Note: the blue italics indicate the teacher, in black others participants.

To be in tune with oneself

How do you know you’re in tune with yourself?
How do you know you’re not?

When I am in tune with myself there is no doubt, no trace, I do not reverse my decision. I feel lightness and I do what needs to be done without procrastination.
I know I am not in tune with myself if questions come up again, and especially if I smell a kind of unpleasant smell, which makes me want to go inside and see what is wrong. It may take me some time, but if I go deep inside myself with sincerity, without judgment, I will eventually find it. Then I can validate that the feeling has changed and I’m tuned in.

When I am in tune with myself, inside me it is “champagne,” a sparkling joy in all my cells, not necessarily exuberant, most often a serene joy. There is also a kind of evidence, I don’t really know how to describe it, but it’s as if I’m just standing there in the verticality.
I feel a discomfort all over my body when I am not in tune with myself, the feeling of something wrong, something that is not in its place. I feel a little stingy in these cases, at least not feeling aligned. I would say that the difference in sensation between the two positions is in the sharpness, a bit like when I put on and take off my glasses.

“In tune” is like when we sing the song of the heart. In tune with it, there is this feeling that it is right, a rightness of actions or words, among others. It vibrates and resonates in harmony inside and out, the body is relaxed, the heart is the compass, and everything seems to dance around this axis, great or small things in everyday life. When I say “rightness” or “in harmony” it has nothing moral or aesthetic about it, but we remain in the musical analogy.

When I’m out of tune, the body is tense, I feel like a kind of violence that makes you and the other dirty. It is an insult, almost a blasphemy against life, and indeed, it stinks, it also uses a lot of energy. So if I missed the opportunity to spot this dissonance right away, then fatigue (full of heaviness, where I feel knocked out) is a good clue.

Firstly it is the absence of doubt and parasitic thoughts. It is not necessarily pleasant or joyful, because it can correspond to a moment of necessary suffering. In this case, there is something whole, a force and a verticality that is felt more. At other times, it comes naturally and things are simply done.
It is first of all through the presence of doubt and the impression that parts of myself are in conflict, each side defending its own personal interest. For example, one part wants to sleep (physical comfort) while the other prefers to stay at a party (desire for social recognition, pleasure). This is becoming increasingly rare, and in general I need an effort of vigilance and sincere observation of what is “false” to resolve the internal conflict.

Joy is the clue for me. Joy and gratitude without purpose, the two are inseparable. In this case, everything often flows naturally and coordinates easily. But sometimes, if I encounter misunderstanding or hostility, there is necessary suffering, and the feeling is rather that of a stable, deep zone, a kind of peace in my stomach.
If I am not in tune with myself, there is a feeling of duplication, confinement, uneasiness that can be drowned in agitation. But first, I think it’s a general tension, like I’m shrinking.

Feeling of fullness. Tranquility, calm, lightness. Alignment. Duty to perform. Joy.
Out of tune: Anger. Stress. Something squeaky. Arrhythmia, like dissonance. Procrastination. Doubt, self-judgment. Negativity.

Efforts are natural. Lucidity of thoughts and feelings. The priorities are clear. Sensation of gratitude. Calm.
Out of tune: efforts are forced. Confusion about doubts and fears. Priorities are in conflict. Feeling of lack. Something’s not right. Researching for answers.

I know that I am in tune with myself through the peace that spreads in my body. I could have said “existential relaxation” but “peace” is the right word. This peace is free of all fear and any notion of identity life. Body consciousness is a prerequisite and a synonym. One can be in tune with oneself in any context, and this tune can, as a consequence, change the context.
Not in tune: By the feeling of constraint/fear. This constraint is the expression of the identity that refuses its own disappearance to give way to the true self.

When I am in tune with myself, then I feel fully ALIVE! There is no doubt about it. What needs to be done becomes obvious and clear and I also accept the unexpected or obstacles that may appear along the way. I then feel at home, engaged in a “just action” free of cogitations, at peace with myself. In welcoming the unknown, I then realize that it is my essential value that is expressed.
When doubt sets in, when I feel a conflict within me, the need for a justification, an excuse to do or not do something. I then spot a dull and continuous tension that persists in “background noise”. In this case, although I am alive, I still feel that I am not alive: I am like a living dead man manipulated by my fears, my cowardice, my attachment to my illusory personal comfort. Life loses its flavor, its light, but I refuse to recognize it and blame others or life itself!

Through feeling: I feel connected, serene, relaxed, listening, available, available, in love, in fullness, inner peace. I can feel vulnerable, I can have certainties, intuitions; it comes to me, it imposes itself on me, and I am at peace with it, even in situations or decisions that are difficult to take. I welcome with humility.
Out of tune: projection, a lack of trust, I deny my value of being, my deep nature.

I know that I am in tune with myself when I am available and open to things and others, when “answers” spontaneously emerge in the presence to myself and bodily relaxation, when there is a taste for a kind of obvious and primary common sense, when certain behaviors or the way I express myself surprise myself.
I know that I am not there when I am in the effort to appear, when I lose contact and a separation takes place, then a dissonance appears, it does not resonate, I lose the recognition of what I feel as true, fluidity and enthusiasm dry up, a conflict, embarrassment and tensions deep inside me.

The body is fluid, light, loose, all senses open.
Out of tune: clearly it is my body that warns me that something is wrong with a feeling of tension often located in the stomach; I put this feeling in words, I pass it through the mind (it can be to see that I have done or said something out of personal interest, done mind reading).

Why is it that there are times when you are in tune with yourself and at other times you are not?

What makes me in tune: grace, openness to discovery, simplicity, priority to body consciousness.
What makes me out of tune is: resisting the necessary suffering, boredom, anger, a sense of lack, resistance to pain and physical discomfort, identification. Being too much in my thoughts. Awakened dream. In fact, after reading everything that upsets me, I could summarize it all in “attachment”. All the things I have listed would not be a problem if it were not for being attached to them.

When I feel I don’t tune in with myself, it’s a moment of forgetting. Forgotten the essential value, forgotten the body consciousness, lack of attention and vigilance. Even if I try to remember, it doesn’t always work, often I find that I can’t remember. So I don’t really know what makes sometimes there is forgetting, and sometimes reminding. Grace?

The moments when I tune in with myself are characterized by a kind of peaceful acceptance of who I simply am and what things are, rather than by a research to be better than this simplicity or that things are different. Bodily, through a presence to myself and to what emanates spontaneously from it.

Looking backwards, I notice that forgetting is at the origin of this stall. Forgetting what “I am”, the body consciousness. A little as if there were a permanent (and even timeless) attention, which when it “forgets” to recognize itself, falls into ignorance of what it is and lets itself be carried away by the flow of thoughts, discursive, emotions, identifying with them, in turn. Then there are our meetings, your constant reminders, the commitment that each one of us here has made with him/herself, this deep and intimate “languishing” to find oneself, the patience of the universe that constantly and relentlessly places us in the situation necessary for this return to self, that puts us back on the right axis, this verticality from which by recognizing oneself we find ourselves in tune with oneself.

By default, there is tuning. A dissonance appears if there is an unseen self-interest (lack of vigilance) or a blind spot. I have trouble finding a memory of the last time I didn’t feel in tune with myself, but I think it’s when I’m asked and it goes very fast, that you have to answer one or more requests immediately, without having all the information, neither the time nor the perspective. At that point, I go into mental mode and lose body consciousness. And a few minutes later I find myself with the impression of being trapped and not in tune with myself. That said, it is becoming exceptional today, because I understood the root (wanting to please, afraid to disappoint, afraid to oppose). Paradoxically, allowing myself to be openly in disagreement with others allows me to be in agreement with myself.

I am in tune with myself, when I accomplish my task without attachment to the result, in the pleasure of action, step by step, without judging myself, without tension = I am in the body consciousness.
I do not feel in tune with myself when I identify myself, when I’m attached to the result, I judge myself and I tighten myself up = I am no longer in the body consciousness.

Lack of energy, fatigue, feelings of helplessness, lack of courage or vigilance can lead to being out of tune with oneself.

After observation in myself, it comes from the doubt introduced through the mind and emotions by the opinion or advice of others, however good it may be but which does not suit me. To get out, the path is always the same, to spread the other momentarily and see into me with myself. We can also say that it comes from forgetting, the loss of body consciousness, otherwise it could not happen.

I would say that what prevents being tuned in is a kind of impatience-laziness-negligeance, and what brings me back to being tuned in is the conscious renewal of the commitment to do this work on oneself.

I too find that the “lack of vigilance/doubt/personal interest” mechanism easily makes me lose accord with myself and makes me leave the body consciousness.