Your own comfortable place

Introduction

The exercise Your own comfortable place can help you create positive feelings and more inner peace. By visualizing a safe anchor point where you feel secure and relaxed, you can help calm your stress system.

The exercise consists of a meditation/visualization and a writing assignment. Find a quiet place where no one can disturb you and prepare pen and paper in advance.

This is how you do the exercise

Before you start writing, you can do a meditation to connect with a place that feels comfortable to you.

• See if you can sit as relaxed as possible. Feel where your body is contacting the chair you are sitting on. Your hands rest loosely on your thighs or in your lap. Your feet are in contact with the floor. Bring your attention to your breathing. Let your in-breath and out-breath come and go in your own rhythm. Follow the rise and fall of your belly or chest.
• Now, think of a place where you feel comfortable. This could be a place somewhere in your own environment, or a memory from the past. A place where you feel comfortable. Where do you feel at ease and perhaps even secure? Are you alone, or is someone else there with you?

  It could be that there are multiple places in your mind and that you find it difficult to choose one. Let that be so; you can see them all passing by.
  It could also be that you don't have an image of a comfortable place in mind. That doesn't matter either; you can visualize/think of one yourself.

• Use your senses.
  What see Is it dark or light? Are there colors to be seen?
  Hear Is the sound close, or far away?
  Feel Is there any heat? Is something touching you? Is there a surface?
  Smell Do you feel anything? A salty sea air, a warm scent of pine needles, a fire?
  Maybe test Do you have anything too?
  How feels your body in this place?
• Take all the time you need to discover your comfortable place. Then come back calmly with your attention in the here and now. Inhale, exhale. Move your fingers, hands, feet, and face. Open your eyes, stretch if you need to.
  
  

Writing assignment

Now grab a pen and paper and describe your comfortable place. What did you see, feel, hear, smell, taste? How did you feel there? Were you alone or with someone around you? How did your body feel? Bring together your entire experience, write down what comes to mind and try not to correct it with your thoughts. If you feel comfortable, you can also color or paste on something.

Afterwards

Take a moment to reflect: how are you feeling now? Perhaps your (negative) thoughts have decreased or you feel a bit calmer and more relaxed. It could also be that you (still) don’t notice much of a difference. That’s also very normal.

You can conclude the exercise by thanking yourself for having taken the time to connect with your comfortable place. You can reread the paper with the description of your safe anchor point at any time when you need something supportive.