Hello.
I'm really glad you're here.
Welcome.
This is a practice for anyone who might receive some news that lands close to home.
Maybe when someone you love is hurting,
When something in your own life shifts unexpectedly,
When the ground underneath you feels less steady.
And this practice will help you to be in more connection with what's happening in your body,
Which can create more resilience.
So I wonder if you can remember an event recently that happened that was perhaps unsettling in some way.
It caused some tightness to show up somewhere probably in your upper torso,
But mostly from like your head down to your abdomen or even your hips.
And just notice what the event was and where there's some tightness in your body right now as you remember that event.
And I'm just going to be quiet in these moments as I'm asking you to listen and notice so that you can attend and attune to what's happening for you.
So noticing the headline and then noticing the tightness.
And where is it?
What quality does it have?
Does it have a temperature?
Any kind of movement to it?
And is it okay?
Is it tolerable to just be with?
Can you be with it here?
And being with it just means letting it be here and being attentive to it and noticing if there's any anything that shifts.
It might grow,
It might diminish,
It might not change at all.
And you might try even putting a gentle hand on the place that's tight,
Letting that be here.
Noticing if there's any support that comes from the hand that you might also bring into your awareness.
Does the support help this area to expand,
Shrink,
Or even move?
And you can play with the pressure and the placement of where your hand is.
And the intention with what your hand is bringing,
Which is support,
Kindness,
Understanding.
Even if you don't fully understand it,
Something happened that was unsettling,
It caused some constriction,
And you're just being here with it.
Just like you would maybe even a small child or an injured animal.
Just being present without needing it to do anything else.
And these moments of quiet that I'm bringing here are just meant to be gentle,
Just to see if anything changes.
And now I want you to notice if there's any place at all in your body right now,
Where there might be a little bit of softening or ease,
And it might be in a completely different location.
It could be anywhere in your torso,
But it also could be in your fingers or your hands or your toes,
Ankles,
Your knees.
Just see if you can find a small place that has a little bit of softening.
And notice the description or the details,
The nuances of that softness.
Does it have a color?
Does it have a texture?
If there's any kind of movement,
What kind of movement can you sense?
And if you have a free hand that you can touch that spot,
Do that and see if you can let that support grow.
And moving your attention back to the initial event and what felt very unsettling and where there was some tightness,
Just put your hand back to that place,
Letting it be here for a moment,
Just noticing again if anything's different.
And then your attention back to the softness,
The place that was a little bit more open and soft,
And a gentle hand here.
And moving back and forth between these two places,
Maybe one more time,
Really noticing what's happening with the sensation of tightness,
Whether there's anything that's changed,
And noticing even the openness too,
If there's anything that's changed there.
And this rock and roll back and forth helps the body often to digest the initial constriction,
The initial tightness.
Just notice if that's true and notice what else might be here.
If your breath has changed,
If there's any energy moving in your body that feels different,
Let that in,
Let that be here.
This is how one of the ways that we build resilience,
Just by being present with what's here in the body,
But also showing it that there's support here too.
It can change moving from a stress or repeated stress response to some other information that the body wasn't able to absorb.
We're teaching it how to do that a little bit differently.
I hope you found this supportive and helpful.
Thank you so much for trusting me to be with you for a little while.
I hope the rest of your day is a little softer.
