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From: Ellen-Marie Silverman
Date: 06 Oct 2005
Time: 16:54:41 -0500
Remote Name: 205.188.116.202
Hello, Jon, You have made a very pertinent discovery: Attending to breath keeps us in the present moment where we have our greatest ability to act skillfully. Whenever we find ourselves anxious or fearful, we can return our awareness to our inbreath and our outbreath. Not doing anything to them. Not trying to make them be a certain way. Not judging them. Simply observing them as we notice what and who are around us. Once we become centered in our breath, we are more capable of living well in the moment. Working with shenpa as a means to reducing habitual responses to uncomfortable feelings does indeed increase the gap between the stimulus and our response allowing us to behave with more choice and deliberation. Working with shenpa is something I do in general to break cycles of habitual responses to that which feels unpleasant and even that which feels pleasant! Applying it to my stuttering as well helps establish a sense of perspective and proportion to the role of stuttering in my life, which is a wonderful benefit. Another is that in working with shenpa, I am learning to be kinder to myself: I respond to the inevitable 1-step forward, 2-step backward plotting of my progress working with shenpa as just being human instead of being a "failure," compliment myself for choosing to commit to the practice that, in the long run, is bringing me the kind of experience with life that is meaningful to me, and recognize I am becoming wiser and more skillful as a human being. This is something I very welll may be doing for much of the rest of my life. That's fine with me. I can't think of any better way to take the journey than one step at a time this way. All good wishes, Ellen-Marie Silverman