When Something Has Just Happened

If you have come to this practice tonight, something has probably just happened. A difficult conversation. A piece of bad news. An argument. A moment that landed hard. Something that has set the nervous system off and that you are now sitting with — possibly shaking slightly, possibly tearful, possibly very still and very far from yourself. Whatever it is, you are not alone. I am here. We will go slowly. There is nothing to fix in the next twenty minutes. We are giving the body the conditions it needs to begin coming back. A 20-minute trauma-informed somatic practice. Voice is therapist-in-the-room, not meditation teacher. Guided by Abi Beri — somatic therapist (Dublin, Ireland & online).

Transcript

So welcome everyone. And thank you. Thank you for listening. If you have come to this practice, Something has probably just happened. A difficult conversation? A piece of bad news. An argument. A moment that landed hard. Something that has set your nervous system off. And you are now sitting with it. Possibly tearful. Possibly charged. Possibly emotional, Possibly very still and very far from yourself. Whatever it is. You are not alone. We are just going to give the body conditions it needs to begin to come back. And before we begin, The activation you are in right now is not a malfunction. Your heart is racing. Because the sympathetic nervous system has decided something is a threat. The shaking, The tightness and the racing thoughts and the wanting to leave. These are not symptoms of you being broken. They are the body doing exactly what the body is designed to do when something has just landed. We are not going to argue with the activation. We are going to slowly give the system the signals it needs to come back. Find a position you can stay in. Sitting is fine. Lying down is fine. If you are pacing, Slow the pacing. If your eyes need to stay open, Keep them open. There's no correct posture for this. First thing. Look around the room you are in. Slowly. Let your eyes find things. The corner of the ceiling. The windows Maybe a piece of furniture? Maybe a color on the wall. This is not a visualization. This is the room you're actually in right now. Let your eyes do the work of finding it. Now notice that the room is in this moment. Not the thing that happened. The thing that happened is no longer in this room. The room is just a room. The balls are still there. The light is still there. And you are in it. This very small thing of looking around. Is the most direct signal we can give the nervous system that the present moment is not the original threat. The eye is finding the room, Reorient the system. So take your time with it. There's no rush. Now bring one hand to your chest. And feel the weight of the hand. The warmth between palm and the chest. And the slight rise and fall of your breath. This is one of the body's oldest signals of safety. The hand on the chest tells the heart, In a language older than words, That someone is here. And that someone in this moment is you. Now very gently take a breath that is just slightly slower than what your body has been doing. Not a deep breath. Don't force anything. Just a slightly slower on the exhale. If your body allows, At your own pace. Now let the next breath happen on its own. The body knows. And again. Slightly slower on the exhale. And then just wait. Slightly slower on the exhale. And then the weight. The exhale is the body's break. And the inhale is the body's accelerator. When something has just happened. The system has been on the accelerator, So we are not going to slam the brake. We are just going to lift very very slightly off the accelerator. And you're doing that now. And on the chest. And just slightly slower on the exhale. And then just allowing whatever is shifting, Passing, Moving. Now as you are doing this. . . I want to say something. The activation in your body right now is not the enemy. The activation is the body's old intelligence. Working the way it has learned to work. It was probably necessary at some point in your life. And it is still trying to keep you safe. We are not trying to get rid of it. We are letting the body know that this particular moment is not the moment it has been bracing for. This particular moment is not the moment it has been bracing for. And internally if it helps you. Say to that part of you that is activated. Thank you. I see you. I know you're trying to protect me. You can keep working. I'm not going to make you stop. I just want to sit with you for a few minutes. Thank you. I see you. I know you're trying to protect me. You can keep working. I am not going to make you stop. I just want to sit with you for a few minutes. Notice if these words are bringing any change in how you feel. The part of you that is activated. Has almost never been thanked in the middle of being activated. Usually it has been told to calm down, To stop, To be different. Being thanked instead is often the thing that allows it to begin to slowly ease. As you sit here. The body is doing work. It may produce small involuntary movements also. A shake, A sigh, A yawn, A tear, A swallow. A deep breath that arrives without your permission. These are not problems. These are the body completing what the original moment did not give it the time to complete. Let them come. Don't try to make them happen. Don't try to stop them. The body knows what it is doing. And your job right now is just to stay with it while it does. Now. I want to do one thing here gently. The thing that happened is real. The conversation, The news, The moment, Whatever it was for you and it is not going to be solved in this practice and we are not pretending it didn't happen. We are not reframing it away. What we are doing and what we have done, Simply giving the system enough room that the meaning-making can wait. Right now your mind probably wants to figure out what it all means, What they meant, What it says about the relationship, What you should do next, Whether you handled it right. All of that can wait. The meaning making is much better done after the body has come back. If you try to figure things out while still in the activation, You will almost always reach a conclusion the calmer version of you would not have reached. For now, The body comes first. And the meaning-making conveyed. Hand on the chest. Slightly slower exhale. The room around you, The body, The weight of your body on the hard surface. If your mind starts running again and it will. That's what minds do. Just gently return to your hand, The exhale, The room. No judgment. Now if you want to stay here. For a few more minutes. You are very welcome to pause this meditation. Begin now to gently widen your attention. To the room, To the body, To this moment. And staying exactly where you are, Notice if anything in your body has changed since we began. The shoulders, The jaw, The breath, The heart rate. Not always Sometimes nothing changes, Sometimes a great deal changes. Either is fine. Whatever your body is doing right now, It is better than what it was when you started, Even if you cannot feel it. The system has been moving towards settling for the past few minutes. And the work continues for hours after you stop the practice. Stay gentle for the rest of today. The body has just done real work. Let it rest. Take gentle care of yourself. And until next time. Namaste.

Reviews

You were talking to me again. I have been doing great until something happened yesterday into today and I went on insight timer to try to calm down and found this….once again, thank you. You’re a lifesaver!!