The following practices have been created by Simone Cheli as part of the Self-Aware Nurse Project. For information or request please contact the author: simone.cheli@tagesonlus.org

Quest’opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale.

The Day I Suffered: Settle in a comfortable sitting position, place your feet flat on the floor, with your legs uncrossed. You may decide to either gently close your eyes or stare at a point in front of you. Now you may decide to bring your awareness to your physical sensations by focusing your attention on the sensations of touch and pressure in the body where it makes contact with the floor and with the chair. Now you may bring your attention to your breath, to your personal anchor leading you here-and-now. You may bring your awareness to physical sensations that are due to the breath moving in and out of your body; to the breath moving your abdomen up and down. Now you may decide to bring your attention to an event of yours that is sufficiently recent, and can be defined as traumatic or painful. And you may imagine being there, looking at what is around, hearing what is around, smelling what is around, touching what is around, tasting what is around. You may decide to bring your attention to your physical sensations, to your emotions and feelings, to your thoughts, when this event was happening. You may spend one or a few minutes exploring this experience. Now you may decide to bring your attention to what you did to cope with this event in the minutes after. You may decide to bring your attention to the physical sensations, to the emotions and feelings, to the thoughts you experienced. Now you may decide to bring your attention to what you did to cope with this event in the days after. You may decide to bring your attention to the physical sensations, to the emotions and feelings, to the thoughts you experienced. Now you may bring your attention to your breath, to your personal anchor leading you here-and-now. You may bring your awareness to physical sensations that are due to the breath moving in and out of your body; to the breath moving your abdomen up and down. Take a few moments to become aware of your body as a whole: the outline of our skin, the weight of your body, and the sense of gravity bearing down upon it. Now you may place your hand on your heart as a reminder to be kind to yourself. And feel the physical sensation of having your hand on your own heart, and feel the emotions and the feelings of taking care of you. Take three deep, relaxing breaths, and then place your arms by your sides.

Three Pillars of Death: Settle in a comfortable sitting position, place your feet flat on the floor, with your legs uncrossed. You may decide to either gently close your eyes or stare at a point in front of you. Now you may decide to bring your awareness to your physical sensations by focusing your attention on the sensations of touch and pressure in the body where it makes contact with the floor and with the chair. Now you may bring your attention to your breath, to your personal anchor leading you here-and-now. You may bring your awareness to physical sensations that are due to the breath moving in and out of your body; to the breath moving your abdomen up and down. Now you may decide to bring your attention to death in a gentle and nonjudgmental way. And you may consider that death is inevitable. You will never be able to stop death. Since you are alive, you are destined to die. Death is inevitable. (Pause). Death is inevitable and unpredictable, you will never know when it will come, you will never know how it will come. You just know it will come. Death is unpredictable. (Pause). Death is inevitable, unpredictable, and it is part of life. Whenever life exists, death exists. You cannot have life without death. You cannot have death without life. Death is part of life. Death is inevitable, unpredictable, and it is part of life. Now you may bring your attention to your breath, to your personal anchor leading you here-and-now. You may bring your awareness to physical sensations that are due to the breath moving in and out of your body; to the breath moving your abdomen up and down. Take a few moments to become aware of your body as a whole: the outline of our skin, the weight of your body, and the sense of gravity bearing down upon it. Now you may place your hand on your heart as a reminder to be kind to yourself. And feel the physical sensation of having your hand on your own heart, and feel the emotions and the feelings of taking care of you. Take three deep, relaxing breaths, and then place your arms by your sides.

Breathing Group: I am going to ask two of you to help me starting this exercise. Please place yourselves in the middle of room, and stand, one in front of another. Now put your hands on the ribcage of your partner, and bring your attention to the breath of the person in front of you. Now you may decide to bring your attention to your hands and to the physical sensations they are spreading to you. Now you may try to synchronize your breaths. Once you feel the experience of synchronization, just make a silent gesture to us. Then, one at time, please join the exercise, put your hand to a partner’s ribcage, synchronize your breath, and, finally, make a gesture. (Once all the participants have joined the exercise, the teacher waits for one or a few minutes). Now whenever you feel comfortable, please take a deep, relaxing breath and then place your arms by your sides. Then please make a step back and create a circle, still standing side by side. Now you may silently say thanks to your partners for sharing this group experience, by looking in the eyes of the persons around you. (This phase goes on for a few minutes). Now you may decide to openly share what did you feel during the exercise by describing with words your physical sensations, your emotions and feelings, and finally your thoughts.

Quest’opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione 4.0 Internazionale.