The Ten Core Practices of Inner Stability

How to embody those capacities through daily life (Part III of III).

The Ten Core Practices of Inner Stability

The daily training that builds the capacity to stay steady in a world that keeps moving.

Everything we call wisdom comes down to practice.
Not knowledge. Not inspiration. Practice.

These ten practices train the five bodies, physical, energetic, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, to return to stability, clarity, and presence no matter what life throws at us.

Each practice is simple, not easy.
And each one works whether life offer break-up or break-down.

“No one can control the storms. But everyone can learn to navigate.”

---

PHYSICAL BODY

1. Core Strength & Structural Integrity

Principle: Because a stable spine is a stable life, we start here with exercises that build core strength. When the body holds itself, the mind and emotions can relax.

Concrete practices:

• Pilates

• Functional strength training

• Low-weight spinal mobility routines

• Hatha Yoga Asana

• Qi Gong standing postures

• Physical therapy-style core work

• Walking uphill

2. Recovery Cycles / Autonomic Oscillation

Principle: Life is alternating stress & rest. Strength comes from oscillation and our ability to move between the two states.

Concrete practices:

• 3–5 minute NSDR (non-sleep deep rest) microdrops

• Yoga Nidra

• Contrast: cold plunge → sauna → cold plunge

• Cyclic training (intensity → integration)

• Post-work decompression rituals (lying on back, legs elevated)

• Sleep hygiene (consistent sleep window, 90-min wind-down)

• Morning light exposure (dopamine + circadian anchoring)

---

ENERGETIC BODY

3. Breath Conditioning

Principle: The breath sets the emotional tone of our experience.

Concrete practices:

• CO₂ tolerance tables (freediving style)

• Box breathing (4–4–4–4)

• 4–7–8 breathing (parasympathetic)

• Wim Hof (oxygenation + stress tolerance)

• Somatic breath awareness (diaphragm softening)

• Long exhale breathing (2x exhale vs inhale)

• Kapalabhati (clearing pump)

• Alternate nostril (Nadi Shodhana)

4. Energy Management / Kundalini Literacy

Principle: Subtle-body awareness prevents overwhelm; energy moves or stagnates, we can learn to move energy at will.

Concrete practices:

• Kundalini kriyas (e.g., spinal flex, breath of fire with arm positions)

• Subtle-body scanning (chakras, meridians, nadis)

• Microcosmic orbit (Taoist energy circulation)

• Shakti meditations (feeling charge rise/fall)

• Grounding visualizations (roots down, light through spine)

• Shaking practices (trauma release → TRE or organic shaking)

• Somatic movement improvisation (free flow to release stuck energy)

• Inner channel breathing (up spine, down front body)

---

EMOTIONAL BODY

5. Emotional Literacy

Principle: Feel, name, metabolize emotions. Emotions are information, we can learn to understand and use for our benefit.

Concrete practices:

• Naming emotions (Plutchik wheel as tool) or NVC Emotions List

• “Where is it in my body?” exercises, learning to locate emotions.

• Journaling emotional triggers

• The “RAIN” method (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture)

• Inner child dialogues

• Boundary-check self-inquiry (“What am I saying yes to that is a no?”)

6. Emotional Clearing / Expression

Principle: Emotions unexpressed become symptoms. E-motion, energy in motion, when stuck in the system, accumulated emotions create tension. Release emotions is key.

Concrete practices:

• Somatic shaking (TRE or intuitive)

• Sound release (toning, humming, vocalizing)

• Punching pillows (controlled expression)

• Crying rituals (allowing tears, timed containers)

• Grief movement (swaying, rocking)

• Ecstatic dance, contact improvisation, 5 rhythms, CBC

• Breath + sound catharsis (Holotropic, Shamanic)

---

MENTAL BODY

7. Attention Training

Principle: Where attention goes, energy / life goes.

Concrete practices:

• Mono-tasking sessions (10–20 minutes)

• Meditation (Zen, Vipassana …)

• Eyes-open presence practice (“soft-gaze meditation”)

• Digital minimalism (notification removal, set windows)

• Pomodoro focus cycles

• Reading-longform (1 chapter, no interruptions)

8. Discernment Rituals

Principle: Clarity in motion. Decide what matters, moment to moment.

Concrete practices:

• Morning review: “What strengthens me? What drains me?”

• Evening review: “Where was I in alignment today?”

• Weekly “Cut the Cord” practice (ending energy leaks)

• Values check (revisit your 3 core values regularly)

• Decision by body check (tight or open?), muscle testing

• Intention setting at first light

---

SPIRITUAL BODY

9. Surrender Practices

Principle: Cooperation with reality.

Concrete practices:

• Cold exposure (train non-resistance)

• Silence days (partial or full)

• Darkness sit (unknown, trust practice)

• Prayer (your own lineage, non-dogmatic)

• Contemplation in nature (mountain, river, desert)

• Breath-holds until urge wave passes

• Offering rituals (“I release control…”)

10. Meaning-Making Rituals

Principle: Give life a place to land.

Concrete practices:

• Journaling the day (3 sentences)

• “Thread finding” (What was the theme today?)

• Gratitude reflections (3 things, but sincere, feeling it)

• Symbol work (tarot as reflection, not prediction)

• Spending time without the phone

• Integrative meditation (retrospective clarity)

• Story reframing practice (“What story was I living today?”)

---

The Real Training Begins Here

These ten practices are not “spiritual habits” or “morning routines.”
They are a way of living inside the body, the breath, the present moment.
They build clarity, stability, and trust, the inner compass no external chaos can steal.

This is the work I do.
Helping people cultivate these inner capacities so we can start dancing with life instead of resisting it.

“My work is to help people find stability and clarity in the chaos of life, to meet every wave without losing the shore within.”

---

The Invitation

This is the third of a three-part exploration of “What It Means to Stay Human in Uncertain Times”

• Part I: The Ten Challenges Money Won’t Protect You From. No one escapes the storms of life; the question is how to navigate through them.

• Part II: The Ten Essential Skills for a Resilient, Conscious Life, the inner capacities that help us meet these challenges with grace.

• Part III: The Ten Core Practices of Inner Stability. How to embody those capacities so they become our natural way of being.

Because life isn’t something to master, to hack or to figure out.
It’s something to meet, awake, grounded, and free.

---

• Subscribe — or even better, become a paid subscriber. Once I reach 100 paid subscribers (I’m already halfway there!), Substack will add a tag that could help me gain more visibility.

• Engage (free and powerful!) — Visit the website, find the post you enjoyed most, and leave a comment at the end. Extra karma point if your comment is impertinent, sassy or even contains a question!

---

PS: “Change Your Story, Change The World” is a storytelling endeavor that looks deeply into the psyche that creates the stories we live by—with the intention to help us shape better stories, both personally and collectively.

Because the stories we tell are the reality we live.