The Deepening Process

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Deepening Process is a set of techniques for people experiencing persistent equanimity - a stable sense of fundamental wellbeing that's always accessible when you look for it. These techniques work together to help you explore and stabilize deeper aspects of this experience safely and reliably.

Core Process

Sinking In

Sinking In is about connecting with your existing experience of fundamental wellbeing. Rather than trying to create or achieve anything new, you're simply accessing what's already present.

Steps:

  1. Get comfortable while staying alert
  2. Take a few deep breaths to settle
  3. Ask yourself: "Do I, right now, feel fundamentally okay?"
  4. Notice where and how that "yes" shows up
  5. Rest your attention gently on that experience
  6. Allow each breath to take you deeper into it
  7. Let the experience gradually touch every part of your being

What to watch for:

  • No need for the experience to show up in any particular way
  • If distractions arise, just note them and return to the experience
  • Remember you're accessing something that's already present
  • Let go of any labels or judgments about the experience

Resources:

Guided Sinking In audio

Dr. Jeffery Martin's explanation of Sinking In

Shifting

After settling into your baseline experience through Sinking In, Shifting guides you to discover and stabilize deeper aspects of fundamental wellbeing. Here's a script for this technique:

(pause ~15-30 seconds between each step)

  1. As you continue to breathe, allow yourself to gently begin to lower down through the experience, letting each breath take you deeper and deeper, lower and lower, downwards through the experience. All without any effort on your part, just watching and observing as that lowering happens.

  2. As you continue to lower gently downwards through the experience, allow yourself to notice what shows up beneath the current experience. Maybe there's a stillness beneath the stillness, or it opens up subtly, or maybe it's something completely different and unexpected. Whatever it is, and however it happens to arise, just allow yourself to notice that without any judgment, and gently connect with that experience.

  3. With every breath, allow any new qualities or new experience to gradually take up more and more of your awareness. And allow the previous experience to begin to fade gently into the background.

  4. As you continue to breathe and gently lower through the experiences, allow any new qualities to continue to grow until eventually they take up all of your awareness, as the previous experience fades completely out of view. All without any effort on your part, just observing as this unfolds.

  5. With every breath, allow your system to settle more and more into this experience, to stabilize deeper and deeper into this new perspective. Allow yourself to gradually and gently come to rest here, until being here is just as easy and effortless as breathing.

  6. Once you feel settled and stable, you can gently wiggle your fingers and toes, allowing the movement to come from a place of this experience.

  7. If it feels right, and once you feel ready, you can gradually and gently open your eyes, inviting the experience into everything you see, into everything you hear, and inviting it into all of your senses.

  8. If you can answer without pulling you out of it too much: do you notice anything in particular now? Or would you like some more directed questions?

Note: At step 2, the suggestions can vary. Some other examples:

  • Maybe there's a more subtle version of your current experience
  • Maybe some bodily sensations arise or disappear
  • Maybe it's just "this," with no particular qualities to it

After this process, continue with Inquiring for 5-15 minutes, then return to an abbreviated Sinking In before beginning another cycle of Shifting.

Inquiring

Inquiring helps stabilize shifts by bringing conscious awareness to changes in your experience. Rather than just having a deep experience that fades when you return to daily life, this systematic exploration helps integrate the new perspective more fully.

What it is:
A gentle investigation of how your experience has changed, exploring various aspects like cognition, emotions, sense of self, relationship with time, and bodily sensations.

When to use it:

  • After completing a Shifting cycle
  • When you feel stable in the new experience
  • Before beginning another round of Shifting

How it works:
Through careful questioning, you're guided to notice specific aspects of your experience that may have changed. This engagement helps to:

  • Stabilize the shift by bringing awareness to it
  • Ground the experience through verbal articulation
  • Create a clearer understanding of your current perspective
  • Support integration into daily life

For the specific questions used in this process, see the Inquiry Questions page.

Supporting Techniques

Appreciating

Appreciating helps counteract any sense of effort or striving that might arise during the process. It's specifically focused on recognizing the gift of already having access to fundamental wellbeing, rather than seeking more or better experiences.

What it is:
A gentle orientation toward gratitude for your existing experience of fundamental wellbeing.

When to use it:

  • When you notice yourself efforting or striving
  • If frustration arises about "progress"
  • As an optional addition to Sinking In
  • Any time you feel stuck in wanting more

Key points:

  • You don't need to actually feel gratitude
  • Simply orienting yourself toward appreciation is enough
  • Focus specifically on appreciating your current access to fundamental wellbeing
  • Let go of any need for the experience to be different or deeper

Easing

Easing helps when resistance, contractions, or distractions arise that seem to pull you away from your underlying experience of fundamental wellbeing. Rather than fighting against these experiences, you learn to work with them skillfully.

What it is:
A technique for working with anything that seems to interrupt or compete with your access to fundamental wellbeing.

When to use it:

  • When resistance or contractions arise
  • If you're distracted by thoughts, emotions, or sensations
  • Any time you feel pulled away from the underlying experience

How it works:

  1. First stabilize in ease, peace, or fundamental okayness
  2. Then either:
    • Lean into the resistance/contraction, or
    • Pull it into your field of peace/ease
  3. Sit with whatever arises for a minute or two
  4. Notice if anything has changed
  5. If still being pulled away from the underlying experience, repeat the process

Important notes:

  • This is a normal part of the process - nearly everyone encounters experiences that require dedicated time with this technique
  • Some sessions may need to focus entirely on Easing, with no Shifting
  • There's no rush - take as much time as needed with each round
  • Continue until the resistance either clears away or becomes part of the underlying peace/ease
  • This might take multiple sessions - that's completely normal and nothing to worry about

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. When sharing or adapting this material, please include appropriate attribution with: 'The Deepening Process by Rastal (consciouscuriosity.cc/deepening), licensed under CC-BY 4.0.'