Micro Practice - Orienting For Calm And Presence

A short practice that supports you to engage with your environment using your senses. Sometimes when we feel overwhelmed, we might find that turning our attention inward can make us feel more stressed. We can engage in a process called 'orienting', where we allow ourselves to land in the space that we are in.

Turning our attention mindfully outward to our surroundings and engaging with them via our senses can bring a sense of calmness.

Transcript

This practice is about bringing mindful awareness to our environment.

We sometimes call this process orienting meaning we are orienting ourselves to our surroundings.

This can be done from wherever you are indoors or outdoors.

It can be particularly helpful if we are feeling overwhelmed as sometimes turning our attention outwards rather than inwards can feel more supportive in the moment.

So my invitation is for you to take a moment to take in your surroundings.

You might let your eyes float around the space that you're in.

There's no right way to do it just being curious about letting the eyes go where they want to go.

You might notice if there is something pleasant or nourishing that you can see in the space around you and take some time allowing yourself to be with that thing and that feeling.

Engaging some of our other senses you could take a moment to notice the sounds in the space around you.

If it feels supportive you could close your eyes or lower your gaze to allow yourself to focus more clearly on the sounds.

You might also notice the textures around you allowing your attention to come into the points of contact with the surface beneath you,

The surfaces around you.

Exploring the sense of touch and interacting with your surroundings.

Allowing yourself to be curious about which senses feel most supportive to engage with and you can focus on these as needed.

Using our senses to engage with our surroundings can allow us to come into the moment and land into the space that we're in.