Start · The foundation
Solid ground instead of a swamp
Please note: the workshops are currently held in German only. I plan to offer workshops in English at a later date. If you would like to learn this and organize a workshop in English yourself, you are welcome to send an inquiry to [email protected].
Stability is what holds under strain. Why both workshops begin with a firm footing, why it can hardly be practiced directly, and why it comes before perception.
The foundation · Stability
Stable doesn’t mean that nothing affects you any more. It means that you stay standing in the first moment.
Both workshops build on this ground. Here you will find what I mean by stability, why it can hardly be practiced directly, and why it comes before perception.
What I mean by stability
You know how it is: something happens that you didn’t expect. In the first moment it shows where you stand.
Rico’s words
Being stable means that no matter what happens, you stay calm in the first moment, then you think it over or else behave instinctively in the right way, because you have stable ground underneath you.
Rico Brunner
There are three things in this: ground that carries you. Calm in the first moment. And behavior that fits afterwards, thought through or from the gut. None of these is a feeling. They are conditions.
I like to describe this with the ground under your feet.
In the swamp
Whatever happens, you wobble. Every step gives way a little, and every disturbance throws you off balance.
On solid ground
Whatever happens, you have a firm footing. The disturbance is there, but it doesn’t pull the ground out from under you.
Stable also doesn’t mean that the weather is always fine. In my model, a stable part of the energy field stands firm in rain, in strong wind and even in a storm. Strain is part of it. Stability is what holds under it.
Why it can’t be practiced directly
The question I am asked most often is: how do I become more stable? My first answer is a limitation. Stability itself is very hard to work on.
This has to do with the mechanics. An energy field doesn’t strive for stability. It strives for calm. If something brings in unrest, the field responds with a counter-movement and finds its way back to calm. If this succeeds again and again, stability forms. It is a side effect and not a goal that could be steered towards.
So what can be done is something else: giving the field room in which stability can form. Less of what constantly puts you under pressure. More moments in which you are with yourself. The simplest form of this is the basic exercise under Being with yourself.
Why I don’t start with what overwhelms you
The obvious thing would be to tackle the overwhelm head-on. I see it the other way round.
Rico’s words
If I am 90% overwhelmed, then I still have 10% stability.
Rico Brunner
That is the part I turn my attention to. Wherever attention goes, something gains weight. If you are constantly occupied with the overwhelm, you give it even more weight. If you occupy yourself with what carries you, you give that part the weight.
If you can’t sense anything that carries you
If you are in the middle of a difficult time, you often don’t sense this carrying part at all. Then a different question helps.
Rico’s words
If I step out of this overwhelm and concentrate on, when I don’t sense what makes me strong, then I sense what does me good.
Rico Brunner
The activity itself is secondary. How much patience it takes is different for everyone and can’t be planned.
Why the footing comes before perception
Many people who come to my workshops perceive a lot. But perceiving more is not automatically better. If you sense more than you can process, you are overwhelmed.
Rico’s words
I have an open perception. Everything comes in. I can’t differentiate. It’s as if I took the door off its hinges at home. Anyone can come in.
Rico Brunner, Workshop
Without a firm footing, perception grows bigger, but the ability to tell things apart does not get better. So the strength doesn’t lie in perception. It lies in being with yourself. The more you are with yourself, the clearer what you perceive becomes.
In the workshop I put two people side by side to illustrate this. Both practice for two years. One practices only their perception, the other only their footing.
Rico’s words
Then the one who has only worked on their stability can perceive better after two years. Because through greater stability, a greater foundation, they can sense more things and also process them.
Rico Brunner, Workshop
That is why “Learning to Heal” begins with the basic exercise, and perceiving is only added later. In “Learning to Perceive”, after every exercise in pairs you spend two minutes with yourself again before the next one begins.
A different beginning for each situation
If you are going through a difficult time right now, it begins with small moments in which nothing overwhelms you. No one asks more of you here.
If you have found your ground and want to keep it, everyday life shows you where you stand. Most clearly in the first moment, when something unexpected comes.
If you want to go further, in perception or in working with other people, a firm footing is the precondition for everything else. More on this under If you want to work with people yourself.
Often a person is in several situations at once: different in the family than at work, different in a relationship than when alone.
Questions that come up often
- Can I work directly on my stability?
- Only with difficulty. Stability forms when your field finds its way back to calm again and again. You can give it room: with the basic exercise under Being with yourself and with moments that do you good.
- Does stable mean nothing will knock me over any more?
- No. Stable means staying calm in the first moment and then acting in a fitting way. Rain, wind and storms still happen.
- Can I sense how stable I am?
- Mostly hardly at all. What is normal for you doesn’t stand out to you. How you can still see where you stand is described under Keep practicing at home.
- Do I already have to be stable to come to a workshop?
- No. Both workshops begin exactly here. What matters more is that you see your own limits. More under Seeing your own limit.
- Why shouldn’t I occupy myself with what overwhelms me?
- Because that gives it more weight. Looking at what carries you gives that part the weight.
How to continue
The exercise both workshops begin with is described under Being with yourself. Why perceiving and telling apart can be learned is described under A craft, not a gift.