Close your eyes and remember a time when you felt vibrantly alive. What comes to mind when you recollect that memory? Perhaps the tingling of your skin, colors or the way light sparkles, a pulsing heart, a smell that curls into your nostrils and transforms into deep satisfaction, or a flavor that makes your mouth pop! Your senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell are portals to rich experiences. Spend time playing and rediscovering the power of your senses and it will transform the ordinary into the extraordinary in your life.
Just Do It!
Although you can read about the power of your senses, your own experience will teach you to live more fully empowered and express your passionate emotions through your senses. The following prompts and invitations will whet your appetite, open new vistas, herald a call to dive deep, tickle your soul to explore further and invite a delicious breath of new learning into your lungs and heart. These coaching exercises will also inspire you to change your perception and embrace your true potential.
Exercise 1: The Personal Meaning of Clear Vision
Experience with clear vision what you see, instead of interpreting. Once the colors, shapes, and images become good or bad, pretty or ugly, familiar or unfamiliar you have stepped away from a clear view. Journal a sunset, an oak tree or the moment at dusk when all is in shadow. Describe it with your sense of sight in vivid detail. Do not stop until you have captured it all. Once you have set pen down read through your description. Notice how many details you would normally have missed with the average glance. What surprises can you find in your observation? Another way to truly understand and gain clear vision is to practice seeing with eyes of love and wonder. Look into the face of someone you cherish. Invite them to share this experience. Spend several minutes in quiet observation and reverence. What can you learn about this beloved? What do you see that you have never seen before? How does your heart feel in response to such an intimate viewing?
Exercise 2: Capture the Orchestra of Your Life
Look back on your life and discover what sounds capture your essence. A puppy’s excited bark? The sound of the 10 AM train? The melody of instruments from the kitchen as your mother prepared Sunday breakfast? Write these sounds out like the lines of a musical score. Draw, imagine and recapture them. Feel the ripple of those sounds coming full circle around you. Also, listen for emotion while communicating with others. Listen for feelings behind the words.
Exercise 3: Touch and Feel as an Expression of Passion
You touch things all day long unconsciously. Bring awareness to how something feels and ignite your passion. Take one ordinary task in your life and make it an exercise in touch awareness: doing the laundry, filing papers, taking a shower. What do you notice? What sensations surprise you? Can you make this sensory experience richer? Take one day and make it day when you touch everything with love.
Exercise 4: The Taste of Personal Empowerment
How many meals have you had in the past week? How many bites did you really notice, savor, and linger with? How was the food prepared? Where did the food come from? Is it all a blur? Conduct a taste-testing extravaganza. Choose one of your all time favorite foods. Is it chocolate, a glass of wine, a fresh pear? Make a meal or snack of your favorites food, invite some friends and taste test to your hearts content. Savor each bit, describe it and distinguish how one morsel differs from another. Serious fun, delight and deep satisfaction are the results of this tasty discovery of the delicious.
Exercise 5: The Scent of Inspiration and Success
You breathe in and out all day and all night. Why not leverage this breath for all it is worth? Your sense of smell can inform, inspire, and even caution you. Make a savory meal and focus on how each portion smells before you taste or sit quietly with your favorite perfume or incense and experience the feelings invoked by these scents.
Sight, sound, touch, taste and smell are at the core of who we are physically and emotionally. With just a few exercises you can dramatically enhance the depth, texture and experience of your life. Wake up your senses and, in turn, your passion. Become more fully attuned to the present moment and smile at the new vibrancy you find in life!
Corrie Woods is a Life Coach, Speaker and author based out of Asheville, NC. She is the author of the upcoming book “The Woman’s Field Guide to Exceptional Living”. To subscribe to her newsletter packed with tips for exceptional living go to http://www.windrivercoaching.com.
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