Attunement is a powerful practice of deep, active listening combined with a profound connection to both yourself and others. It involves being fully present with your own internal state—your thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations—while simultaneously tuning into another person on multiple levels, perceiving what lies beneath their words.

Understanding Attunement

• Stay Present with Yourself: A core aspect of attunement is to remain connected to your own experience—your body, heart, and mind—without abandoning yourself to solely focus on the other person. This grounded presence is key.

• Listen Holistically: Attunement goes beyond surface-level conversation. It involves sensing the emotional qualities, physical cues, and underlying needs of another, perceiving their whole being from your own sense of wholeness.

• Recognize Disconnection: Leaning too far forward (losing self) or too far back (creating distance) can be signs of a lack of full attunement. True attunement is a balanced, two-way connection.

• Intuition's Foundation: Developing attunement to yourself sharpens your intuition, allowing you to access deeper insights.

The Value and Impact of Attunement

Integrating attunement into your life offers significant benefits:

• Enhanced Relationships: It deepens understanding and connection with partners, children, friends, and colleagues. Janine shared how attuning to underlying needs—like a child's distress after a medical procedure or a pet's fear—can resolve issues quickly and foster connection.

• Emotional Regulation: Attunement can calm and stabilize nervous systems—both your own and others'. Even in conflict, staying attuned can de-escalate tension by acknowledging underlying emotions, rather than just reacting to surface behavior.

• Effective Problem-Solving: In professional settings, teams that practice attunement can better understand each other's perspectives and challenges, leading to more collaborative and effective solutions, as illustrated by Janine's example of design and engineering teams.

• Increased Self-Awareness: Regular self-attunement reduces internal mental "chatter," allowing you to hear your quieter, authentic wants and needs. This clarity can lead to more confidence and a greater sense of aliveness.

• Authentic Goal Alignment: By listening to your inner self, attunement can help refine or even change your goals to be more genuinely fulfilling. While this deep self-honesty can feel initially unsettling as it might lead to life changes, it also holds the promise of a more authentic path.

• Deeper Authenticity: Being attuned to, or attuning to others, fosters a connection that goes beyond ego and superficial identities. It invites vulnerability and allows for genuine encounters, which can be both profoundly comforting and initially a bit scary.

Cultivating Attunement in Your Life

Developing attunement is an ongoing practice:

• Begin with Yourself: Regularly check in with your body. Notice your breath, physical sensations, and emotions. This self-connection is the foundation. Even when moving quickly, self-attunement can enhance performance and safety.

• Practice Daily: Integrate moments of attunement into everyday activities—while driving, working, or even scrolling online. These small moments build the "muscle."

• Use Simple Prompts: In interactions, especially challenging ones, internally ask:

  1. "What do I need right now?" (to center and regulate yourself first).

  2. "What might they need right now?" (to extend empathy and understanding).

• Model the Behavior: The most effective way to experience more attunement from others is to consistently offer it yourself. Your genuine presence can create a resonance that invites others to connect similarly.

• Navigate Challenges:

  • Many were not taught attunement, so it's like learning a new language. Be patient.

  • Initial self-attunement might surface unprocessed emotions like grief. Allow this "housekeeping" as part of the journey to deeper self-connection.

  • The practice can gently dissolve rigid ideas about who you are, opening you to a more fluid and interconnected sense of self and others.

A Simple Exercise to Begin Self-Attunement

Janine offers a simple way to start practicing attunement to yourself:

1. Attune to Your Hands: Bring your palms together. Close your eyes and focus all your attention on the sensation of your hands meeting. Notice their texture, temperature, and any subtle feelings.

2. Attune to Your Breath: Gently shift your attention to your breath. Notice the natural rhythm without trying to change it. Observe where you feel the breath in your body—your chest, abdomen—and the temperature of the air as it enters and leaves.

3. Attune to Your Heart: Bring your awareness to your chest area, your heart center. You can place a hand over your heart. Notice your breath moving here. Be open to any physical sensations (like your heartbeat or muscular tension) or any emotions that may arise. Simply be present with whatever you find, with gentle acceptance.

This practice, even for a few minutes, can help you feel more grounded, calm, and connected to your inner world, which is the starting point for attuning effectively with others.