Softening Hyperarousal: A Guided Somatic Practice

This guided practice helps you notice the subtle ways your body is on high alert and gently invites your nervous system to settle. Through breath, touch, and mindful movement, we soften tension and create a safe, grounded space within.
Allow yourself to come home to your body and feel calm expand through every cell.

Transcript

Hello, My name is Peggy Toukassian and I'm a Somatic Practitioner here in Los Angeles and I focus on nervous system regulation. I am here to guide you back into your safe body. Today's focus and topic is around hyperarousal and what a great place to start with addressing what is coming up for you right into this moment as you allow the energy and the feeling of that hyperarousal to take up space in your body. Notice where your heightened alertness takes you and give yourself that moment to validate it. At least in this way your body knows what it's working with. One of the most important factors in somatic work is really validating where our body is exactly in this moment. So we're going to create some safety and space in the body. So go ahead and make yourself comfortable and cozy. Maybe press yourself up against the wall or maybe a pillow behind your back. And this can be in more of an active sitting versus a laying down. And what we're going to do is we're just going to release some of the tension. Some of where the body is maybe holding on too tight. And so we're going to take some slow deep breaths. Inhale through the nose. Maybe filling up your belly before your chest and letting that belly really rise. And letting that exhale gently slip and slide. Moving through almost every part of your body starting from your shoulders, Fully dropping, Letting that jaw soften. And go ahead and take a couple more of these deep, Slow, Present, Connected inhales and exhales. And start to take your hands and place and find and trace somewhere on your body that maybe feels like there is some rapid energy moving. Or maybe an area where you're letting your focus draw your hands exactly to that place. And what we're doing here is we call this somatic inquiry and somatic attunement. So we're attuning to your body specifically. I can only guide you to find it and follow it. And so we like to trace the thoughts, Trace the energy and the feeling into these pockets. And we sometimes can't target every single one of them. But we have a starting point. So I want you to continue making a lot of space in the body with the breath. And as we're really creating that long inhales and using that belly versus the chest to open up more space. What that does is it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. So that rest and digest part starts to come back online. And you move out of hyper focus and dysregulated state. So you come back to a calm setting internally. So as you continue to inhale and exhale, Go ahead and take your hands and place them wherever you're feeling attuned to in your body that you might be noticing where some of that tension is living. And even in the moment where we make that connection from the breath to the hand, Back to the body, That entire sequence starts to create a presence and a safety within. So as you continue to inhale with that next exhale, I want you to imagine that part of your body that you're holding so gently in this moment, The energy is starting to dissolve and maybe inviting in a little bit of softness and maybe even spreading some energy through the body that feels warm and cozy and light. And just as you continue to breathe in and out and that hand is really feeling that like that supportive touch, Inviting some calm through your body, Inviting calm through the next phase of the breath. And just see what the body does in response. Does it invite it in? Does it let it in? And if it doesn't, And if you're working with some resistance here, Just continue to hold that. Maybe what is going on on the other side of this resistance? Why is this resistance blocking my body back into safety? So as you continue to hold this and we'll be together for a few more minutes, As you get super curious and let that imagination connect you, You're going to keep using that breath to go a little bit more inward, A little bit more in. And as every inhale comes through, You're noticing that it's moving through. And nothing is more important than this moment to allow what is present for you because why not validate exactly where you are in this moment and know that the shift is available to you. So we're going to go into a little more of lightness, Inviting in lightness around the thighs and just noticing wherever the hand is placed, Starting to spread that energy. So we're really incurring presence. And here we can invite in maybe a count to each breath, Which helps us stay online because it's easy to sometimes go into our own avoidance or dysregulation of maybe even disassociating. We notice we're not here. We notice we've maybe left. And this is our own way that we abandon the body. So as we continue to stay with it, We are actually growing that capacity to tolerate more of what we have never possibly felt before. So go ahead and start to count for me. And what you're going to do is you're going to double the exhale. So if you're going to count inward for two, You're going to exhale for four. And just take it where the body wants to take you. I'm just here guiding and supporting like a fly on the wall. It's all you. You're really the one in the driver's seat. So go ahead and elongate that breath if that's what's needed, Allowing that rhythm to slow everything down, Steady the nervous system, Bringing in the energy and the music into the body. And thinking of this as an important piece of what it looks like for you to connect to yourself. There's no other way in. You are the gatekeeper. You hold the keys. And then go ahead and place that hand somewhere else. Maybe the attention has moved or maybe their attention has dissolved. And so when you're ready to come out of this relaxed state and just attuning and orienting yourself to what just happened in your body and knowing that it can take between five to ten minutes for us to come back into our own calm state. So go ahead and just sense that calm expanding through every single cell as your body learns. It is safe to relax. It is safe to let go. And your body does not have to work in overdrive. And ask yourself right now in this moment, What do I do? Does this feel good to me? How does this feel in my body? And it's okay to know that we've all gone through circumstances where life has led us in a dysregulated state. So I want you to remember that this is always available to you. Go ahead and just place your hands wherever they want to go. Sometimes people will place them at their heart. Maybe you can even give yourself a loving embrace. I'm going to close this little ceremony together with a bilateral swaying. And so go ahead and take your hands and just cross them over your chest and hold the side of your arms. And I want you to just slowly with your breath, Maybe sway to the right, Sway to the left, Side to side. And right now what you're doing is you're balancing out the logic and the emotional state of the body. And sometimes we recognize that we've been living too much in the logic. And we have to invite that emotional state back online. Or sometimes we're just too emotional. So we need more grounding and we need more regulating. And maybe we need more structure. We're constantly adjusting and evolving. And I think knowing that we have these tools, These practices at our fingertips is very important. And you do. And I'm here to walk you through this. Thank you so much for spending these 10 minutes together. And if you want to continue spending a little more time in this practice, Go ahead and play some music in the background and just keep swaying yourself right to left until you feel ready to come out of that. Thank you so much. Have a blessed day.