1. Cultivate Inner Resource for Ease
Identify a memory, place, or imagined scenario where you feel completely at ease and safe, then practice recalling the felt sense of this experience in your body throughout the day or during meditation. This helps your nervous system downregulate and provides a baseline of well-being to face challenges.
2. Engage Inner Parts and Core Beliefs
When recurring difficult emotions or limiting core beliefs (e.g., “I’m not safe,” “I’m a bad person”) arise, personify them as “parts” of yourself and actively engage with them in meditation. Ask what they want or need to uncover misperceptions, integrate unacknowledged aspects, and transform them into allies.
3. Work with Opposites to Get Unstuck
When stuck in a challenging emotion or thought, consciously hold it in one “hand” (metaphorically or physically) and its opposite in the other, then alternate attention between them before holding both simultaneously. This can disrupt mental fusion, offer perspective, and lead to new insights.
4. Set Intentions for Self-Trust
Regularly set intentions, especially in the morning, focusing on what’s most important to you, then check in to see how you’re doing. This practice fosters self-awareness, drives behavior change, and builds self-trust by reinforcing your capacity to follow through.
5. Rest in Backside Body Awareness
Throughout the day, return your attention to the entire backside of your body (back of head, neck, back, legs) and allow a sense of rest and awareness of what’s present. This simple act can downregulate the nervous system, cut through mental illusion, and foster openness.
6. Practice Lying Down Meditation
Engage in meditation while lying down, as this posture can reduce the “doer” mentality and foster a sense of receptivity, allowing for deeper inquiry into unconscious processes. This can be particularly effective for relaxation and sleep.
7. Connect Beliefs to Body Sensations
When exploring a belief, look for its physical correlate in your body to understand how you feel when you hold that belief to be true. This somatic focus helps you get underneath mental constructs and recognize how you organize your self-view.
8. Seek Practical Meditation Guidance
When exploring meditation practices like Yoga Nidra, look for teachers who articulate the mechanisms behind the techniques in a practical, relatable way, rather than focusing solely on religious or philosophical underpinnings. This makes the wisdom more accessible and applicable to daily life.