There’s a fundamental “exercise” in gestalt – Gestalt 101, if you will. We jokingly call this the ‘gestalt muscle’. Like any other muscle, the more you use it the stronger it gets and, if you don’t use it, you lose it. The phrase, “Here is where the beginner begins and the master ends,” is very applicable to this muscle.

The exercise is to repeat this phrase: “Now I am aware of [fill in the blank].” You simply track your awareness and keep repeating the phrase and filling in the blank with whatever you’re aware of. At the Center, we’re very strict about getting the exact wording during our Structured Groups. If you change the wording, you’re no longer doing the exercise. Simple enough, right?

It’s so deceivingly simple that people often ask, after their first round of about 8 seconds, “what was the point of that?” (Sometimes they might be angry, confused or disappointed when they ask.)

Polarities are fascinating and this one is one of my favorites. On one hand, what is the meaning or purpose of life? On the other hand, what was the point of that silly exercise? Those are the same questions.

To do this exercise – your gestalt muscle – you are tapping into the highest expression and location of your energy in that very moment in time. You are touching your most powerful potentiality. We don’t exist in any other moments other than right now and to clearly locate your precise energies at the precise moment when they’re available is the very peak of your existence (at that moment).  While doing the exercise, it’s your largest truth and your fullest self – attempting to move with the energies of the universe – in those moments. Unless you’re already objecting to the things I just typed, it naturally follows to ask, “so what?” hence, the meaning and purpose of life.  If that’s your truest and fullest self in those moments, then what?  What’s the point of being a person in the first place?  What are we supposed to do while we’re here? What’s the meaning of life?  What’s the point of “having an awareness”?