As we practice centering on a regular basis, we might contemplate being centered all the time. If we work to be centered all the time, we will be, except when we are not! (Even the masters lose center; they just regain it far more quickly!)

Pause the action. Focus on your breath. Locate your center along length (your full height), width, (open through your sides), and depth (your front and back.) Placing one hand just below your navel can help. Drop your breath and your awareness, and let go of muscular holding and tension.

How many times you can regain center today?

Take just a moment to access your center, and notice the sensations that you feel. Now sink your attention even more deeply, and see what emerges. Let yourself linger in this awareness.

Meister Eckhart  

Gratitude is an extraordinarily powerful daily practice. 

Try this: bring to mind one thing you are truly grateful for.  Breathe into this memory as it comes to mind in full detail.  Now notice the effect on your body.    Done well, gratitude can be a relaxation practice as well as a spiritual practice.    You can even use it in a pinch at work: when stress is rising, take thirty seconds and hit your internal reset button with one gratitude moment.

What are you most grateful for today?

A relaxed body and a calm mind are more capable of right action, vs. reaction.  Scan your attention from the top of your head to the tips of your toes, letting your attention touch lightly in each area, as if to invite softening and relaxation.

Now feel the fullness of your breath.  Sense your center below your navel.  Roll your shoulders in gentle backward shrugs (the opposite to keyboard slouch!).  Let yourself open into your full height, and let your chest and back expand into their full width.

Breathe once more… and notice what feels different.

What can you do to magnify and sustain this new feeling?