Presence anchors.

Grounding.

Have your notebook ready. Begin here before any other exercise.

1. Sit somewhere quiet.
2. Follow your breath up and down through your body.
3. Bring your attention to your feet.
4. Feel your feet in contact with the ground.
5. Move your attention from your feet up through your legs to your pelvis.
6. Breathe toward that place.
7. Follow your breath up along your spine.
8. Follow your breath down through your throat, heart, solar plexus and belly.
9. Follow your breath up your spine to the crown of your head.
10. Follow your breath down through your crown, forehead, nose, lips, throat, heart, solar plexus, belly and pelvis.

Observer and witness.

First, have your notebook ready and do the grounding exercise.

Explore what appears in you and who witnesses it.

1. Sit in a quiet place and close your eyes.
2. Notice thoughts, feelings and associations arising.
3. Ask yourself: to whom does this thought appear?
4. Answer yourself.
5. Ask yourself: who witnesses this thought?
6. Answer yourself.

Repeat this process for fifteen minutes.

What do you physically feel?

First, have your notebook ready and do the grounding exercise.

Practise naming your physical sensations to yourself. Compare what you notice before and after movement.

1. Stand in the room and close your eyes.
2. Feel your breath and follow it up and down through your body.
3. Become aware of the literal sensations in your body.
4. Name three concrete sensations inwardly, without explaining them.
5. Open your eyes. Jump up and down for thirty seconds. If jumping is uncomfortable, step gently in place for thirty seconds.
6. Stand still and close your eyes.
7. Feel your breath and follow it up and down through your body.
8. Become aware of your literal bodily sensations.
9. Ask yourself: what has changed in how I experience my body now?

Name three concrete sensations again. Which stayed the same and which changed?

Presence.

First, have your notebook ready and do the grounding exercise.

Do this exercise each morning. Take time to feel where your attention goes.

1. Stand or sit with your eyes closed.
2. Bring your attention to your breathing.
3. Follow the rhythm of your breath up and down.
4. Feel bodily sensations as your breath moves through your body.
5. Feel the soles of your feet touching the ground.
6. Stay with the physical sensations in the soles of your feet.
7. Notice how those sensations can move higher into your body with your breath.
8. Slowly fill with bodily sensations through your breathing. Let your attention carry them to every part of your body.
9. Bring attention to your centre, for many people just below the navel. Stay with your bodily sensations.
10. Slowly open your eyes.

Become one with the flame.

Put a candle in a safe holder on a stable surface. Keep a safe distance from the flame. Have a notebook ready and begin with grounding.

1. Make contact with yourself. Feel your feet, your breath and where you sit.
2. Look at the candle. Keep your eyes soft and relaxed.
3. Open to your surroundings. Let light, space and sounds in as you slowly relax.
4. Stay with the flame. Notice how it moves and how your body responds.
5. Let the boundary between you and the flame soften in your experience. See whether you can become one with it, without forcing anything. This may take several minutes.
6. Separate yourself from the flame again. Look around and feel where you are.
7. Run your hands over your body and say your name aloud. Write down what you noticed.

Become one with music.

Choose music that feels safe to you and keep the volume comfortable. Have a notebook ready and begin with grounding.

1. Make contact with yourself: feel your feet, weight and breath.
2. Play the music. Listen without immediately naming or explaining it.
3. Open to the sound. Let rhythm, silence and vibration reach you.
4. Let your body move as it wants, subtly or more fully. Keep noticing where you are.
5. Explore whether, for a moment, you can become one with the music and its movement. Take your time.
6. Let the music become separate from you again. Stop it or turn it down and notice the difference.
7. Feel the ground beneath your feet, notice your breath, say your name aloud and write down what you noticed.

Become one with the sun.

Choose a place where you can feel sunlight or its warmth. Do not look directly at the sun. Have a notebook ready and begin with grounding.

1. Make contact with yourself. Feel the ground beneath your feet and your breathing.
2. Notice daylight and warmth on your skin without looking directly at the sun.
3. Open to your surroundings: air, space, temperature and sound.
4. Relax slowly while staying with the warmth and light. Keep your eyes soft or close them.
5. Explore whether you can feel at one with the sunlight touching you for a moment. Let it happen at your own pace.
6. Separate from that experience again. Feel the boundary of your body and the ground beneath your feet.
7. Run your hands over your body, say your name aloud and write down what you experienced.

Look as if seeing it for the first time.

First, have your notebook ready and do the grounding exercise.

Train your attention to reach outward. Give each movement more time than usual.

1. Choose an object around you.
2. Open yourself to the impressions the object makes on you.
3. Direct your attention toward the object.
4. Look as though you are seeing it for the first time.
5. Keep looking until you notice something you have never seen in it before.
6. Trace an imaginary outline around the object with your gaze.
7. Name the object with the most neutral word you know.
8. Release the object and notice where your attention is now.

Looking with curiosity.

Have your notebook ready and begin with grounding. Choose a difficult moment that you can explore now. If it becomes too much, open your eyes and return to the room around you.

1. Bring a difficult moment to mind.
2. Experience the moment fully for a while, in a way that remains manageable for you.
3. Notice where in your body the feeling is located.
4. Look at its shape and how much space it takes up.
5. What changes if you switch on your curiosity now?
6. Explore what is there as you switch on and use your curiosity.
7. Practise switching on your curiosity when an ignition point comes along. Write down what you notice.

What carries meaning?

First, have your notebook ready and do the grounding exercise.

Curiously explore what bodily sensations tell you about yourself. Curiosity helps you in this inquiry.

1. Describe a literal sensation in your body to yourself. For example: “In my throat my Adam’s apple presses forward against my skin, a lump in my throat.”
2. Notice any other places and describe them too. Write your descriptions down.
3. Ask yourself: “What information do these sensations give me about myself?”
4. Ask yourself: “What am I being invited toward?”
5. Explore the answer at your own pace. Do not settle for the first answer if it brings no moment of recognition.
6. Explore how you would like to express yourself in this moment.
7. Discuss your discoveries with someone doing the same exercise.

Meet one living moment.

First, have your notebook ready and do the grounding exercise.

Think of a conversation, decision or silence that activates something in you. Do not resolve it. Stay with it for ninety seconds.

1. Name only what happened, without motive or judgment.
2. Where do you feel the first response in your body?
3. Notice what your mind wants you to believe or do.
4. Ask: what becomes visible if I do not move yet?
5. Leave one honest question open.