Last week in mindfulness I introduced my clients to the herb marjoram. Getting acquainted with marjoram was something of a new experience. We went through the different senses by looking, touching, smelling, and tasting marjoram. We did it slowly and quietly, to give reverence, sort of speak, to the marjoram. As in if marjoram was, for the moment, the only thing in the universe.
Using the five senses to pay attention to what the world has to offer, however simple, is one way of getting in touch with experience. Lots of my clients complain about numbing out, going on auto-pilot, or getting stuck “playing the part” without any real connection to their experience. They survive, sort of speak, like they are puppets responding to their environments instead of being “there” inside their own bodies.
How do we know that we feel? How do we know what we feel? First we have to pay attention to sensory information. If we’re so busy ignoring this information, however small or simple, we might miss out in a major way. Paying careful attention to what our bodies tell us includes getting acquainted, sort of speak, with the small things that may or may not seem so obvious. When is the last time you smelled, touched, or tasted fresh herbs?