Surprise Yourself with a Nested Meditation

One of the more ingenious tools we’ve found for reframing a tough situation—or simply having fun with words—is a process that psychologist Kevin Anderson calls nested meditation. It began when Kevin’s father refused the five-times-daily dialysis that would prolong his life, and Kevin wept to his brother, “How can this suffering be?” His brother replied, “It’s a gift.” Kevin contemplated the answer and then wrote:

How can this suffering be?

How can this suffering be
a gift?

How can this suffering be
a gift?
Rip it open.

How can this suffering be
a gift?
Rip it open,
and the heart floods with compassion.

Kevin realized he was on to something: “A way to move, in a few words, from surface observations or feelings into deeper layers of experience.” So he came up with a strict format that he detailed in a collection of meditations called Divinity in Disguise, which won an S&H Best Spiritual Book Award.

Each stanza after the opening line begins with the words from the prior stanza in the exact order and with the same spellings and line breaks. Part of the magic feeling the nested form evokes is seeing the exact words take us to such different places as the next line is added.

There’s no need for every stanza to connect logically to the one before or after. Each stanza may be its own separate meditation, as is apparent if you pause for a breath or two between stanzas.

We are all one.

We are all one
step from the edge.

We are all one
step from the edge
of the annihilation.

We are all one
step from the edge
of the annihilation
of all hatred.

S.C.O.P.E. YOUR MEDITATION

S: Show up with a pad of paper and a pen or pencil.

C: Calm your body, mind, and spirit with a few minutes of deep breathing.

O: Observe your inner and outer world. Make note on paper of inner thoughts or feelings or outer perceptions (sights, sounds, smells). Let the flow be free.

P: Play with one or more of the lines you wrote down in the step above. See if you can add another line that shifts the meaning in a surprising way. If not, rework the first line or choose another one to play with. Keep playing your way from stanza to stanza.

E: Enjoy what shows up.