Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Processmind Earth-Spot Meditation
To locate a place on earth that deeply moves you, embody its felt quality (‘processmind’), and use that calm, spacious, ‘big’ state as a centering ground for facing an inner conflict or decision.
Processmind earth-spot in 6 lines: Relax and breathe slow. Let a place on earth that deeply moves you arise. Feel its quality, then let it into your body, breath, a small movement. Rest in that big, calm state. Bring your conflict or decision into it and let the spacious earth-state hold both sides at once. Carry the calm and any insight back into the day.
What it is
In ProcessMind (2010), Arnold Mindell proposed that each of us has a “processmind” — a deep, calm, organizing intelligence he describes as earth-based, associated with a particular place on earth that moves us (what shamans call a “power spot” or totem place).
The practice is to find that place, sink into the felt quality of it, embody that quality in your body and breath, and then face a current problem or inner conflict from that larger, calmer state — letting the “processmind” hold both sides of a conflict at once.
It’s a centering/decentering meditation that uses place-attachment and imagery to access a spacious self.
The Method
Mindell’s exercise (one of ~30 in ProcessMind), paraphrased:
- Relax and drop in. Sit comfortably, close your eyes, let the breath slow. Lower ordinary mental chatter.
- Find your earth spot. Let a place on earth that you love and that deeply moves you come to mind — a mountain, shoreline, desert, forest, a specific landscape (real or remembered). Don’t pick by logic; let the place that “tugs” you arise. This is your processmind’s home base.
- Sense its quality / feeling-tone. Feel what that place is like — its mood, atmosphere, energy. Vast and still? Wild and surging? Rooted and ancient? Let the felt quality become vivid, not just the picture.
- Embody it — let it move you. Let that quality come into your body and breath. Mindell often invites a small spontaneous movement, posture, or sound that expresses the place. Become the place; let it “move” you (literally and figuratively). Rest in this larger state — this is “feeling your processmind.”
- Bring in the problem or conflict. From inside this big, calm state, gently bring to mind a current inner conflict, decision, or pair of opposing parts of yourself.
- Let the processmind hold both sides. Rather than choosing or fighting, let the spacious earth-state contain both sides at once. Notice what shifts — often a third perspective, a softening, or a “deep democracy” between the parts emerges. Let the place’s wisdom suggest a direction.
- Carry it back. Open your eyes keeping a thread of the state. Note any insight, and how the place’s quality could inform your everyday choices. (Sourcing note: “processmind” as an earth-based field linked to a personal “power spot,” and the embody-the-place-then-face-the-conflict structure, are Mindell’s documented method in ProcessMind. Steps are faithful paraphrase, not direct quotation.)
Source & Lineage
Arnold Mindell (1940–) introduced “processmind” in ProcessMind: A User’s Guide to Connecting with the Mind of God (Quest Books, 2010), the late synthesis of his Process Work, drawing analogies to physics (field/total state) and to shamanic power spots, Taoism, and Jung’s Self.
It extends earlier Process Work ideas (deep democracy, the “big self,” sentient awareness) into a place-based centering practice. Related lineage: indigenous land-connection practices and Jungian active imagination.
The Traditions' versions
Shamanic “power spot” / place of power — drawing strength from a sacred or personally charged place; Mindell’s explicit source.
- Safe-place / inner-sanctuary imagery (clinical) — visualizing a calming place to regulate state; the evidence-based cousin.
- Loving-kindness / spacious-awareness meditation — accessing a larger, kinder vantage on one’s struggles.
- Internal Family Systems “Self” energy — facing inner parts from a calm, centered Self that holds all of them.
- Jungian active imagination — engaging an inner figure/landscape that carries wisdom.
Common refinements
Choosing the place by logic. Let the place that moves you arise; don’t reason your way to a “nice” spot.
- Staying in the head. The power is in the felt quality and in letting it into the body/breath — picture alone is weak.
- Skipping the embodiment. A small movement, posture, or sound makes the state far more accessible.
- Trying to “solve” the conflict. The move is to hold both sides in the larger state, not to force a decision; resolution tends to emerge.
- Expecting a mystical event. Treat it as a centering practice; the calm and the shift in perspective are the real, repeatable payoff.