say what are we really in service to you know so right now in our organization we're in service to trying to bring this healing work into the world and so that's what we're in service to and each of us has our own role to play in that of course we all have each other's roles we're not a very large organization but we all bring our own particular gifts and you know expertise and whatever and we set an intention again

that it's almost like we're all together being a team looking at something together and saying okay how do we make something happen if we were really a team all of us sort of facing whatever it is we're trying to do and saying uh what can we do best all of us that each of us brings and all of us brings that we can make this happen and then of course we share from that place and uh it's people say you know when we start business meetings that way which I might you know even the people we work with you know to just take a moment before we start some kind of meeting it really changes the whole time so for those of you who are in organizations uh who have meetings and we know that meetings can be determinable why is that because we're usually speaking from our just our heads and we're just talking, you know.

And to take a moment and to say, really, why are we here? What are we in service to? What are we really in service to? And then what is it we really, really want to create? What do we really want? And then, you know, what has to happen to make it happen and then okay once we know all that we're going to do what's our plan and really that's the work anyway because i invite people then when they're doing their healing work do the same thing i say if you have anything you desire what would you intend to get from the time and then we find out what has to happen to make it happen. Now, often people coming to me, of course, the problem is that something is blocking them from making it happen,

at which point we're going to find out what it is. So we have a vision. What really is blocking? Is it the thing you say that you want, or is that just a symptom of some deeper thing that's stuck and then we find out where that originated because we want to know the cause because we don't know the cause is very hard to solve it so we go in and we find the cause and we find out what we have to do about it and then we drop into our bodies and let the one who has the problem share through us and to us and with us and we give them what they need and then we see if something's changed and at that point of course

you know some problems just go away and if it's not something just go away then you can really open to manifesting something so you know you know, once nothing is stopping you, but you still haven't made it happen, all you then have to do is experience and imagine like it's happening already. Because as soon as you can experience and imagine it happening already, it already is happening, so to speak. So that's what i do to start my sessions and uh i have found it to be a very useful thing and it makes it much more i have to say from uh you know enlightened place of self interest it makes it much more interesting than just talking to someone and say well how are you what's going on or whatever and uh you know no one trains us how to do things that way but

and uh you know no one trains us how to do things that way but i have found that if you ritualize it in a way that you open to a deeper aspect of being it really is quite extraordinary which means it's beyond the ordinary which is what it's supposed to be so having said that um you'll know that if you've been following along some of you have clearly you know we've had a hiatus and the reason we've had a hiatus and the reason we've had a hiatus is we've been editing our book like crazy and we have one more day of editing and then it goes back to our publisher and in February 22nd hopefully you will be able to get our book called the one hour miracle and five steps to guiding your self-healing and then the subtitle of all that is change the story reauthor your life but really what i'd say to you also is it's a book about remembering

you know remembering it means uh you know when you remember it means you bring together and become who you truly are you remember who you truly are. You'll remember who you truly are, which you can do in a moment. This is all happening right now anyway. So if you're interested, please do get our book. You can already pre-order it on Amazon. And if you're not interested, well, don't order our book. Anyway, having said all that, thank you for listening. Again, my name is Andrew Hahn, or my name is Andy Hahn. You can call me Andy. I'm Dr. Andrew Hahn, but I'm Andy. And if you want to reach us, you know, if you want to reach me, you can do that at ahahn, A-H-A-H-N, at lifecenteredtherapy.com. If you're interested in

our website, it is just lifecenteredtherapy.com. And everything you need to know about our work and how to do work with us or how to train with us is all there. So until our next time, thank you so much for going on this journey. And we'll continue. And again, always, I always am so grateful when you send your reflections or you know your celebrations or if

you've tried some people have actually even tried doing the work you know some people have written to me and said they're actually doing it you know they they have something that is uh they know they're stuck and they just bring their attention to their bodies and become the sensation and just say what have you come to share with me which Which is the pure form of what we do. Everything else after that is just the jazz riff. And they say, you know, it's remarkable because when I choose to become that sensation, it's no longer me.

It's just an experience I'm having. And that, of course, is the point to say, you know, I'm not my experiences. I'm having them. I'm the one who witnesses and holds ones who are having experiences. So thank you again and until next time, be well and goodbye.