This exploration as a way to develop a deeper sense of awareness between the different tones in your experience.

It’s one of the most profound ways we can begin to create spaciousness in our assumptions and assessments of what’s occurring within ourselves.

In this way, we can take stock, evaluate more accurately, and be responsive rather than reactive.

In an attempt to help you anchor into this practice, I’ve included definitions for the language used. You don’t have to read it before you do the meditation, but it may be helpful at some point to explore.

Defining Terms

• Somatic Inquiry Qualities:

  • Pleasant. A sense of pleasantness is anything you prefer, like, want to keep, feel proud of having, or consider a positive experience.

  • Unpleasant. A sense of unpleasantness is anything you do not prefer, do not like, wish would be different or go away, or consider a negative experience.

  • Neutral. A sense of neutralness is even, balanced, neither preferred nor not preferred, you neither like it nor don’t like. It just is.

• Somatic Tones/Areas of Inquiry:

  • Body tone. This is your physical check-in and is a reflection of your physical state or the quality of a particular part of your body.

    • Examples: soft, painful, hard, stuck, strong, creeky, pliable, sore, achy, open…

  • Thinking tone. The quality of your thoughts.

    • Examples: busy,

  • Mind state or constitution. The hardest to define, mind state denotes your overall constitution, how you’re holding space for all your other experiences. It can also feel like the emotional tone of your experience.

    • Examples: agitated, irritated, calm

• Homeostatic Awareness:

  • Gut check. Your gut check will be a way of comparing how your body feels versus what your mind is telling you. We’ll use this awareness tool to help us differentiate between the thinking and feeling; whether we think we’re safe (conscious and analytical assessment) versus feeling we’re safe (unconscious nervous system assessment).

• Nervous System Awareness:

  • Gut check. Your gut check will be a way of comparing how your body feels versus what your mind is telling you. We’ll use this awareness tool to help us differentiate between the thinking and feeling; whether we think we’re safe (conscious and analytical assessment) versus feeling we’re safe (unconscious nervous system assessment).

  • Down-regulate. Down-regulation is to move from a more sympathetic bias to a parasympathetic bias.

  • Up-regulate. Up-regulate is to move from a more parasympathetic bias to a sympathetic bias.