GPS Guide: Jon Wortmann's 3 Centering Practices

Focus: Recenter With These Easy, Energizing Practices (PHOTOS)

The stress and strain of constantly being connected can sometimes take your life -- and your well-being -- off course. GPS For The Soul can help you find your way back to balance.

GPS Guides are our way of showing you what has relieved others' stress in the hopes that you will be able to identify solutions that work for you. We all have de-stressing "secret weapons" that we pull out in times of tension or anxiety, whether they be photos that relax us or make us smile, songs that bring us back to our heart, quotes or poems that create a feeling of harmony, or meditative exercises that help us find a sense of silence and calm. We encourage you to look at the GPS Guide below, visit our other GPS Guides here, and share with us your own personal tips for finding peace, balance and tranquility.

Three Steps To Finding Your Center:
1. Listen Deeply
  • Close your eyes
  • Focus on whatever you hear. Savor the hum, the buzz, the tinnitus of silence: the sound you miss when you spin and worry.
  • Listen as long as you need to be where you are.
2. Half Smile
  • Take two slow breaths.
  • Half smile (not so big that your mouth opens, but enough that your facial muscles firm up).
  • Feel the pleasure of being in your own skin.
3. Three Sips
  • Pour your favorite beverage -- a sweet lemonade, a dark, rich coffee, or a glass of wine that tastes like cocoa and smoke.
  • Take the first sip. Swallow slowly. Let the flavor linger. Wait until the taste fades to sip again.
  • Take the second sip. Hold it in your mouth for a few seconds. After swallowing, wait until the taste fades to sip again.
  • Close your eyes and take a final sip. Don’t open them until you’re feeling like yourself again.

Jon Wortmann's GPS Guide

Jon Wortmann is an executive and mental coach, speaker, and the author of "Hijacked by Your Brain: How to Free Yourself When Stress Takes Over" (Sourcebooks, 2013). A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, he works with educational, non-profit, start-up, and Fortune 100 organizations like Time Warner, ING, and Habitat for Humanity. His talks and workshops teach the strategic communication, mental focus, and stress management skills essential to healthy teams and lives. He is assistant golf coach at the University of Connecticut and his previous books include "Mastering Communication at Work: How to Lead, Manage, and Influence" and "The Three Commitments of Leadership" (McGraw-Hill).

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