Returning to the Unitive: The Ground We Never Left
What if the self you’ve been seeking has been here all along, not as something to build, fix, or earn, but as a quiet presence beneath every experience?
Before the stories we tell ourselves…
Before the roles we play…
Before even the sensations that mark us as a body moving through time…
There is a deeper layer of being. A unitive ground. A wholeness that precedes form.
In The Arc of Human Experiencing, this is called the Unitive, a field-like presence that is not just within us but is us. It’s the ocean beneath the waves of thought, feeling, and identity. And though we may lose sight of it, we never truly leave it.
What Is the Unitive?
The unitive is not a concept to grasp; it’s a state to be remembered.
In early development, this is the baseline of existence: fluid, open, without edges. The infant, not yet separate from the world, lives in rhythmic immersion with breath, heartbeat, and warmth. But as we grow, this field of coherence is layered over by experience: sensation, meaning, pattern, identity.
We differentiate to survive. But we suffer when we forget the ground from which we arose.
The journey of healing, then, is not only forward—it is homeward. A return to the unitive is not regression; it is re-membering. And that return is possible, moment by moment.
🎥 Watch: The Unitive – Being Before Becoming
Explore the foundation of the unitive field in this introduction, based on Chapter 3 of The Arc of Human Experiencing.
How Do We Return to the Unitive?
The unitive is always present, but accessing it often requires us to slow down, soften, and unhook from the momentum of doing. Here are five practices that invite a reconnection with the unitive field:
1. Drop Into Stillness
Even two minutes of stillness can reorient your system toward spaciousness. Close your eyes. Breathe slowly. Rather than watching your thoughts, feel the space in which they arise. The goal is not silence, it’s awareness of the field. Try this: Sit quietly and ask, “What is here when nothing needs to be fixed?”
2. Rest as Awareness
Instead of identifying with what you feel (“I am anxious”), shift to noticing from awareness (“Anxiety is arising”). This simple move returns you to the deeper field of witnessing, the unitive Self. Try this: Throughout the day, pause and ask, “Who is noticing this?”
3. Engage in Unstructured Presence
Let go of outcomes. Go for a walk without tracking steps. Sit with a tree. Let your body breathe without needing to optimize it. These are not escapes; they are doorways. Try this: Choose one daily activity to do without a goal. Let it be enough to be with it.
4. Let the Body Lead
The unitive expresses through rhythm: breath, heartbeat, sway. Gentle movement practices (yoga, tai chi, intuitive stretching) can help reorganize experience toward coherence. Try this: Begin or end your day with 5 minutes of slow, conscious movement. Let your body teach you something your mind has forgotten.
5. Cultivate Micro-Moments of Belonging
The unitive is not only internal, it’s relational. When we are truly seen, touched, or held, we reconnect with the undivided field between us. Even brief moments of attuned contact can restore coherence. Try this: In conversation, experiment with deeper presence. Listen without planning your response. Feel the shared field.
🎥 Watch: Supporting the Return to the Unitive – Practical Strategies
Learn how to integrate unitive awareness into daily life, practice, and relationship in this short companion video.
The Unitive Is Not Far Away
You don’t have to transcend your life to rediscover the unitive. You only have to turn inward, toward what is always already whole.
The invitation isn’t to become something new. It’s to remember who you are beneath the forgetting.
The Unitive is not separate from the other layers; it is their source
While this blog focuses on the unitive field, the ground of being before form, our experience continues through sensation, symbolic meaning, and adaptive pattern. These are not layers we graduate from, but expressions of the same field, shaped over time.
The Sensorial emerges as the body first begins to differentiate experience through contact and rhythm.
The Symbolic allows us to name, imagine, and represent what we feel.
The Patterned layer forms roles, habits, and identities that help us survive and adapt.
Each of these unfolds from the unitive, and each can be a path of return.
✨ Explore the full arc through The Sensorial, The Symbolic, and The Patterned.
📖 Ready to go deeper?
Explore the whole journey of return, from sensation to story to survival, and back again to being.
Read the full story in my book,
The Arc of Human Experiencing: A Journey of Being and Becoming
