Broadening your Awareness: An Experiential Exercise

If you’re at home right now, feeling overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, rushing from one thing to the next, checking your phone obsessively for updates, feeling frantic…take a moment to pause and notice. Come back to right now and engage your senses. Don’t just read the following, engage with it and notice the impact on how you feel.

Look outside for a moment…what do you see? What colour is the sky? Sunlight shimmering on a puddle, a bright colour amidst the grey, shadows on the ground, straight lines, circles, triangles…

Does anything catch your attention? Is there something that’s pleasing to your eyes? If there is, spend some time taking it in, allowing it to have an impact on you.

Do you notice any movement? A branch swaying, a leaf blowing across the street, people walking, cars moving, a squirrel darting, a bird flying…

What about stillness? Is there anything still and calm when you look outside?

Open your window or your door…what do you hear? Birds singing their songs, wind rustling in the trees, dogs barking, the neighbour’s lawn mower or snow shovel…

Take a deep breath, what do you smell?

Now notice if anything has shifted for you. How are you feeling now?

We can get so caught up in the chaos in our minds, the panicked feeling in our bodies, that we lose touch with the present moment. It can be easy to identify completely with these difficult experiences and get into a place of tunnel vision. In these moments it can be helpful to pause, breathe, broaden our perspective and find our footing in the here-and-now. This can increase our capacity to hold these difficult emotions as just one part of our experience and respond with greater resilience.

Our Four County Crisis line is open 24/7: 705-745-6484 or toll-free 1-866-995-9933, if you need additional support.