Last week we learned an exercise to help us determine our lead strategy.  Recall that there are three ingredients, or strategies, we use in creating states of being.  These are energy, movement and breath.  The order in which we mix them together is call your Primary Order and the first ingredient you mix in is called your Lead Strategy.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. When we use our strengths we are more effective than when we focus on our weaknesses. We want to determine the physical means that will be most successful in helping you with any action you take. Whether your lead strategy is energy, movement or breath, when you focus on the lead first, actions will be more purposeful and effective.

To determine your lead strategy, you must decide which strategy you like best.  This means experimenting with all three to see which one is the easiest to focus on and do.  It also means seeing which strategy creates the biggest change in your body when you focus on it.

The change we are looking for in your body is the expansion of the area under your hands (in the exercise from last week). First, review the exercise so we can put it to use in evaluating the strategies.  Take ten minutes to lie down and do the exercise in a place where you will not be disturbed.

The way that the exercise was explained was basically the evaluation of the strategy of breath.  As you do the exercise, observe how easy it is to be present with the simple flow of air in and out of your body.  Observe the expansion that occurs under your hands as you use the strategy of gentle, unforced breath to lead the expansion.  Spend a couple of minutes evaluating this strategy.  If this is easy for you, your lead strategy may be breath.

Next, move the breath into the background.  You will still need to breathe in during  this step, but the focus will shift to the strategy of movement.  Exhale all the air from underneath your hands and then hold it.  Now use your stomach muscles to push your hands up and expand the area underneath them.  Let this movement create a vacuum that draws air into this area.  You are still breathing in, but the movement is creating the expansion of the area and the breath is happening as a result of the movement.  To exhale, squeeze your stomach muscles and contract this area.  Use this movement to push all the air out of this area.  Evaluate this strategy for a couple of minutes.  If you find this easy, your lead strategy may be movement.

Finally, put the breath and the movement into the background and focus on your energy.  Imagine that your energy is flowing up your body from your toes and into your hands.  When your energy gets to your hands, imagine that it is moving through your hands and up towards the ceiling and through your back, down into the floor.  Exhale all the air from your body and hold.  Focus on the energy moving through your hands and use this strategy to create a lift in your hands and an expansion in this area.  The breath and movement of this area follow subsequent to the energetic lift.  To exhale, direct your energy to lower your hands and create a downward movement and outflow of breath.  Remember that it is the energy that is leading here.  Evaluate this strategy for a couple of minutes.  If this is easy for you, energy may be your lead strategy.

Practice this exercise every day for the next week.  You will find that it gets easier with practice.  You may also find that what you thought was your lead strategy changes.  This is ok.  We are not usually taught to focus on our strengths and we tend to obsess over our weaknesses. For example, if we are really bad at a certain task, we may focus on it all the time and try to improve at it. We may even take courses to improve ourselves in the area. Usually the first strategy we pick is actually our weakest because we are always trying to develop our weaknesses.  When you find that one strategy happens with ease, observe it and continue to compare it to the other strategies.

When you lead from your strengths, life gets a lot easier, more effective and fun.  Determining your lead strategy will assist you in developing a way to physically put yourself into a powerful and effective state at will.  Practice this exercise regularly and use your lead strategy to focus all your actions.