Free for personal use + sharing with friends and family. To share this material with students, clients, in teaching, therapeutic or any other place please include – erin bell – relationalawareness.org – in citation. You are welcome to send $ support-gratitude here.
Advisory note:If you notice a feeling of “too much”, or otherwise any sort of internal “no” signaling, stop doing the practice. Instead head to a creature or activity that feels supportive or neutral for you. If you are new to this work I urge you to work with a live person first. Past traumas or difficult past-experiences may emerge while doing these practices.
Practice Guide:
1. Forming your question. Take about 5 minutes to consider a topic, a life question, a relationship, or so forth – which you wish to gain some insight about. In that time you might write down questions or key words that relate to your topic.
Within this portion of the practice, find a question that seems like it fits. It does not need to be ‘the most perfect’ question. As you use this practice more, you will find how broad or focused you want to investigate.
2. Take about 5-10 minutes on this step.
Imagine-remember yourself in a location which relates to your topic. If others are involved in your inquiry, imagine them there as well. Look around, notice the solid structures like walls or boulders. Notice how close or distant you are from others. Move around your imagination-body (and/or present body) and notice if some positions feel nicer or not. Smell the space, notice the air. Etc.
3. For the last step, a Sensing Form, you can chose to set a timer or not.
Move through each question and describe what you feel, in a rather neutral-esque way. If thoughts or emotions are coming up, notice: what do they feel like?
The last step of this Sensing Form has space to re-engage with thinking, meaning, epiphanies, vague noticings, and so forth.
Relational Awareness 