Saying Yes

• Find a place to sit or lie down.
• Take a few deep breaths. Then, let your breath resume in its natural rhythm.
• Become gently curious like a child or a scientist.
• Sense the contact of your body to the ground or the chair.

Saying “No”

• For three to four minutes, make an experiment and deliberately struggle against the experience you currently have.
• Say “No” to the sensations of the ground or the chair.
• Keep taking yourself back to saying “no” to the experience of the ground or the chair.
• Notice what changes. How does your body respond? What can you sense and feel. Acknowledge those sensations.
• Notice the difference between the sensations of the ground or the chair itself and the struggle you put up by saying “no” to that experience.
• When this feels complete, permit your body to gently shake out the experience and return to a neutral breathing.

Saying “Yes”

• Bring your attention to the sensations of the ground or the chair once more.
• This time, keep saying “yes” to the experience that is already there.
• Explore the sensations with gentle curiosity. What is the texture? What the temperature? It is hard or soft? Are the sensations staying the same or are they shifting subtly
• Become a wine taster, a connoisseur of your current experience.
• Keep coming back to saying “yes” to this experience. Breathe into the parts of your body in contact with ground or the chair.
• What do you notice? How does your body respond to saying “yes”?
• How does this experience contrast to the time when you kept saying “no”?

Taking Good Care of Yourself

• Go gently with this activity. Remember to call in a gentle curiosity and kindness.
• Practice with sensations the feel safe enough. A four on an intensity scale of 1 to 10 will be more than enough.
• When you notice that you getting into war with yourself over an experience, Dropping Anchor can support you in getting grounded and the RAIN of Self-Compassion can be a powerful meditation to allow your experience.

Going Deeper

• Once you have practice with saying yes to sensations of an external object, like the ground or the chair, you can shift the activity to sensations in your body.
• There may be parts of your body that feel tense and stuck. What happens if you keep saying “yes” instead of struggling against the sensation?
• Similarly, experiment with gently saying “yes” to a feeling or emotion that is already there. What happens if you are saying “yes” to an experience of anxiety or anger?