Body Scan Meditation
A guided practice of moving attention slowly and systematically through the body, noticing sensation without trying to change it. Usually done lying down with audio guidance, 20…
Being B5
Presence
Capacity to be fully present in the here and now, to accept reality as it unfolds, and to respond in meaningful ways.
Tools for this skill (16)
Creating unconditional space for emergence
To create opportunities to explore without pressure to reach conclusions. Periodically create protected time for a different quality of conversation: • No agenda or predetermine…
Inside-Outside Presence
Training simultaneous attentiveness: staying in contact with one's own inner state while remaining fully attentive to the surroundings and other people — practiced in exercises…
Intentional pauses
To slow down habitual autopilot responses and create space for more considered engagement. Introduce intentional pauses at key moments: • Before an important discussion, take 30…
Interrelational Meditation
Mindfulness extended into relationship: in pairs, participants alternate between eyes-closed contact with their own present experience and open-eyed, non-judgmental seeing of th…
Meeting check-ins
To help team members arrive mentally and emotionally at the meeting. Begin meetings with a brief check-in round. Each person shares briefly in response to a simple prompt: • 'Ho…
Mindful Pause (Informal Practice)
The informal half of mindfulness training: bringing awareness deliberately into everyday activities — pausing before responding where one would otherwise act through habit or im…
Mountain Meditation
A guided visualization of yourself as a mountain: grounded, dignified, unmoved in essence while weather and seasons — moods, pressures, crises — pass across your slopes. A stabi…
Presence Pause
Presence helps us notice when automatic reactions or convenience are pulling us away from sustainability commitments. It creates space for more considered responses aligned with…
Protected time for genuine dialogue
To create recurring opportunities for deeper, more present conversation. Periodically create protected time for dialogue that is not structured around an agenda or task. Explore…
Sitting Meditation (Breath-Anchored)
The core formal mindfulness practice: sitting upright, resting attention on a chosen anchor — usually the breath — and each time the mind wanders, gently returning it, without j…
The Meeting Arrival
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Presence (VCoL collection): In the 30 seconds before entering a meeting or starting a call, pause. Let go of what you were just doing wi…
The Noticing Game
Two people take turns completing the sentences "Being with you, I notice…" (or "Hearing that, I notice…"), naming present-moment sensations, feelings, and impulses as they arise…
The Repeating Question
In pairs, walking: one person asks the same question again and again — "What do I find enjoyable and important in life?" — receiving each answer in silence and asking once more.…
The Single-Task Moment
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Presence (VCoL collection): Choose a brief activity, even just 30 seconds. Decide to give it your full attention. When your mind wanders…
The Transition Breath
A seconds-scale daily micro-practice for Presence (VCoL collection): At each transition, pause for one conscious breath. Let the previous activity go with the exhale. Arrive in…
Also develops it (25)
"How we work together" dialogues
To create space for explicit discussion of team dynamics. Periodically dedicate time to dialogue focused on how the team works together. Topics might include: • How do we typica…
4D Mapping (Social Presencing Theater)
An embodied map of a whole social system: participants physically take the roles of its stakeholders — including marginal and non-human ones — arranging themselves as Sculpture…
Body Awareness
Across multiple sessions, participants train attention to their bodily and affective responses inside real learning and work situations — where concentration lives, how tension…
Clearness Committee
The Quaker discernment practice: a focus person brings an important question or decision; a committee of four or five holds them for three-quarters of an hour with ONLY honest,…
Conversation Café
Small tables of 5–7 make sense of a profound or troubling theme through four rounds with a talking object: two rounds where each person speaks uninterrupted, an open conversatio…
Council (Circle with Talking Piece)
A circle process with a talking piece: only the holder speaks, everyone else practices devoted listening. Guidelines — speak from the heart, listen from the heart, be spontaneou…
Dedicated time for relationship-building
Relationships develop through interaction, and interaction requires time. For internal relationships: Informal gatherings provide low-pressure opportunities to know each other b…
Deep Listening
Listening past the words: in pairs or small groups, the listener holds complete, non-judgmental attention — without inner censorship, rehearsing a reply, or steering — staying o…
Dialogue Interview
A prepared but generative one-to-one conversation (30–90 minutes) designed to open reflection rather than extract answers: the interviewer sets an inner container in silence bef…
Heard, Seen, Respected
In pairs, participants take turns telling a story about a time they were NOT heard, seen, or respected, while the partner listens without interrupting, fixing, or judging. A str…
Listening to Pause
A team dialogue structure built on deliberate silence: each person speaks for the same fixed time (e.g., five minutes); after each speaker, the group holds about a minute of pau…
Maintaining momentum through difficulty
Difficult periods can stall team momentum. Resilient teams maintain momentum even through difficulty. During difficult periods, focus on maintaining forward motion: • Identify s…
Maintaining perspective through difficulty
Difficult periods are inevitable. For teams working in awareness of climate and political crises, the broader context itself can be a source of ongoing difficulty. When facing d…
Mindful Nature Walk
The entry-level nature-connection practice: a walk in forest or park with attention deliberately in relationship — naming trees, listening to layered sounds, feeling the carryin…
Nature Quest
Structured solo time in wild nature in three phases: preparation (practical questions, naming worries, setting intention), the quest itself — going alone to a chosen place, leav…
Noticing and naming team patterns in real-time
To develop the team's capacity to notice what is happening in the moment. Cultivate the habit of pausing to name what is happening: • 'I notice the energy dropped when we starte…
Noticing and responding to struggles
To ensure that when team members are struggling, the team notices and responds supportively. Create practices that help the team stay attuned to member wellbeing: • Check-ins th…
Practices for genuine dialogue
Dialogue is exploratory conversation aimed at developing shared understanding. Creating space for genuine dialogue requires structural conditions and conversational practices. S…
Purpose connection moments
To maintain a thread between daily work and larger purpose. At the beginning or end of regular team meetings, include a brief moment connecting to purpose. This can take differe…
Sit Spot Practice
Each person chooses one spot in nature and returns to it again and again — sitting quietly, observing what lives and changes there through weathers and seasons, journalling afte…
Spiral Journal
A quiet opener: each person draws a spiral and, guided by four prompts read slowly aloud, writes brief reflections into its quadrants — arriving, noticing, remembering, intendin…
Story Sharing
In trios, each person tells a story of a moment when their sense of Self clarified — when they knew, for a while, who they were and what they were for — with five to ten minutes…
The Milling
The group walks silently through the room in shifting currents; at the facilitator's word, each person pauses face to face with whoever is near for a guided, wordless encounter…
The Stuck Exercise
A Social Presencing Theater practice: one person embodies a real stuck situation from their life or work as a physical shape ("sculpture 1"), stays with it, and lets the body —…
Time-out signal for process awareness
To enable any team member to pause interaction when communication patterns have become unproductive. Establish an agreed signal (such as forming a 'T' with hands) that any team…