The Toolbox, our tool we’ve developed to achieve a centered starting point, and to bring you back “in the moment” has many additional benefits. It gets you more Presence, builds healthy posture and helps you to listen to yourself and others, have courage and to make effective decisions. It is also an easy and highly effective way to become aware of – and manage your emotions. In addition, it will increase your social awareness and relationship management. In other words, you’ll also increase your emotional intelligence (EI).
So what does this Toolbox look like?
Step 1: Grounding
Without this foundation you can’t do the three steps that follow. To say that someone is “grounded” implies that that person has a stable and balanced sense of him/herself.
How do you do it? Place your feet on hip-width distance, relax your toes, and spread your weight evenly over your feet. Sense the weight of your body, allow knees to relax so they are neither bent nor locked, but feel “fluid”. Give your weight to the earth, but keep your structure (avoid stiffening up or collapsing). Feel the weight of your leg-bones descending down into the ground, as if your feet could grow roots into the earth. Grounding is a dynamic relationship to the earth; you can practice it standing, sitting, lying down, or in motion.
Step 2: Alignment
A big part of the overall appearance of our posture is determined by the way we hold our spine. The spine is often collapsed or stiff. The goal is to create an upward lift through the entire torso. This gives a sense of space inside the body and helps to take the space you want and need. This gives you more self confidence in a natural way.
How do you do it? It can help to push your feet into the floor, reach downwards with your tailbone and reach upward with the top of your head. Thus creating space in your body for every organ to function and for every cell to breathe. You grow in two directions. Make sure you keep a long back of the neck, and keep your neck relaxed; nothing should be forced or stiff! You can use the image of wearing a crown.
Step 3: Breathing
Breathing is a physiological support for all life processes and, hence, for all movement. We often subconsciously hold or restrict our breath, through habit, and our breathing pattern becomes restricted and distorted, especially when we are under pressure. Free breathing arises from within, rather than being pulled inside mechanically by the more external muscles of the body. The breath expands in all directions, is calm and flexible, and effortless. When we first start to give attention to our breathing, most of us focus on deep, forced inhalations. But long, full exhalations, will help to find a natural deepening of inhalations, without effort, and will calm you down, when you are in stressful situations
How do you do it? Ask yourself: where in my body do I sense the movement of my breath? Bring your attention to your exhalation, and ground and grow again, exhaling. Release tension where you feel it, release the belly and the buttocks, the knees, the shoulders and the jaw. Release tension every time on the exhalation, without collapsing, stay grounded. Gradually lengthen your exhalation, without strain.
Step 4: Engage
When you are grounded, aligned, and breathing with ease; connecting with the world, beyond one’s own kinesphere, becomes possible. (As defined by definedterm.com, a Kinesphere is the movement space, or the space surrounding the body in stillness and in motion, which includes all directions and levels both close to the body and as far as the person can reach with limbs or torso.)
How do you do it? Ground, grow, and breathe. Then become aware of your own personal space first. Open up your peripheral vision. Make (eye)-contact and become aware of the interpersonal space (between you and other people in the space). Keep your eyes soft, without tension. Stay consciously grounded and trust it. Use your senses to become aware of what is going on in the communication and in the space. Become aware of the general space, the room you are in. Be aware of where you are in space, what the space does to you. If necessary, change your position in the space.
So now that you know all the steps of the Toolbox, the most important thing is….. Practice!!
You have to practice the Toolbox over and over till it becomes a part of you. I recommend practicing it in situations when you are not stressed; that way, you’ll be able to apply the Toolbox in the more tense or difficult situations. After a while your body knows what to do when your mind goes through the Toolbox. And the beauty is that no one can see or know when you are doing the Toolbox, so you can practice it everywhere and always!
Learning the Toolbox is like learning how to drive a car: when you start doing it, you think you will never be able to do everything at the same time, but after practice it becomes easier and more fluent, and you won’t need to think about it as much anymore, you’ll just be doing it!
Takeaways
Ground yourself by giving your weight to the earth, without collapsing. Align your body by creating an upward lift through the entire torso.
Bring attention to your breathing, by deep breaths into your diaphragm as well as deep exhalations. Engage your body outward beyond your own kinesphere.
Ground, Grow, Breath and Engage! Enjoy!!