Finding Stillness Through Balancing Points
Uncovering fundamental consciousness as your natural way of being
I’ve always loved the simple and profound body-sensing practice of balancing points that I learned through yoga nidra. We move awareness from one side of the body to the other a few times, and then rest in both sides at once. Dwelling in that simultaneous sensing is deeply relaxing and quietly reorganizing.
Research on meditation suggests that practices like this can deactivate the Default Mode Network (DMN), loosening recursive loops of emotion and thinking. As the Present-Centered Default Mode Network (PCDMN) comes online, the mind settles into more creative, insightful ways of being.
Inhabiting the Body
For this kind of balancing practice to be most effective, we want to be clear on the important distinction between being aware of our body, and inhabiting our body.
Let’s use the hands as an example in this brief Realization Process practice:
Take a few moments to become aware of your hands. As you do this, you may experience the temperature of your hands, how hot or cold they are. You may experience how relaxed or tense they are. Now enter into your hands, inhabit them. Feel that you are the internal space of your hands. Feel that you are living and present within your hands.
Now that the hands are an “in here” instead of a “down there,” we can try a brief balancing practice:
Inhabit your left hand. Take a few breaths there. Then gently move your awareness to the right hand. Go back and forth between each hand a few times. Then inhabit both hands at the same time.
Did you feel a shift?
For me, something often subtly settles or releases in that moment of moving to both at once. I notice a sense of spaciousness. Sometimes warmth. The thinking mind quiets down.
Going Deeper with the Realization Process
After a few years of regularly practicing iRest Yoga Nidra, I found Judith Blackstone’s Realization Process and went deeper into this territory. The Realization Process (RP) is a series of embodied nondual meditation practices that are like stretches for our consciousness. We’re not looking for a transcendence that leaves the body behind. In RP, we inhabit the body and uncover an experience of the space inside and outside as one continuous space.
Several Realization Process practices include balancing points as a portal into the stillness of fundamental consciousness. We don’t experience the stillness by holding still. We uncover the stillness because balance is inherently still. With regular practice, you can experience the stillness pervading you and everything in your environment. It feels like who you are.
"Fundamental consciousness is experienced as stillness because it is the dimension of perfect balance."
— Judith Blackstone, The Fullness of the Ground
Hip Sockets and Shoulder Sockets
There’s something magic about the series of points that the Realization Process uses for balancing. We settle into the transition space between the legs and torso (hip sockets), and the arms and torso (shoulder sockets).
Although anatomically the hip sockets and shoulder sockets are joints, experientially they can be felt as an interior space — open, quiet, and receptive. When our balanced awareness rests in these points, the body can settle back and down, toward deeper support.
Before we try the full practice, feel into your hip sockets and shoulder sockets. These points are deep within the core of the body, back behind the midline. If you sit still and then feel into the place where movement originates in your arms and legs, that’s the general area. Don’t try too hard to find the points—let them arise in the space. You might feel a subtle ping or resonance. This can take some time.
Try the Practice
This practice can be done sitting or standing.
Practice Pointers
It’s important that we’re not making too much effort. Our attention is relaxed and subtle. The mind might seem to become “thin” or quiet. Gently balancing our awareness seems to give the system room to reorganize itself.
When we’re balancing our awareness, we’re not trying to make both sides feel the same. The right hip might feel different from the left. That’s fine. We’re not fixing anything. We’re finding both points with equal awareness.
Micro-Practices
Even a few minutes of balancing practice can shift how you move through your day. The stillness is always here. The practices just help us remember.
You might find a set of points where it’s easy for your thinking mind to naturally rest. Many people find that balancing awareness in the hip sockets brings a sense of groundedness or quiet support — as if effort drops and the body begins to reorganize itself.
For me, the knees are a place where I can easily find stillness. I often use balancing points along with simple grounding as a 30-60 second micro-practice. I feel my feet on the ground. The support of the earth. Then I feel the inside of both knees at the same time and experience the stillness of the balanced mind. Dwell there for a few breaths, and then let go.
I offer somatic coaching that integrates this kind of nondual meditation practice. When we can rest in and as fundamental consciousness with another human, there’s a resonance that helps our system uncover what it’s looking for. If that possibility fills you with joy, wonder, or curiosity, I’d love to hear from you.