Attention & Orientation concerns our ability to locate ourselves in experience. Before we can make a decision, understand an emotion, set a boundary or imagine something new, we need enough contact with the present to notice what is actually occurring.
Presence is the capacity to remain in contact with what is happening now, both inside and around us.
Grounding is the capacity to reconnect awareness with bodily sensation, physical support and the immediate environment.
Focus is the capacity to select something as relevant, stay with it and redirect attention when necessary.
Patience is the capacity to remain in relationship with processes that cannot or should not be rushed.
Balance is the capacity to continually negotiate competing demands without expecting life to settle into perfect equilibrium.
The capacities do not operate in isolation. These relationship entries describe important feedback loops, tensions and forms of mutual support between them.