Areas › Your body › Grounding and settling
End a check-in with a question rather than a summary: what do I need in order to be properly here today?
Noticing your state can leave you stuck in reporting on yourself. The need question turns it into something you can act on, and the answer is often small: water, five minutes with the door shut, one thing said at the start of the meeting. For anyone who grew up with their needs going unnoticed, saying one out loud is a bigger piece of practice than it looks.
Qur’an and Sunnah
I respond to those who call Me, so let them respond to Me (Quran 2:186). Asking is treated as the ordinary way of things rather than an imposition.
وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌۖ أُجِيبُ دَعۡوَةَ ٱلدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانِۖ فَلۡيَسۡتَجِيبُواْ لِي وَلۡيُؤۡمِنُواْ بِي لَعَلَّهُمۡ يَرۡشُدُونَ
[Prophet], if My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I respond to those who call Me, so let them respond to Me, and believe in Me, so that they may be guided
Qur’an 2:186read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a randomised experiment, people given a brief mindfulness induction were better able to re-see a distressing situation than those told to suppress their feelings or left to their own thoughts. The sample was small, 44 people, so hold it lightly. It fits the shape of this move: settle first, then think about what would actually help.
Garland EL, Hanley A, Farb NA, Froeliger BE. (2015). State Mindfulness During Meditation Predicts Enhanced Cognitive Reappraisal.. Mindfulness doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Naming what you need is the first move in getting it, and for some people that is a skill nobody ever taught them.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Finish a check-in by asking what actually brought you here. Not the task in front of you, the thing underneath it that you want.
Take the spine through all six of its movements: forward, back, bending to each side, turning to each side. Standing or sitting, it takes under five minutes.
Four steps you can do in ten seconds in the middle of anything: stop, take one breath, look at what is actually happening, then carry on.