Connect With Your Witness Mind

A simple practice like BRFWA (breathe, relax, feel, watch, allow) can help you be present with your experience even as it gets intense.
By Angela Wilson

Use this technique on your yoga mat and in your daily life. Whenever your emotions threaten to derail you, these simple steps can bring you back into balance.

Breathe

• Notice the natural rise and fall of breath through your body.
• Begin to take several deep breaths.
• Let the breath call up your witness.

Relax

• Relax the body.
• Soften the belly, the brow muscle across the forehead, any tension in the jaw.
• Resist the impulse to control or push away the sensation.

Feel

• Actively move your awareness toward the sensations and feelings in your body.
• Stay with a feeling. How does it feel now…and now?
• Notice any judgment or evaluation of the feeling and let it go. Simply stay with the sensation.

Watch

• Witness your experience without judgment.
• Notice how the mind reacts to the experience.
• Let go of the story about this experience.
• Coach yourself to stay with your experience—breathe, relax, and feel.

Allow

• Allow your experience to unfold just as it is.
• Surrender to your experience without trying to understand it.
• Let your experience happen.
• Say yes to this moment.

Read Angela’s companion feature, Facing Emotional Turmoil.

Angela Wilson, MA, manager of evidence-based curriculum for the Institute for Extraordinary Living at Kripalu, holds a master’s degree in mental health counseling from Lesley University, is a 200-hour Kripalu Yoga teacher, and has completed 250 hours of ayurvedic training.