To be able to connect to each other and extend individual practice to a communal practice
Benefits
Self-awareness and mindfulness exercises tend to be individual practices. This exercise will help you to bring self-awareness and mindfulness into relation with another.
Example
During personal development courses, people tend to put the focus on their self-awareness and self-development, later having difficulty integrating internal changes in their everyday life with their family and colleagues. Thus, I like to introduce more than ten individual self-awareness practices in how participants can observe and learn a great deal about themselves as well as extend and apply such self-learning into the relationship that they are creating with another person. One possibility here is to guide participants into an inter-relational meditation.
Give an option for participants to choose a partner they feel comfortable with, so that they can sit opposite at a distance that feels safe and comfortable for both. Invite everyone to close their eyes (if comfortable for them to do so) and become self-aware with the breath, observing, not judging, whatever is arising in them. After a while, invite them to open their eyes and see the partner in front of them with the same observation skill; no judgement. The cycle follows with closing eyes and deepening into self-awareness for a few minutes, then extending attention to the other. You can play with different themes; acceptance, gratitude, appreciation, love and so on. Keep in mind the aim that we support the participants to feel safe, to foster connection and create an understanding that personal change is not enough unless it is put into practices with others in the World.
Variations
Reduced
Create a minute of listening fully to each other. One minute for person A, one minute for person B.
Extended
If you see it as a safe option, you can involve touch as a way of witnessing self and other, appreciating self and other.
Online
People can be divided in pairs and do the same activity.
Possible traps
Not everyone will feel comfortable and safe sitting opposite or looking into each other. Ensure to introduce how the exercise will go before asking people to get into pairs and welcome people to step back and observe the exercise if they wish to.
It can be a truly beautiful experience if done safely, even with a little discomfort, and can also present a growth to some participants. Laughter may sometimes come as a sign of such discomfort, or a sign of release. Welcome it all.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.