Ever heard anyone say to you ‘get centered?’ I have and I wondered how to do it for a long time. Then I took a course on it and here I am writing to you guys about it. To save you the effort, we present you with a comprehensive list of 10 ways to get centered. And as always, if one way doesn’t work for you, try another instead. You will find your technique. You will need lots of practice though. So, instead of trying them out just once or twice, seeing they work, and dropping the techniques, practice them copiously so they become your second nature. After practicing enough you will be able to use them on demand when you are in danger of being triggered.
The following are 21 techniques to get centered:
- ABC centering
- 3 types of social centering
- Moving centering
- Finding your centerline
- Awareness Acceptance Intention
- Centering for purpose
- EROS centering
- Deity centering
- Owl eyes
- 11 ways to do quick centering
Read about each technique below.
The following information and centering techniques are mostly adapted from the course Foundations of Embodiment by Embodiment Unlimited.
What Is Centering?
Centering is a form of self-regulation or state management that helps us optimize our state of being. Centering can also be finding the place within us we operate from. When triggered by someone or something, we may become “unaware, tense, off-balance, less intelligent and meaner!” (Foundations of Embodiment) Centering can change this. It’s different from meditation because you can do it in different social interactions where meditating might be inappropriate.
The Physiological Distress Reaction (Aversion)
When distressed by a situation in which we do not want to be (aversion), our hyper-arousal (fight-flight) and hypo-arousal (freeze-fold) responses can get activated. Hyper-arousal is the excessive activation of your sympathetic nervous system, and hypo-arousal is a reduced response from your parasympathetic nervous system. We might not make the best moves from these places:
“What any distress reaction does is limit the tools that make a person work well: awareness (we space-out or become fixated), acceptance (we lose it), intention and imagery (becomes lop-sided and habitual), relaxation (we can tense up), structure and balance (we can collapse, twist, or go off balance), movement (we can lose it or it becomes erratic) and responsiveness (we close down to relationships).” (Foundations of Embodiment) Getting centered helps us take control of these reactions. It gives us a choice over how we want to be.
Eustress Reaction
On the other side of the coin is liking something too much. So much that you lose your balance. When opening the fridge, for example, and finding your favorite food, how do you react? What’s your posture and your bodily reaction? Or how do you reach out for the phone when a message pings? How does your body react to you grasping, craving or wanting something too bad? Centering helps here as well. It enables us to relax, enjoy things more and be okay with not getting them.
22 Ways to Get Centered:
1. ABC Centering
A is for awareness. Become aware of the body and its sensations. Feel the body right here, right now. B stands for balance. Balance your posture and your awareness all around you – front and back, left and right, up and down. C is core relaxation – relax the eyes, the mouth, the belly.
2. Social Centering Techniques
People can regulate themselves through social interactions. The basis of this is empathy (We wrote lots on how to develop a healthy dose of empathy here and which yoga poses, mudras and meditation techniques can get us there here).
Way to do social centering:
- Think of someone who makes you smile. It shouldn’t be someone with whom you have a complicated relationship. Go for someone who simply makes you smile, perhaps your nephew or your dog.
- When in a big group of people, look for signs of friendliness (a smile, or pleasant facial expressions) signs of respect (the way someone lets you have you personal space, for example), or signs of togetherness (“this person is just like me – they have their pains and suffering and they only want to be happy and at peace”).
- If you feel isolated and separate from the group you are in, you can imagine that you are all in a bubble together. This has a sense of bringing you all together, instead of you being here and them over there.
So in all of the previous 3 techniques, human connection serves as the regulator rather than physical cues as in other techniques.
3. Moving Centering
This one is good to do when you’re alone or about to go into a potentially triggering situation. This technique comes from Aikido (marshal arts are great for practicing centering) and Yoga has a similar exercise too:
Stand with your feet a little wider than the hips. Lift your arms to the sides and start turning your hips left and right. As you do this, your hands will gently hit your shoulders and your hips: one hand touches the opposite shoulder and the other one the opposite hip, from the back, not the front. As you do this, you move from the balls of the feet and you bend the knees.
The center of your awareness is on the hips. So instead of being a bit jumpy, which is what happens when we operate from the upper torso, we bring our awareness down into the hips. And make sure that the head and the hips are staying in one line – super important. In marshal arts, this is known as the central line. So, as you move to the right, you notice your central line moving as well, and as you move to the right, you follow your central line there.
4. Finding Your Centerline
This is another one that works with the centerline. We wrote about it in our article on how to practice mindful nonviolent communication:
Move your attention to your upper body. Feel how your torso starts from the waist and pelvis. Feel your back, shoulders, and neck. Now sense your centerline by feeling your spine, from the tailbone to the base of the head. Or imagine a line going down the middle of your torso, in between your front and back body and your left and right side. Try moving your torso back and front, left and right, and twist to sense how your centerline is moving with it too. You can also use it as meditation technique. All you need to do is close your eyes and sway from side to side keeping your attention on the centerline. Once you embody yourself with this exercise, it will affect how you move around in the world.
5. Awareness Acceptance Intention
First, you ask yourself “How am I”. Then, whatever comes up, you accept it. You can come up with your own little accepting catch phrase, or say something like: “Yes, right now this is how it is.” Before you can change your state, you need to accept it as it is. Once you’ve done that, ask yourself “How do I want to be?” Set your intention on being more kind, empathic, confident or whatever it is that you need.
6. Centering for Purpose – CCC
CCC stands for Care, Commitment, Community. What do you care about? What are you committed to? Who is your community? It could be even an archetype, someone you admire. Center yourself in your values. Great if you’re about to give a training, a workshop, give a speech or work with a client.
7. EROS Centering
This acronym stands for Expand Relax Open Sink. Expand the front of the body so that there’s a sense of growing, length and perhaps dignity. Then, you relax the back of the body, from the forehead and down the spine. Next, you open and expand the lower back. Lastly, you sink – you relax your muscles, especially muscles of the pelvis and allow your weight to sink down into the ground. You can also imagine yourself sinking down as if into a wet mud.
8. Deity Centering
Imagine a deity you love and admire. It could be God, Jesus Christ, Tara, Virgin Mary, or any saint. Feel they are looking over you, protecting you and making sure everything is okay. You could imagine them standing behind you, in front of you or above you. And whenever triggered, just conjure up their presence. This will imbue you with peace, wisdom and a sense of safety.
9. Owl Eyes
Owl eyes is a technique where you activate the peripheral vision. You can learn how to do it by listing your fingers in front of you so you look at them both. And then move the fingers away from you, to their respective sides and keep being aware of them as you look to the front. This helps put you in a relaxed state.
10. 10 QUICK Centering Techniques
- Take just one part of the ABC centering. For example, relax the belly. Or just the mouth by sighing out loud. Since all body parts are connected, releasing one helps to release the others.
- Another option is to do a quick tense-relax-expand. You tense the body and then relax it and expand it.
- The next quick centering technique is my favorite. It’s called up and down. Straighten up the back and relax down the front of your body. Many people, when trying to straighten their posture, can seem a bit stiff. Softening the front body can help them look more approachable and humane.
- The next one is a quick breathing centering technique. Take is a slow inbreath through the nose and an even slower outbreath through the mouth.
- Another quick energizing breathing technique is to take 1-3 fast breaths in through the chest.
- Next one is to just feel your feet on the ground.
- If you’re sitting then just feel your bum on the ground. Feel yourself sitting. This brings you down and changes your awareness and your state.
- If you feel a bit low on energy, a good technique to lift you up is to imagine a golden string going from the middle of the head and reaching up.
- This quick equanimity technique comes from practicing the Yes or Equanimity meditation which we presented in our article on how to improve communication skills with yoga and meditation here. Take a look at this technique in more detail there. Once you start practicing it, you can use it as a quick centering technique. Simply say, “Yes” followed by a big outbreath. You can say it out loud or in your head.
- Relax while expanding to get centered. Simple as that!
Self-Awareness as a Prerequisite to Centering
A necessary prerequisite to practicing centering is self-awareness. So, a good starting point is to ask yourself several times a day “How am I?” This will increase your self-awareness. Once you know how you are, you can change it. If you don’t know how you are, then how can you practice centering?
How to Practice Centering
Centering is fun to do! It can be your little secret, something that nobody knows you’re doing. You can do it sitting, standing, walking. You can set your alarm 5 times a day, or anchor your centering routine to something you do every day, such as washing the dishes. Other times you can do it are:
- in the shower
- in the kitchen while chopping vegetables
- while watching TV
- when you’re bored, for example in public transportation or waiting in a line at the supermarket
- when you notice negative self-talk (we wrote more about how to replace this pesky voice with positive self-talk here)
- you name it!
As with everything else, the more you repeat, the better for you. It doesn’t need to be done for 10+ minutes like meditation. It takes a minute, and that’s it! Once you get comfortable with the technique after practicing enough, it will take you an instant to apply it. Just don’t wait for an emergency to start practicing because then it will be time for application, not practice.
Conclusion: It’s Great to Have a Choice Over How You Are
Centering gives us the choice of how we want to be in relation to ourselves and others. We don’t have to be the slaves to our unconscious patterns and habits any more. We can choose how we want to present ourselves. It’s great for anyone who has difficulties in social interactions, introverts and extroverts, and for anyone who gets triggered – i.e. all humans.
Tatjana Glogovac, Senior Contributor At L’Aquila Active
Learn more about Tatjana by reading her bio below.
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