2. The Practice – Unconditional Belonging and Collective Perspectives

A Guided Group Meditation and Contemplation

I did Zen meditation for ten years and some years of TM, Transcendental Meditation, in my teens. You sit in silence, letting go of thoughts, stepping away from the suffering of the world. You look inward, hoping to become enlightened, and you only share your experiences with your teacher. The Wider Embraces practice is, in most aspects, the opposite. We look outward and use our thoughts to navigate the subjective side of the objective world. We continually share our experiences, and we don’t aim at enlightenment. What we have in common is the unconditional perspective in the timeless Now.

The Wider Embraces is about our shared reality; it’s not about my personal inner world.

Online or in person with an experienced guide

During a session, the guide leads the group through a set of wider Embraces, evoking the physical, biological, and cultural foundations of each Embrace. Pointing to the field aspect, sensing the Embrace, and eventually taking the Embrace as our first-person perspective. Throughout the process, the guide invites participants to share their experiences. This enhances the shared experience, enabling the guide to support participants and lead the process. You are the one making the insights; there are no right or wrong experiences.
It may feel strange at first to talk during a meditation, but it’s very natural once you start to do it. If you struggled with keeping your focus during meditation, who hasn’t? It’s so much easier to keep your focus in a communicating group. We hold each other, and our Embraces hold us.

Like a Guided Trip in the Forest

A Wider Embraces session is like going on a guided tour in the forest. The guide knows the paths and can point out the rocks, plants and animals. However, you will have a unique experience of the trip due to your background and personal perspective. You sense and look around, share your observations with the others, and draw your own conclusions.

What makes a Wider Embraces session so effortless is that we don’t try to accomplish anything, other than enjoying the ride and being with what is already there, unconditionally. And like being in a forest, being with our wider Embraces is healing. Forest bathing, Embrace bathing.

Living Your Wider Embraces

Our experiences from the sessions will influence how we see ourselves, and our relationships and actions will change over time. After being guided for a while, it’s time to also move around on your own in all your wider Embraces as a natural part of your life. Waking up in the morning and briefly embracing myself, letting every part of me slide into its optimal place, effortlessly. In a meeting, sensing into the Embrace of the group, and contributing from that wider perspective. Pausing in the afternoon and changing my perspective to the Embrace of planet Earth, leaning inwards, holding and aligning everything that is me, unconditionally.

Letting these embraced perspectives guide me in navigating the world. Becoming them.

Wheel of WE – Seven Perspectives

The Wheel of WE emerged after many years of exploring the territory and developing the method. We use it as a map to navigate the various perspectives that the Wider Embraces method offers. Each step provides a unique experience and often surprising insights.


The sections of this book are structured after the Wheel of WE.

Steps 1, 2, 3 – Section B: You Belonging, Unconditionally
In Section B, we look at parts, systems and belonging. The first two steps are based on our everyday concrete reality and the scientific worldview. We become aware of what we consist of and what we belong to, as physical, biological and cultural beings. We recognise how our world is made up of nested layers, forming a complex web.

At the third step, we sense the subtle quality of everything we belong to, the morphic fields, which we refer to as Embraces. We rest in our wider Embraces, sensing how we are held, unconditionally in the timeless Now. No separation.

Steps 4, 5, 6 – Section C: Being All My Wider Perspectives
In Section C, we explore how we can take our wider Embraces as our first-person perspectives. It’s a momentary and distinct shift of identity, from being a person looking out on the world, you are now a non-local part of the world looking at itself. If you didn’t get that, don’t worry, we will review it thoroughly. However, to truly understand it, you have to experience it.

From this embraced perspective, we can widen our perspective and become permeable to all our wider Embraces, and we can lean inward, holding and aligning all our parts, effortlessly.

Step 7 – Sections D, E, F: About Forgiveness, Separation, Alignment and Being Planet Earth
At the final step, step 7, we integrate all our experiences and insights from the previous six steps and apply them in our lives. Writing this book is one way I process the insights I’ve gained from my thousands of Wider Embraces sessions. Sessions that made me reevaluate almost everything I believed. So in sections D, E and F, I’m arguing for what I see as crucial for us humans to do to survive in the long run on this amazing planet.

Reading is Not Enough to Get It – Sorry!

If you practice something like playing an instrument, dancing, doing martial arts, or painting, you know that reading and understanding are not enough, not at all. I became very aware of this during my twenty years of intense Aikido practice. There is no way you can learn Aikido, not even the basics, through reading; it’s about showing up in the dojo day after day after day. And the more you train, the more there is to explore, more insights, more questions, and more fun.

After practising the Wider Embraces for thirteen years, I know it has the same type of depth and width. The more I practice, the more there is to explore, and new, surprising insights continue to emerge. So, to experience your wider Embraces, this book is not sufficient; you must get to know your Wider Embraces firsthand. However, this book is a great starting point, and to understand the ideas that emerged from it, you don’t need to do the practice.

What is an Embrace?

After several years of exploring our wider Embraces, a formal definition took form. It was a lot of testing and experimenting at first. Someone came up with an idea, and we tried it out. Is there an Embrace of me and my cat? Yes, there is. Is there an Embrace of all women and one of all men? No, we couldn’t find it. Men and women are types inside the Embrace of Humanity. However, we can, of course, form an organisation of only women, and then the organisation has an Embrace. Can I sense the Embrace of the UK? No, being a Swede, I’m not part of that Embrace. However, when I travel there, I can sense the physical Embrace of the British Islands.

It was a beautiful and creative time, exploring the wider Embraces together with my lovely friends. We are still refining the method, but the main structure is set.

The Formal Definition of the Wider Embraces

Wider Embraces is a method to evoke specific types of perspectives and experiences; this doesn’t mean that other perspectives and experiences are not valid and genuine; they are just not a part of the Wider Embraces.
This checklist defines both what Wider Embraces evokes and what it does not:

• The Wider Embraces is founded on the question, “Who is Embracing?”.
• An Embrace can be defined by physical, biological or cultural boundaries or a combination of two or three.
• Boundaries are formed by common history (a species, an organisation, a family) and/or by present location (gathering, ecosystem, everyone on a bus). Types don’t form Embraces (men/women, blue/brown eyes, intro-/extroverts).
• We do not create embraces; we just become aware of them and aware as them. However, we can create the foundation for a specific Embrace, for example, when we form a group.
• To be able to sense and take the perspective as an Embrace, we have to be part of it.
• An Embrace is its own perspective and doesn’t have access to the private information of its parts.
• An Embrace always holds all its parts unconditionally. The relations between parts are always conditional.

What the Wider Embraces is About–And Not

This is about our wider Embraces, what they are–and not.
A clarification.
And a complication.

This is about everything you are part of.
It’s not about you.
Though you are everything you are part of.

This is about taking wider perspectives.
It’s not about expanding yourself.
Though who you are widens.

This is about the unconditional aspect of reality.
It’s not about your personal relations.
Though they are also embraced.

This is about the subjective side of our material world.
It’s not about your inner world.
Though you may experience it that way.

This is about the beauty revealed by modern science.
It’s not about ancient wisdom or traditional religions.
Though those are the roots.

This is about alignment all the way up and down.
It’s not a tool for personal healing.
Though that is what happens.

This is about becoming aware of what is.
It’s not about creating something new.
Though the insights may be new.