Hello and welcome to somatic training for leaders.
My name is Chris Wilson.
I am a somatic psychology master's degree student at California Institute of Integral Studies and an integral development coach.
Today is level three of our three by three check-in training.
By now you should have listened to and performed the three by three check-in for at least two weeks.
In our level one training we learned the three by three check-in script and we performed the three by three check-in for our first time.
In our level two training we became aware of formative language.
This is the language that we use to relate to our experience whether it's in our mind or in our heads or whether we speak it out loud.
We learned to notice or become mindful of amplification,
Suppression,
Judgment,
And story.
This week when you were performing your three by three check-in your stretch was simply to notice your tendency to amplify,
To suppress,
To judge,
And to tell stories about your experience.
Today in level three of our three by three check-in training we are going to be bringing our attention to BEAMS.
That stands for breath,
Environment,
Awareness,
Movement,
And stance or your posture.
We're going to be learning five distinct breaths.
And so now we know the script,
We're able to notice formative language,
And so now we're getting out of our heads and into the embodied experience of what it feels like to check in.
Our primary tools to do that are breath and awareness.
And if you notice when we bring our awareness to our breath we can start to tap into the direct experience within our body.
We're being trained to bring our attention to the breath.
As we bring our attention to the breath we can breathe into different parts of the body or into the earth.
We use the breath as a tool to guide our awareness and vice versa.
And so on your next breath I just want you to go ahead and open to receive your next breath.
And go ahead and just open your olfactory lens and smell the air.
This is our first breath to simply appreciate a single breath in your nose and smell the air.
What happens when you do that?
What happens to your experience?
Go ahead and try that.
This turns on our ability to savor.
It turns on the ability to smell.
And all of a sudden the interoceptive quality,
The felt sense in our face starts to turn on.
Go ahead and just appreciate that one breath at a time just smelling the air.
This is one breath we might use when we begin to check in.
And allow the sensation to sequence through your body.
Our next breath that we're going to practice is simply appreciating three breaths,
One after another.
With each one I want you to relax 10% more on the exhale.
Go ahead and inhale and exhale.
In your nose and out your mouth or in and out of your nose,
Whichever one you like.
And exhale.
And then one more for two.
And one more.
All right.
Go ahead and just allow your body to stretch,
To move.
And just return to normal breathing,
Letting go of any awareness of your breath.
Maybe giving your body a wiggle.
Our third breath technique is the three sniffs.
We're going to take a deep breath in our nose and we're going to inhale as much as we can.
And then once we inhale as much as we can,
We're going to sniff three times and hold.
Try to increase the capacity of our inhale as much as we can.
And then we're going to hold our breath,
Relax into the hold.
When we feel complete in that hold,
We're going to release with an exhale and a physiological sigh,
Releasing all of the stress or tension in our body and dropping our awareness down into the earth,
Exhaling down into the earth,
Overextending our exhale,
Pulling our belly in,
Squeezing out all of the breath in our body,
Rolling our shoulders forward.
And then when we're ready,
We're going to inhale up from the earth and let go of our belly for one big,
Full,
Complete breath.
And then finally,
One more release and we're going to return to normal breathing,
Just seeking sensation after that final exhale.
The first part of this is the sniffing.
We're going to sniff and hold and scoop at the top.
So let's practice just that part first.
Go ahead and inhale.
When you get to the top,
Give three sniffs and a hold.
One,
Two,
Hold.
Relax into the hold.
And let it go and shake it off.
Okay,
Let's do that again.
Inhale.
Scoop,
Sniff.
And hold.
And shake it off.
And go ahead and let's pause for a moment and notice what's happening on or in your body.
What do you notice?
Okay,
And now let's do it again.
And sniff.
Physiological sigh.
Let it go and shake your body.
Give yourself a little wiggle and just come back to normal breathing.
Okay,
So the sniff and scoop,
Where we take a deep inhale into our lungs,
Expanding our capacity to bring in as much as we can,
As much energy and vitality into our lungs.
And then to hold.
And then to hold.
And then to hold.
And then to release that tension with the physiological sigh and allowing our energy and attention to drop into the body,
Described as a champagne breath.
There's a whole psychosomatic release of tension on and through the body.
Now we are going to learn the wave breath.
And so this is a combination of that breath we just learned.
But then when we release the exhale,
I want you to continue it past the bottom of your residual lung volume,
Squeezing your lower diaphragm and pushing out all the air,
Maybe even spitting out the air,
And hold and plummet your awareness down into the earth when you do this,
Squeezing your belly,
Rolling your shoulders forward.
We're going to hunch over.
And then when we're ready,
We're going to let our belly go.
And we're going to inhale and open to receive the breath.
Okay,
So we'll do this three times.
And I'm going to invite a little wiggle between each one.
So you can get the feel for it.
This is called a wave breath.
So here we go.
Go ahead and inhale.
And scoop.
And hold.
Release and continue your exhale,
Pushing your air out all the way,
Rolling your shoulders forward.
Put your awareness deep down into the earth.
And then let your belly go and inhale in your nose.
And let it go.
And just let your body move.
Just feel what just happened in your body.
What's available to you now?
Just basking,
Savoring this experience.
Okay,
And let's do it one more time.
Or maybe let's do it two more times.
So here we go.
Go ahead and inhale.
And then scoop.
And hold.
And overextend your exhale.
Let it go.
Pushing all the air out.
Putting your awareness deep down into the earth,
A mile into the earth.
Exhaling down,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Down.
And let your belly go and inhale in your nose.
There it is.
Okay,
What do you notice?
Again,
What's available to you?
All right,
And our last time doing this wave breath technique,
Just so that we can get it down,
If maybe we've gotten lost in this practice session.
So here we go.
Go ahead and inhale in your nose.
And scoop.
And hold.
And overextend your exhale,
Squeezing your belly as you push out all of the air in your lungs.
Maybe duck lips.
And inhale up from the earth when you let your belly go.
And relax into it.
So what I want you to notice with the wave breath is how we're creating tension up around your neck and the top of your lungs.
Then we're releasing it and letting that tension wave move through the body.
We're squeezing our lower belly,
Our core,
Our root,
Our dantian,
Our root chakra,
Around our navel.
As we squeeze that area and plummet our awareness into the earth,
We release the belly.
We're creating this contraction and then this opening in the body and in the nervous system,
Which creates an elasticity.
This elasticity or this wave of this ability to respond to what's happening in the environment that we want to bring to our three-by-three check-in process.
That is what we are learning at level three,
Is how to bring the breath and our attention to the environment using the breath,
Plummeting awareness down into the earth or pushing it out into the space around us,
Or inhaling up from the earth or out from the environment around us.
And then how we can bring movement and stretching.
And then how that affects our stance and our posture if we're doing this in a seated way,
Or if we're lying on the ground,
Or if we're doing this standing.
All of these are different variations of beams or breath,
Environment,
Awareness,
Movement,
And stance.
And finally,
We have our last breath,
Which is the earth descent breath or earth descent practice.
And so we started to do this with the last breath technique that we practiced.
But for this one,
It's very important to bring your attention to your inhales and your exhales.
And so I want you to just bring attention down to your lower belly and go ahead and just softly squeeze your lower belly as you exhale.
And then when you inhale,
I want you to open up the space in your belly and inhale down into the earth and out into the space around you.
Okay,
Let's do it again.
So go ahead and softly squeeze your lower belly.
And when you inhale,
I want you to follow your inhale out and down.
So do you notice that you're pushing your awareness out and down into the earth and into the world around you?
You're breathing out into the world.
Let's do it a few more times.
Exhale down into the earth and then inhale out into the world.
This helps us to take up space.
Go ahead and do it again.
To push the boundaries of who we are out into the world.
Out into the environment.
And so let's do it again.
And this time I want you to inhale behind you.
And then on the next one,
I want you to inhale out into the front of you.
And then on the next one,
I want you to inhale out into the right side.
And the next one,
Go ahead and inhale out into the left side.
And the next one,
Go ahead and inhale up into the roof,
Up and in the top of your head and out into the world.
And then the last one,
We're going to inhale down into the earth.
And then go ahead and let that go.
Just give your body a wiggle,
Change your stance,
Change your posture.
Just notice what was that like,
How we used our breath to push out into the world,
Into the earth.
And this is very,
Very important because as we move through the flow of our default life and relationships,
As we take on the challenges,
The capacity to meet the demands in our life,
It's very easy to get weighed down,
To get penned in by the constraints that we have in our life,
The physical constraints that then become mental and emotional constraints.
And so this pushing of our awareness out into the earth is very important to do first because we're driving our awareness out and down,
And we're rooting.
That's that rooting breath.
And we're going to learn more about this in our Somatic Training for Leaders,
In our Somatic Meditation course.
We're practicing it here in our three-by-three check-in first.
So now that we've done this,
We're going to practice our last breath.
And this breath is connected to that one,
And I want you to notice how.
And so on your next inhale,
We're going to reverse it,
And we're going to exhale down into the ground,
Down into the roots and out into the space that we just created.
So go ahead and exhale down into the earth.
Pull your belly in.
Pull your belly in.
Keep exhaling.
Exhale,
Exhale,
Exhale.
And now inhale up from the earth into your lower belly.
And let it go.
Okay,
And now we're exhaling down into the earth again.
Exhale,
Exhale,
Exhale.
And open to receive.
Inhale up from the earth into your body.
And now go ahead and do this at your own pace and keep doing it.
Exhale down into the earth.
And inhale up from the earth.
And as you keep doing this,
Notice what happens.
Notice what happens when you change your relationship with the earth.
Exhaling into the earth and inhaling up from it.
So keep doing that,
And I'm going to explain what's happening.
And I want to point to something and to see if you can notice it.
Our relationship with the earth is that we are separate from it,
That we are almost perched on top of it.
And this is so much of our experience that we forget that the earth is there and it's supporting us and that we can fall down into the ground and be supported.
And if we don't have a direct experience of this,
Well then in some way our body needs to hold on to a certain amount of armor or protection in order to stay safe,
In order to stay structured.
And so as we use our awareness and our breath to drive our awareness down into the earth and then reverse it and we inhale up from the earth,
What we gain is an ability to relax,
An ability to open,
An ability to receive,
And a place from which to place our awareness to root down.
And all of a sudden,
We develop more of a capacity to anchor.
And this is going to be our next training in somatic embodied leadership.
What anchor stands for is to arrive,
Simply to arrive.
And then to notice sensation,
To turn on our sense of interoception and to come into the felt sense on or in the body,
To connect down into the ground and out into the space around us by pushing our awareness and our breath out and down.
And then to reverse that and to inhale up from the earth,
From the environment,
To open,
To receive,
And the ability to relax and to open and to connect.
Another acronym,
ROCK,
Relax,
Open,
And connect.
And then as that happens,
We develop a posture of our practice and it unfolds in the body and we develop the capacity to hold,
To be with more of what needs to be experienced.
And this is very important for embodied leadership,
This capacity to hold,
The capacity to expand,
To be with what we are experiencing in our lives and relationships,
To be able to meet the demands of our lives,
Of our work,
While being open.
And then to open to the emotional experience.
I want you to notice the order of operations here,
That we're coming into the body,
Into the earth,
We're arriving,
We're noticing,
We're connecting,
And then we're practicing to hold and then opening to the emotional experience of our life and relationships.
And when it's deeply anchored in this way,
Well then we have a seat,
We have a place from which to develop this capacity to open.
And then the final step is to rest in that presence.
And this is both the beginning and the end of the practice.
And so today is our level three of our three-by-three check-in practice.
And so in level one,
We learned the script and we spent about a week practicing the three-by-three check-in,
Just in our default life,
Work,
And relationships.
And maybe you shared the practice or you invited somebody to do it with you.
And you went first and you practiced teaching and sharing your practice with them.
And in doing so,
You started to cultivate relationality and a dojo or a space to practice an inside and an outside.
In level two,
We became aware of formative language.
One of the primary tools that we use is language to describe our experience,
Whether it's in our heads to ourselves or out loud to others in relationship to the environment in us and outside of us.
We learned to become aware,
Mindful of this and to develop embodied mindfulness,
Noticing amplification,
Suppression,
Judgment,
And story.
And while we practice this for about a week,
We started to notice that this is not bad or good.
It's not constructive or destructive.
It just is.
What's important is to become aware of it.
And as we became aware of it,
It became possible to let it go.
This opened us to the direct experience of what could be felt when we weren't so reliant or placing our attention on language.
So just an example of that is it's so much different in our experience to say,
I feel sad than it is to say,
I feel really sad.
Even just that one word of really takes us out of sadness.
Do you feel that?
What is your experience of that?
Today,
We brought in BEAMS.
This is one my favorite acronyms for this embodied practice and ANCHOR.
Two acronyms that we can use to relate to the embodied practice of your 3x3 check-in to get out of the script and into that embodied direct experience using BREATH to move your awareness out into the environment,
Using your BREATH to tap into your awareness,
Using your BREATH to tap into movement,
And using your BREATH to notice your stance or posture.
That's BEAMS.
And then ANCHOR.
Arriving,
Finding your seat as we arrive,
Appreciating that step,
Noticing sensation,
Turning on to our sense of interoception,
Coming into the felt sense of what's happening on or in the body,
Connecting down into the earth,
Using the BREATH to breathe out and down,
Expanding the sense of where I extend to,
Using the BREATH as far as we can and playing with that,
Then reversing it with the connect and exhaling out into that space and inhaling up from it,
Opening to receive the BREATH,
Which changes our relationship with the environment and gives us a seat from which to hold.
ANCHOR to hold more capacity.
And as we do that,
Our posture starts to open.
We develop this ability to expand,
To be with the immensity of our life and our work and our relationships without constricting or protecting ourselves in the adaptive ways that we've learned to do so.
And then opening to that emotional experience,
Which requires practice to truly have this capacity.
We need to go through these steps.
We need to learn how to do this because we didn't learn how to do it when we were little.
We were too busy surviving to get to where we are today,
To where we could be learning these tools.
And then finally,
Resting,
Resting in the presence,
In that direct something to be experienced,
Which can only be felt through the body.
And all of this,
This whole check-in practice to get out of our heads and into our bodies with the intention of being able to show up in a more empowering and attuned and fierce and collaborative and creative and conscious and connected,
Purposeful,
Powerful,
Patient,
Playful way.
And so let's end with a final check-in.
Or let's check out.
Yeah,
Let's check out.
I'm Chris,
And I am checking out.
I'm exhaling,
Completely rolling forward,
Squeezing out all the air.
I notice the sunlight on the hardwood floor.
I notice the belly of Benson,
Our cat.
Moving up and down as he sleeps in the sun.
I notice a leaf lit up and how the sun is shining through it and the veins are showing.
Physically honoring my body,
I just rolled my shoulders and noticed my fingers feel I can feel my heart beating inside the palms of my hands.
I just swallowed.
I can just tell my there's a smile coming through my face,
Through my forehead,
Behind my eyes,
With my entire face relaxed.
I can just savor the air.
Emotionally,
I feel sensitive.
I feel alive,
And I feel thankful.
I am Chris,
And I am checking out.
I'll pass it on to you.
Thank you so much for being here.
Your turn.
Good to be with you as well.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much for joining me for these three sessions.
If you have any comments or if you want to provide a somatic report on what your experience of this was,
I would be so happy to receive that and to get to reflect on this with you.
May your practice continue for the good of yourself and all things,
And may you get what you're looking for.
Be well.
