The Presencing Meditation

(from: Thomas Hübl: Healing Collective Trauma)

In Theory U, Dr. Otto Scharmer, founding chair of the Presencing Institute, writes, “Presencing is a blending of the words ‘presence’ and ‘sensing.’ It means to sense, tune in, and act from one’s highest future potential—the future that depends on us to bring it into being. When we presence, we tune in from the deepest part of ourselves.

Inner body competence is an available resource that allows you to see and sense and respond—to yourself and others—more clearly, as if you had eyes all over the body. It offers clearer discernment so there is less opportunity for confusion and misunderstanding. It also brings heightened sensitivity, greater clarity, and deeper presence.

Using this inner attunement practice, you begin to feel more grounded in the body. You can more readily navigate your inner landscape, surveying the whole body and all of your interior sensations, perceptions, and subtle impressions as if through a camera lens. You can more clearly observe areas of reduced communication and areas of open communication. And you can include the numb or disconnected areas of the body more, rather than rejecting them, simply by relaxing into these sensations.

Guided Practice

If you’re able, sit in a chair with an upright spine. Rest your pelvis comfortably on the seat of the chair with your feet shoulder-width apart on the floor.

As you begin, simply tune in to your breath. Feeling into your breath, bring your awareness to the sensations of your body. Allow every exhale to take you through an open doorway, deeper into the physical body.

As you continue tuning in more deeply, presence more and more of what your body is feeling right now, in different areas. Perhaps you notice that your awareness is taken up by the sensation of tension, a feeling of inner stress, or even pain in certain areas of the body. In other areas, maybe you notice a feeling of aliveness, a subtle flow of movement with many small accompanying sensations.

As you continue breathing, feel the weight of your body touching the surface of the chair. Feel how the body’s weight anchors it in the world. You’re feeling the pressure of the weight at the surface. Gently breathe and sense into this pressure.

From this sensation, expand into different areas, like your upper legs, to see if you have access through your inner body attunement. See if you can get a sense of your thighs and explore the muscles, bones, tissue, skin, and blood flow.

Now, choose another area in your body and keep listening. Presence, listen, breathe, presence.

Notice any quality of grasping, the tendency to grasp objects that arise in our inner awareness: thoughts, images, emotions, bodily sensations, and external inputs like noises, smells, and visual impressions. Simply listen to the grasping. We either grasp onto an internal thought or bodily sensation, or it is something that moves and flows. Each time a thought or sensation arises, witness that thought or sensation, noticing how you grasp it when it surfaces.

Continue breathing and notice that there is a quality of space, of inner space. When you listen, you are space. Listening is spacious. Witnessing is spacious. Watch your mind and simply observe whether it is grasping or listening.

See if you can allow your attention to become even finer, subtler.

More open.

Continue breathing deeply and tune in again to your physical body. Feel the body, its weight, muscles, and skin. As you attune to the body, allow your attention to become gentler, softer, subtler — lighter. Continue breathing and feeling the body with this subtler sense. Listen for how much space you have inside.

Most of the time, our attention is occupied with the world outside, but now you have your attention inside. And you can sense how much space is available inside. Does it feel tight, tense, crowded? Or does this inner space feel more open and relaxed?

See if you can notice any areas in your body that have more space, that feel lighter and more open. Notice any places that are tighter or tenser, more stressed. Notice that in those places, there may be a feeling of greater density or congestion, of less space.

Now, gently return your attention to the flow of your breath. Notice how its movement through the body is like a pulse, a rhythm — a constant and repeating motion. See if you can observe any subtle details in the rhythm of the breath.

If you notice that your mind travels to other places, simply come back to the details of your breath. Notice the resting place, the brief stillness before the inhale shifts into the exhale, and the exhale shifts back into the inhale.

The more you zoom in on and presence these sensations, the finer and subtler they become and the more information appears, as if the resolution grows.

See if you can sense how the breath affects your head. Is there a connection between your breathing and the way your head feels? Look at how the breath affects your arms and hands and fingers. Your pelvis. Your legs and feet.

Perhaps now you may notice how the breath affects your whole body, all of its parts. While the chest and the belly expand and contract, the whole body is gently breathing. Maybe you can notice how your breath affects even the air around you.

As you explore the effect of your breathing, stay with the felt sense in your body. Listen to its experience. This listening creates a presence. As you are listening to the sensations in the body that the breath produces, you infuse that sensation with presence, awareness, a higher resolution.

Enjoy the rhythm of the breath. It is the simple, essential flow in your life, and you can return to it again and again, whenever you lose your rhythm in the hectic pace of the outside world. Now, if you can, move your awareness to a part of your body that feels alive. Maybe it’s your hands, your chest, or your face. Maybe you notice a small tingling or streaming sensation, where your body is most present and awake. Simply listen to those subtle movements. Presence their feeling of aliveness, flow, energy, and accessibility. The longer you look, the finer and subtler this aliveness becomes. Its wisdom is another resource available within you.

Every time a thought arises, gently release it and come back to this exploration of the movement in your body, to its resource of aliveness. Presence its rhythm and energy.

There is breath. There is space. There are sensations, perceptions, impressions, images, and thoughts. There is a quality of reduction, tension, or energy, and aliveness. And there is presence and awareness holding all of these.

Observe yourself as you presence your breathing. Witness yourself as you feel your bodily sensations or experience your thoughts and impressions. See that there is witnessing, presencing, stillness, and awareness. Notice that there is breath and space and trust.

Begin now to take a few deep breaths as you start to come back. Slowly open your eyes. Continue breathing and notice the objects in the external space around you. Maybe there is a computer or a phone or a window. As you breathe, notice the room. Listen for any noises in the background. Feel the temperature of the air.

As you’re becoming aware of these external sensations and perceptions, see if you can continue presencing your inner sensations and perceptions. Try holding both together: your inner and outer awareness. Feel for the subtle details, the finer qualities. Notice that you can feel and sense and listen in both worlds with curiosity, intention, and presence.

As you go about your day, try making a regular practice of coming into presence with both your inner and outer fields of awareness.