Essence pace is slowing down and amplifying your inner awareness through conscious actions and thoughts in the present moment.It is a practice similar to walking meditation to help focus your life more fully into a state of increased awareness, curiosity, play and to create a more present life experience.

Here is an example:

I recently walked on the South West Coast Path in Cornwall, England and saw wild ponies. Instead of passing them by and staying on my planned route, I took a deep breath and experienced the awe of my surroundings. I slowed and down and let go of my plan to go somewhere.

I let my eyes gaze upon the fields, the sea, and each of the four ponies grazing. I noticed them grazing on the subtle purple moor plants nestled into the green grass.

I intentionally amplified my present feeling of awe--of the countryside, sea and animals, and allowed myself to slow down and drink in the nourishing moment, imagining it filling every cell of my body. I breathed in the smells and senses of blue sky and movement of the wild ponies as if they were a work of art, along with the hillside and sea below.

*“I breathed in the smells and senses of blue sky and movement of the wild ponies as if they were a work of art”*

The ponies, after many minutes, grazed closer to me. I experienced them as if they were speaking to me, with their hearts. Their beauty filled me up. I am changed by this experience. My heart feels more full and open from one of them allowing me to be very close to it and gaze at me knowingly.

*“I experienced them as if they were speaking to me, with their hearts. Their beauty filled me up. I am changed by this experience”*

According to Goethe, "Every new object, clearly seen, opens up a new organ of perception in us". This highlights his belief that encountering new phenomena can change one's perception and lead to new ways of understanding the world.

This is an example of essence pace. It is similar to meditation except that you are paying full attention to all that is happening around, and usually moving even if only gently, instead of only focusing on stillness in the mind in meditation.

By being aware of my essence pace with the ponies, I was able to breathe in more deeply and allow myself to meet the experience deeply, as if in a meditation.

Being in one’s essence pace can be a very health- and ease-enhancing practice. Here are the two important steps of being in your essence pace:

1. Awareness: This first step is deepening awareness and noticing sensations, moods and even how you are experiencing your surroundings. Take a breath and pay close attention to what you are sensing (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling) and experiencing (mood, calmness, ease, constriction etc….) in the present moment.

2. Movement: this next step is to explore the essence pace through curiosity, amplification or dilution. You can enhance your state more by expanding it or making it smaller; by going slower or faster; or by doing what you are doing more or less. This automatically allows you to become more aware of your state. In fact, it also helps you see that you can change it. This then brings more freedom.

When exploring your essence pace, it does not require positivity. You might be experiencing anger, sadness, fear, or frustration.

What is helpful is that it increases your capacity to be with and be more conscious of what is occurring. Instead of pushing it away or resisting which often makes it bigger and more invasive, you can embrace it with open minded non-judgmental curiosity and exploration.

Observing your essence pace can slow you down through an awareness that allows you to respond instead of react. Instinctual survival based reaction is quick and automatic (coming from early brain function), slower responses create more thoughtful actions (using parts of the brain involved in executive functioning) allowing for more assimilation and choice.

Here are some more ways to discover your essence pace. All of these can be done alone and many can be shared with a partner or group:

- ‎Ask yourself, how am I experiencing sensations right now?

-Notice if your body feels tension in any area. What would that area be saying or how would it be moving? Can you act that out for fun? Can you make the action bigger or smaller?

-What kind of movement would you do to display this? Can you slow it down and or speed it up?

-imagine a color surrounding your body that resonates with your present state of awareness and move gently or vigorously to move it like a wave or amoeba around you.

-notice sensations such a smell, sight, sound, warmth, taste, especially those you might not have initially noticed. Explore how your body responds to those sensations. Allow this to occur for at least a minute or two (more time is great too!). Explore whether your body wants to respond to this sense with any kind of movement or sound.

You can expand this exploration by playing. When in a state of play, you build neural pathways many times faster (4 to 20) than when you are “trying or working hard”. This is partly because when we are playing our brain is more open and elastic and available for input from our surroundings and new learning (versus survival where it is limited to conserved quick reactions).

Essence pace exploration can bring you closer to being present and when you are more present, you have more awareness of what is happening around you. You can then respond with choice and freedom and therefore often with more effectiveness.

Learning most relaxation, awareness or meditative practices begins with relatively short daily practice and then progress to a long term goal of spending as much time as is possible in the more relaxed state so that more and more, it becomes more of your normal state. The essence pace allows you to do this by potentially linking other relaxation, awareness or meditative practices you might already do to more periods of time during the day. Multiple interruptions of old patterning with presence practices like essence pace can extend your nervous system to more total relaxation, strength and resilience.

As alluded to above, building essence pace capacity is like building a muscle: the more you practice the stronger it gets. For example you can try it with small challenges regularly so when challenges are bigger, your body does not go into a survival mode as quickly or get stuck there, but instead moves to a flexible curiosity (as essence pace invites) and is more able to respond than when in a singular reactive mode. You might let your body wiggle a bit when in simple but frustrating situations like being in a very long waiting line, bad traffic and feeling impatient. Notice what part of you is tense when you feel frustrated or impatient and make some movements or sounds (when in public even subtle movements or sounds can be effective) to amplify it or ask it what it needs.

Practicing daily or a few times a week can lead to more resilience and automatic flexibility versus reacting when facing challenges.

Clearing your mind and body can be part of the process for healthy practices like eating well, meditation, doing activities you most love, supporting others, and sharing time with loved ones or spending time in nature. Getting support can also help. Sometimes just paying attention can allow for shifts toward a greater sense of ease and wholeness.

Our lives are getting more and more busy and full. Using the tool of essence pace can help us turn down outer distractions or acting out and instead choose how we want to be. When we are rushed, angry or not present, we sometimes react and do things we later regret. When we interrupt old familiar unwanted patterns with essence pace, we can reflect and sometimes oversee it and engage with more choice. This awareness allows us to be clearer about our steps, and therefore more free.

These steps and practices lead us to being more available to overcoming Upper Limits ( ) and or being in our genius! (Link to Genius blog) all taught to me through the Foundation for Conscious Living and Gay and Kathleen Hendricks.

Essence Pace and How it Can Support You

Finding Your Genius