Centering yourself is allowing yourself to get in touch with and be open to your True Self. It is allowing yourself to realize that you are perfect just as you are, even with your imperfections, because those feelings and desires are also a part of who you really are. If you accept your imperfections and integrate them into your way of thinking and feeling about yourself, you will obtain peace of mind, and you will be centered.
Facilitator Notes for Session 6: Centering
PREPARATION
Read the Session 6 Course Materials, review the exercises listed in the chapter and try them at least once yourself prior to facilitating the group.
Practice presenting the materials in this session alone before facilitating the session so you will have a good idea of how long it will take you, given your own speaking and presentation style, to go over critical materials. Adjust by adding or leaving out materials as needed, but do not cut key concepts or Priority 1 exercises and activities if at all possible.
KEY CONCEPTS
(Key concepts are those concepts that are foundational principles of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy, and must be covered in the session): Centering; Ideal Self; Perceived Self; Acceptance vs. Change; the Ogham; your birth tree; Tree of Life Meditation
SECONDARY CONCEPTS
(Secondary concepts are those concepts that are not foundational, but that are important if the facilitator can work them into the session – otherwise students will read about them on their own in the reading assignments): Celtic Tree Horoscope; core values; personal truths; the Tree at the Center
INTRODUCTION
As an icebreaker exercise, ask participants to discuss their experiences with the Experiential Avoidance exercise from last week’s homework. In this activity, students were asked to select from a list of things they would like to be rid of. They were then asked to pick one thing in particular they’d like to be rid of, and to take it to their own personal sacred space and meditate on it by simply being with it, without trying to get rid of it.
You may ask them the following questions:
- Did simply sitting with the thing in the moment make your experience of it worse, better, or about the same?
- If sitting with it made your experience of it worse, were you ruminating on it (i.e., catastrophizing or musturbating)?
- If sitting with it in the moment in being mode made your experience of it better, what did you notice about yourself and your ability to engage in being mode in this way?
- Did being in your own sacred space add anything to your experience in the moment?
Use student answers to these questions as an opportunity to segue into the concept of “centering,” which is the process of allowing yourself to get in touch with and be open to your True Self. Link the concept of Experiential Avoidance to centering by noting that if you are trying to avoid experiences, you are trying to avoid parts of your True Self, and no matter where you go, you cannot run away from yourself. By learning to center, you are able to allow yourself to experience the fullness of being that is your True Self.
If homework was assigned (e.g. exercises from the workbook that there wasn’t time for at the previous session), ask if there were any questions about the materials and have students share their experiences in completing the activities. Try not to spend more than ten minutes or so on this portion of the session.
SESSION 6 OUTLINE
6.0 Finding Your Center
Centering is the process of getting in touch with your True Self in the present moment by letting go of thoughts about the past and the future and focusing on living in the now. Introduce this week’s material by defining “centering.”
6.1 Who are You?
Discuss the idea of the Ideal Self vs. the Perceived Self. You might ask students to describe how far apart the two are for them. You could then follow up by asking what would move each person’s Ideal Self and Perceived Self closer together.
Next, discuss the idea of acceptance vs. change. Link it to the idea that we can only change ourselves. We cannot change others. We can ask others to change, but if they refuse to do so, then we have to accept that it is beyond our capacity to change others. Either that, or we must accept that this is not a relationship we need to be in. Sometimes when I discuss this idea, there are students who insist on trying to get other people to change. In such a case, it is usually because the student is using the idea of forcing others to change as a defense mechanism to avoid the responsibility of changing themselves. Either that, or they are clinging to a relationship that they probably shouldn’t be in. In extreme cases, such as abusive relationships, “acceptance” doesn’t mean accepting the abuse. It means accepting that this is a relationship that must end in order to avoid being hurt any further.
The ultimate in acceptance is to be able to accept one’s Perceived Self as easily and as readily as one can accept their Ideal Self. When the two are one and the same, the ultimate acceptance has been achieved.
6.2 Which Tree are You?
In this and the following sections, trees are used as metaphors for personality traits and characteristics. This is done by introducing the Celtic Tree Horoscope devised by Robert Graves. The point here is not whether the personality traits described under each birth tree is accurate. The information is used metaphorically as a way for each student to identify their own strengths and needs.
6.3 The Celtic Tree Alphabet
The dates listed for each Celtic Tree Month are approximate and based on 2016. Since this exercise is metaphorical in nature, it is not necessary to be highly accurate; however, if you are interested in how these months are calculated, the method is as follows:
To find your actual Celtic Tree Horoscope birth month, find the year in which you were born, then find the winter solstice immediately preceding the date of your birth. Next, count up in 28-day increments. The first 28 days immediately following the winter solstice would be the Birch Month, the second 28 days would be the Rowan Month, and so forth. The remaining day after the Elder Month (or the remaining two days in case of a Leap Year) are dedicated to mistletoe, and are not included in this horoscope).
6.4 The Celtic Tree Horoscope
Have each person identify their birth month using the approximate dates in the previous section. Now have each person read their horoscope and see how much it reflects their own true nature. If there are any in the class who don’t think that their birth tree fits them, have them select another tree that is more appropriate to their own personality traits and characteristics.
6.5 Your Birth Tree
If you are fortunate enough to have an outdoor workshop space with a wide variety of trees and plants, you may wish to have your students see if they can identify their birth trees on the site. If not, you may just have a tree or two on the site and just have students describe its characteristics. For example, oaks are strong, willows are supple, blackthorns are prickly, and so on. Link these characteristics to human traits. If you wish, you may ask volunteers to state which trees or plants on your own workshop site that they might identify with.
6.6 Tree of Life Meditation
Conduct the Tree of Life meditation by either reading the script out of the book or by writing your own script. If writing your own script, concentrate on the ideas of grounding, centering, and drawing energy from the earth. Practice the meditation on your own before conducting it in a class, being mindful of the amount of time available to conduct it. Try to keep it under ten minutes if possible.
EXERCISE: Reflections on the Tree of Life Meditation
After facilitating the meditation with your students, have them complete the questions on the Reflections on the Tree of Life Meditation worksheet. Facilitate a discussion on student responses to the questions on the worksheet, keeping the focus on the concept of centering.
6.7 Getting to Know Your Tree
The exercises in this section help with centering by spending time with a tree or other plant in nature. You can have your students each select a tree or other plant with which to spend a few minutes. This plant doesn’t have to be their birth tree. The idea here is to let them experience centering by exploring the plant with all of their senses in the present moment. By focusing on their senses, they leave thinking mode and enter into sensing mode. This allows them to more easily leave doing mode and enter into being mode. Centering is ultimately being in the moment with our own True Selves.
After letting your class spend some time exploring a tree or other plant with all of their senses, ask them what the experience was like. Do they feel calmer and more centered? Why?
6.8 The Tree at the Center
I like to have a student read the material in this section out loud. Alternately you may read it aloud yourself. After doing so, ask your students to reflect on their own sense of oneness with all of life. Did the material help them to feel more at peace with all of existence? If so, why? If not, what would it take to help them to center and connect with all life?
6.9 Lessons from the Tree of Life
In this final section for Session 6, trees are used as a metaphor for being centered. Trees are rooted in the ground while reaching for the stars. Ask your students how they could learn from trees how to center themselves in their daily lives.
HOMEWORK
Have students read the Session 7 materials prior to the next session; have them complete any exercises from Session 6 that weren’t covered in the session itself; ask them to bring any questions about the materials or the exercises to the next session.
DISCUSSION PERIOD
At the one-hour mark, invite group participants to stay for the discussion period. Point out that the thirty-minute post-session discussion period is optional. Note who stays for the discussion, and who leaves. Work at the next session to more actively engage those who leave.
