Compassionate Integrity Training CIT-Faciltator-Guide-2.1-Final | Page 50

C OMPASSIONATE I NTEGRITY T RAINING
A S ECULAR E THICS A PPROACH TO C ULTIVATING P ERSONAL , S OCIAL AND E NVIRONMENTAL F LOURISHING
S KILL 1: C ALMING B ODY AND M IND
S ENSATION W ORDS *
Goal: To help participants develop a wider vocabulary of bodily sensation words and learn to better attend
to sensations in specific parts of their bodies.
Materials: None (or some sensory object of your choosing, such as a food item).
Time: 5 to 10 minutes (depending on group size and how many times you go around the circle)
Instructions:
1.
Say to the group, “I invite you to place the palms of your hands together and rub them back and
forth rapidly until I ask you to stop.”
2.
After 20 to 30 seconds, say, “Please stop. Now bring your attention to what you are experiencing on
the inside. Can you identify pleasant or neutral sensations in your body you are experiencing right
now? Can I have some volunteers who will tell us one of these sensations? You may get things
started by naming a sensation you are experiencing and where in your body you are experiencing it,
for example, tingling hands, warm chest, fast heartbeat, etc.
3.
It is very important participants use sensation words and not feeling or emotion words. If someone
uses a word that is not a sensation, such as “happy,” then ask them, “What does ‘happy’ feel like in
the body?” or “Where do you sense ‘happy’ in the body?” Help them both identify the sensation
and where in the body they feel this sensation. If participants are struggling to identify sensation
words, you may say, “Examples of sensation words are things like open, tingly, warm, pulsating,
stiff, dull, airy, sweaty, and grounded.”
4.
This exercise can also be done by changing environments, such as going outdoors, or using food as a
stimulus for bodily sensations. For example, you can give out a cookie or raisin and ask each person
to share a sensation word as they observe the food and anticipate eating it. If you use food, be sure
to have several options in case someone is allergic to a particular food. The goal is to stimulate a
sensation, enabling participants to recognize sensations more easily.
C ENTER FOR C OMPASSION , I NTEGRITY AND S ECULAR E THICS | L IFE U NIVERSITY | M ARIETTA , G EORGIA
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