Practice Request #1 - Daily Self-Connection Practice (at least 5 min per day) (we strongly recommend the book Integral Life Practice by Ken Wilber and colleagues for a wealth of practices to holistically develop body, mind, spirit, shadow work and more).

A. Practices that are non-verbal. The one we suggest is based on a Heartmath process (www.heartmath.org). Our idea is that it can be very helpful to have practices that allow you to quickly create inner self-connection that don't require verbal/linguistic processing that takes more time and effort to apply.

The Heartmath process we offered includes:

  • 1. Breathing into the belly, same number of seconds in and out
  • 2. Breathing this way into and through your heart
  • 3. Breathing this way into the heart while focusing on a good feeling (stimulated by bringing into your mind the image of someone or something that brings you joy, gratitude, appreciation, etc., such as a pet, children, grandchildren, favorite place to go for a walk or be in nature, sweet childhood memories, whatever brings a smile to your face and changes your chemistry)

B. Practices that incorporate Observation, Feeling, Need, Request.

1. NVC mindfulness practice is to observe your surroundings and thoughts, feel the sensations, emotions and aliveness in your body, connect to some needs and feel them in your body, and then see what if any images for action (i.e. requests) arise from this connection with feelings and needs, cycling from observing to feeling to needs to requests arising.

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A practice we find very valuable is one called "pivoting" (from an Abraham- Hicks"/Teachings of Abraham book). This simple practice involves noticing as often as I can if I am feeling good or not, or if I would like to feel better. If so, then simply "pivoting" and asking myself what do I want (rather than what I don't want, which is what I am probably focusing on if I'm not feeling good). In this process I'm not worrying about distinguishing needs from strategies. It's just pivoting and redirecting my attention from what I'm fearing and what's lacking that I'm feeling badly about, to what I do want.]

2. Gratitude practice is to think back over the past 24 hours asking yourself what you are grateful for (that you or someone else did) and see what arises in your mind. Once you have something, see if you can describe to yourself specifically in observation language what you or another said or did. Then connect with how you feel now as you think about that past event. Now what needs were met by this action? Once you find the needs, deepen further into those needs by imagining them fully met in your life. How do you feel as you do this? Lastly, see if you have a request of yourself, such as, if your gratitude is about what someone else did, to go and express your gratitude to them.