As I sit down this week to write an experiment, I find myself completely blank, in terms of having an idea of what I might share with you this time. Finally, I just decided to begin writing and see what comes. “Going with the flow” reminds me of the power of trusting the moment, of not pushing to make something happen, of being curious about what might emerge.

As I sit here now, I notice the pleasure of just sitting and settling in without an agenda or any pressure to do anything in particular. I find myself recalling how it is for me when I do this between appointments in my office – when I take a minute or two to truly feel myself supported by the chair, to breathe, and to give myself some time just to settle into being. It doesn’t take much – just a moment of noticing what it’s like to return home to myself, to feel my body, to experience the support of the chair, and something shifts. I drop back into myself more fully and the experience is like a breath of fresh air that renews me and energizes me. This moment of becoming aware of settling in allows me to be more fully myself when the next appointment begins.

This settling in for a moment or two resembles a stress-reduction practice that I’ve taught to clients over the years. It’s not hard to do, and takes only a moment a number of times a day to take a breath and drop into your body.

Imagine I’m drawing on a flip chart and I’ve drawn a graph with a vertical line on the left and a horizontal line across the bottom. The vertical line represents the level of stress and the horizontal line represents the time of day. Morning is on the far left of the horizontal line and night is on the far right. Ideally, we begin the day in the bottom of the far left corner right on the horizontal line, with no measurable amount of stress developing as yet. If we just go along through the day without awareness of settling in, by evening our stress level is way up near the top on the right indicating a high level of stress. However, if we take a moment a few times a day to simply come back to ourselves, take a breath, settle into the belly or feet, the stress line comes back to the bottom. By the end of the day, the line is much lower than it is when we forget ourselves and just let the day carry us along.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to notice what happens when you play with taking some time to come home to yourself during the day. It doesn’t have to be a big deal – just a breath, settling down into your body, and spending a moment or two feeling whatever supports you in that moment. There’s something about coming home to ourselves that can be deeply grounding – sometimes, it’s enough just to remember ourselves, which is why it often takes only a breath to shift gears from mounting stress to settling in.

As with all these experiments, remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion. Enjoy discovering your own particular ways to come home to yourself, take a breath, and settle in.