Orienting: Locating Safety Cues In Stressful Situations

Join Josh in this insightful talk and guided visualisation practice, given on a retreat at Garrison Institute, September 2019. He discusses overriding our innate orienting towards threats, instead learning to focus attention on safety cues in stressful interpersonal situations, alleviating hyper or hypoarousal.

Transcript

When we experience challenging events in our life,

Especially interpersonal wounds,

Feeling hurt by people that are important to us,

Those wounds are felt in the body.

They're not things that appear in the cloud of the mind.

The first,

Most important years of our life,

The attachment years,

There's no inner dialogue,

No stream of narration,

No voiceover in our head explaining what's going on,

Adding a context or helping us parse why people do the things they do or trying to explain.

There's simply the event and then there's our emotional reaction to what happens.

And it's all felt in here.

And from that period on,

As we've been talking about,

When at first the wounds can lead to a set of excitation,

Mobilization,

Wanting to get attention or to run away,

But when the feelings become too intense or there's no possibility of escaping or taking care of ourselves,

When we become overwhelmed,

We disconnect entirely from our body.

We disconnect because the body is in so much pain,

It's in so much discomfort,

It's feeling so many contrary impulses trying to survive.

And then we finally choose the little,

We don't choose the idea that this is in any way conscious or cognitive.

We then finally wind up in the collapsed,

Dissociative state.

Now this disconnection can be really helpful in really challenging times.

When we detach from painful sensations,

It can help us manage essentially the overwhelm going off into a dissociative realm or literally sometimes even blacking out or just going into what is often referred to as a fugue state where we are not,

It's almost like a dream-like waking state where things happen in a blur.

There's a general,

Spacey underwater quality to it.

And all of this can be protective in the sense that,

One,

Dissociative states are analgesic,

We don't feel pain.

If you're a child and you desperately need to connect to a caregiver,

And a caregiver is,

Due to the stresses in their life or their own emotional wounds that they've yet,

They never resolved,

Incapable of creating a safe environment.

My father was a violent alcoholic throughout my childhood.

I know that I witnessed my mom being beaten up by him on many,

Many occasions,

But I can't remember the details.

I know because he admitted as much and,

Two,

Because my mom told me that I was present at times,

But I don't remember.

I disconnected to protect myself from the terror that that would be for a child.

And I'm glad that that capability of,

That we have that ability to depersonalize,

De-realize,

Depersonalizes not feel ourselves in our own body,

Some people feel an out-of-body experience,

De-realizes when the world around us or the external stimuli begins to be unknowable.

But,

And here's the thing,

If in childhood events or in family systems or in schoolyards bullying or in interactions with siblings or in sexual abuse with relatives,

If traumatic or deeply wounding events happen repeatedly enough,

Then we ingrain the expectation that we will be in events that we will not be able to handle.

And with that anticipation that creates an internal emotional belief that the world is not safe or that certain situations with certain type of people inevitably leads to abuse,

Then we,

And this is important for me to say clearly,

I put it in my writing,

I hope I make sense,

We habitually disconnect from our bodies in the anticipation of being hurt,

Not just when hurt is actually present,

But simply in the anticipation.

And for me this is an important distinction because it means that disconnecting from the body,

From our feelings,

From awareness of the breath,

The body,

How we feel,

Becomes the norm.

It's no longer just something that we do to survive in actual traumatic events,

But it actually becomes now the norm.

It actually becomes part of our daily experience.

Being in an interaction with somebody in power or being in an interaction that's remotely sexual or being in an interaction where we could possibly be in some way assessed,

Criticized,

Judged,

Being in a situation where we are asked to be vulnerable and disclosing certain situations we expect to experience sensations and feelings and thoughts that we won't be able to handle so we don't even wait for any wounding or anything to occur,

We just habitually go into either,

I mean most of us will go into a kind of either very compliant,

Very tucked in,

Very small place or we go into a kind of fugue where we're just only barely there and people are talking,

But our agency,

Our ability to act,

Our ability to stand up for ourselves,

Our ability to push back or just represent our experience or our needs and our ability to in some way claim some feeling of control is deprived.

The more we become disconnected from our bodies over time,

The more we will fail to take care of our bodies.

It's a sad result,

But so many of the people I work with one on one over time will discount signals indicating that they're hungry or that they're exhausted or that they're sick because even small degrees of physical discomfort trigger that disconnecting,

No longer in the body,

Lost,

I'm not present and then there's this living up here completely unaware of just tiredness or just pain or just especially I'm going to go into just the held tension and contraction that we develop over time to protect ourselves when we're not in our bodies.

Let me explain this.

When we disconnect,

When we depersonalize,

When we anticipate hurt or not being heard,

We go into essentially a remove.

Some people refer to it as being in the back of their heads or being somewhere else or being lost in a fantasy or being,

But when we're not fully present in our body,

The body tenses to protect itself.

It's a habitual clenching contraction that is the obvious evolutionary response to when we're in a situation where we're not present and can take care of ourselves.

There's this tightening,

This contraction.

Psychologists refer to this as procedural learning.

Procedural learning is there are actions that we take that at one point in our life were not automatic.

They required some,

They were at one point awkward and took some time.

Sometimes there's things like learning to tie one's shoes or they can be or chewing or walking or riding a bike.

But over time,

Repeated actions,

Whether conscious or unconscious,

Become automatic,

Fast.

They become circuits ingrained in the basal ganglia and they become like kicks or just ingrained routines.

Postures and clenching and tensing of the body can become one more automatic routine.

If we were repeatedly scared,

Abandoned in childhood,

The way we would tense or become limp or become,

Try to get away or make ourselves small,

Can become enduring physical habits that we carry into our adult life.

These physiological tendencies reveal how we adapted in childhood,

How we tried to survive.

Unfortunately though,

They bring our childhood traumas or relationships into the present because if somebody habitually in interaction with somebody of power or when meeting the unfamiliar individual automatically lowers or looks away or turns their body away or tightens their shoulders,

They create an emotional state,

I'm not safe,

I can't be assertive,

I can't be open and disclose,

I can't relax and I have to do maybe whatever I have to say,

Whatever I need to say to make this person like me or maybe it will be I have to just make this conversation end as quickly as possible because this is a situation that in my most influential experiences in early life where I would be bullied,

Beaten up,

Abused and so forth.

So there's an entire non-verbal language of sensations,

Postures,

Tightening and relaxing and movements that speak to an entire way of surviving the overwhelming but it's our job as adults,

It's not our fault but it's our job as adults to address these procedural learnings and to find ways to alleviate or change the way we inhabit our bodies because if we habitually wind up in these same closed off,

Defended,

Disconnected,

Then we will continue the same experiences in adult life.

If you meet somebody who is continuously criticized or not empathized with in childhood and so they make that tendency of slumping and lack of eye contact,

Then when this person is an adult will be perceived by others as remote,

Unlikable,

Unfriendly,

They will essentially bring the elements of their lack of care.

They will repeat the same interpersonal dynamics because their body is so vastly influential to how we relate to people.

When we meet new people,

We like to think that we listen to the words they say and their ideas but actually the vast bulk of what influences us is how they physiologically relate or manifest to us.

When you meet someone,

Your left hemisphere is paying attention to their words but your right mind doesn't give a shit about that.

You're taking in whether that person is looking at you,

Maintaining attunement,

Whether their body is facing you,

Whether their body is relaxed,

Whether they're upright,

Whether their facial expressions are mirroring yours.

If you get an unconscious message,

This person is not attuning,

This person is becoming frightened or defended,

It will create unconsciously in you the sense that this person doesn't like me or this person is not trustworthy or this person I can't work with or this person I can't relate with.

None of that is conscious but it really determines how we assess people and how we essentially choose who will be the people we trust and work with.

So if we carry in our adult life the physical routines that protected us and helped us survive our childhood but if we don't bring awareness into the body and learn how to orient to safety and then to begin to change that armory,

Then we will wind up carrying some of the same misaligned lack of,

The same interpersonal disconnections and problems and challenges.

They won't go away.

Am I,

Are you following?

Okay.

This is early,

I have no idea.

I jotted these notes down and I'm just hoping that they make sense.

So some cues are like,

The slumping is a need,

Indicates that an adult harbors back to a child that needed to be compliant to survive in interactions with their caregivers.

Lack of eye contact indicates very often a person that was,

That any time they would make eye contact could result in really negative experiences and so it's basically a don't pay attention to me.

Artificially rigid back was the child who maybe was siblings who was bullied had to early on become a miniature adult and protect itself no matter what.

Difficulty looking in the mirror,

Feelings of core shame,

There's something about me that's unlovable that if I look in the mirror I'll see that thing maybe in me that led to all the abandonments and lack of care at times.

Clenched shoulders and tight abdominal muscles in my experience with people,

Again a need to protect oneself from bullying to just become defended.

So,

And then other procedural learnings,

Besides just these postures,

One classic is that some children grow up in environments where the only time they really got secure care.

Secure care was when they were sick.

That's the only time that they felt really the kind of caregiving,

The kind of love that was nurturing and so in adult life,

They will manifest semantically sensations of sickness,

Heaviness,

As a way to garner some kind of safe care from other people.

Some children only got attention by,

Through transgressive acts,

Being loud,

Breaking rules,

Being aggressive,

And so in their adult life,

In any novel situation where they're not paid attention to,

Rather than simply stating their need to be heard,

They will become violent.

They will become,

They will say things that they know will hurt others and they will push and become physically aggressive.

The Buddha noted that in early life there is,

In his fundamental teaching,

Paticca Samuppada,

No great translation of that.

The worst of them all is the chain of dependent arising,

Which means nothing.

But Buddhist translators don't care if something means nothing.

They just try to be so painfully accurate with the words that they give,

They don't care that the words that they use actually mean absolutely nothing to anyone.

Essentially it means that there's a process of our experience and this process is pretty predictable and it covers both moment by moment experience and also the entire arc of human life.

I'm not going to go into it,

I'm just going to cover two or three of the key events in this cycle.

The first is the Buddha says there's this period early,

Early on in life called Nama Rupa and that's the early attachment experience is where we have encoded in us basic perceptions and body states.

This is what we know is the attachment years and what I've been talking about is the formation of these procedural learnings that help us to survive.

I'm safe here with my parents,

I can relax,

I can make eye contact,

I can open my body towards people,

I can disclose,

I don't have to disappear,

I don't have to become activated or disconnect.

I'm just confident or my parents are sometimes soothing and caring but sometimes they're unavailable so I have to completely spend my life orienting preoccupied with significant others,

Anxious that they'll disconnect,

Monitoring their every facial expression to know when the disconnection will happen.

When I'm in a relationship with someone I'm likely to drop all the other issues in my life and lose connection with all that is embraceable in my life because I'm so preoccupied with that one person.

Or maybe my belief is I won't get any of my needs met from significant attachment figures so I have to totally take care of myself and the safest place for me is to be away,

To seek distance,

To disconnect.

So these are what the Buddha called Nama Rupa,

They are the early formative events in life that determine what situations we believe are safe or not safe,

What we need to do to survive.

Then there's what the Buddha calls Fasa which means we make contact with situations that are somehow emotionally important,

New people,

Interactions with people who have power over us or who we have to report to.

We grow up in hierarchies where there are teachers and kids that have a lot of influence over other kids and we have these contacts and due to those early formative experience we orient to the stimulus around us.

We orient to the things that are,

To the sensations that are either the most threatening or are the most,

What's the word,

Opposite of threatening,

Opportunistic,

Advantageous,

Best for us.

And we habitually,

In other words,

Let's make this concrete,

In childhood,

In classroom settings,

We feel humiliated and when we are asked to show our work,

We wet ourselves,

We're in second grade,

We feel socially rejected and the image of one particular boy who's laughing at us with the greatest degree of avarice and disgust is imprinted and it creates a belief that in interpersonal vulnerable situations I have to find the man or the male figure with the most unwelcoming face and orient towards him because that's where the greatest danger is.

And so habitually through the rest of my life in these situations I will unconsciously scan and orient towards that,

The most dangerous,

The most threatening,

The most unsafe.

And once that happens it creates,

The Buddha says,

Feelings,

Tightness,

Negative feelings,

Contraction,

Tension and all that.

So there's this,

All of this is pre-conscious,

All of this happens automatically.

I have been trained in childhood or in early educational environments that in large groups I'm unsafe,

The best way for me to survive is to get small and make sure that I do not make eye contact with the most aggressive male or the most powerful person in the room,

That's the only way I can survive and that by the time we're an adult happens like that.

It becomes a reaction that creates tension and from that all of the behaviors and self-sabotaging and not taking care of ourselves will follow.

So the key is learning to reorient,

Finding safety cues.

The amygdala are the unconscious fast processes in the brain will always,

Due to negativity bias,

Will always find the most threatening stimuli in any experience.

That's its job.

Its job is not to find all the stimulus around us that is neutral,

That has no import or actually all the stimulus that's friendly.

It took me quite a while when I became a teacher.

This,

What I do was kind of suddenly happened to me 16 years ago.

It wasn't something that I had yearned to be.

It happened because the teacher at the sangha where I was practicing abruptly left and the people who were there said,

We need you to do this.

When I would sit in front of people due to my childhood with a father who was,

Even after he got sober and the violence stopped,

He was never a friendly resource.

He was always the one that was likely to become explosive or just become critical.

Whenever I would teach,

I'd immediately look for the most,

I'd try to find the guy in the room that was the least friendly.

I was like,

What?

Everybody.

Most of the time there would be people just grateful that there was still a class going on,

But everything about me would orient to the threat.

I must find a threat and if I do find it,

My body will tense and then I will become small or I will have to force myself to become relaxed.

I became this whole thing and I had to train myself not to allow my natural orienting processes and my amygdala to determine what I would pay attention to.

And through reorienting to different sensations around me,

Then I could actually re-inhabit my body,

Relax,

Breathe and be fully present and take care of myself and actually present or talk to people in confidence.

It's not something that happens naturally.

It's something that we actually have to engage with.

First,

Maybe a number of you have no idea what I'm talking about and this doesn't apply to,

But still I think it's worthwhile knowing how to reorient to safety cues so that we can no longer disconnect from our bodies or become really small and contracted and not take care of ourselves.

So,

I think it's time we do a little practice.

I have no idea what time.

Oh,

Okay.

It's ten.

So,

Do we need a bathroom break and then do practice?

Let's do that.

Let's take a ten minute bathroom break and then we're going to practice.

I have a question about what you were just saying.

Because what it reminds me of is like,

Everyone will be on the street,

Right?

But what about when that's an actual threat?

I live in Brooklyn and I'm always standing.

I have to always be aware.

But that's not a real threat for me to be aware of what's going on.

That's a great question.

But even if there is a real threat being present,

Disconnecting from your body or only orienting towards the stress of the threat is actually going to make you more vulnerable.

Right.

It's this maladaptive reaction to it.

Yes,

Exactly.

But that's a great,

Great thing to bring up and I'll mention it.

Because you were like,

Hmm,

Maybe you don't relate.

I'm like,

Everyone.

Most people,

Right,

Relate at some point.

Yeah,

But that's true.

But yes,

If you suppose you're walking like my friend,

Who was talking to me when she left the park and she saw what she did.

Well,

Was she oriented towards the CBS?

Right.

Safety.

Right.

Exactly.

Thank you.

What's your name?

Do you understand the state was doing something that was going to Force you to decline and醫ing into it?

To see all the traumas.

He was going right at it right away.

Yeah,

I find that people in early recovery,

The most useful is,

I hear the writing,

There's people,

Some of them who is,

Addiction is a catchment disorder,

But for,

I can't remember at all.

That's what I think.

That's a masterpiece,

And it's very specific,

Because he's an addiction catchment specialist,

And he talks about why the,

Addiction is essentially an attempt to regulate emotions without relying on other people.

To use substance to regulate emotions,

To use the child,

Abandon them,

Or abuse,

Or whatever,

So people begin to believe that they cannot safely rely on other people.

So,

There's a lot of practices that he uses to let go,

Create a feeling of safety,

So people begin to reorient to what people,

For us,

For us,

Addiction is a catchment disorder.

I'm gonna check that out.

Go ahead.

I think everything you said,

Everything you said,

Makes so much sense to me.

I'm a person that don't know,

I don't know,

I learned how to walk on my own,

So.

Yeah.

And so do with that thought,

But there was one question.

I didn't understand,

You said that you were only on the floor with the most people,

So.

Did you say,

Yeah?

Yeah,

The child who,

Like,

You know,

For example,

The child who grows up in abuse and caregiver,

Even though there might be a safe caregiver,

The child will,

Unconsciously,

It's the right of individual,

Will need the attention to the words that the caregiver wants the most in the safe.

Because,

Suppose you're in a room with a kid and a tiger.

Okay.

What are you gonna pay attention to?

The kid?

Most people will pay attention to the tiger because that's where the threat is.

The unconsciously.

Oh,

They wanna protect themselves.

So yeah,

Most people unconsciously monitor the most threatening person in the room.

Suppose you're in a party and.

Oh,

You wanna stay away from them?

Yeah.

Monitoring them,

Like.

Yes.

Keeping your distance.

Exactly.

Yeah,

Like dogs do.

Yes.

If an aggressive dog comes,

They get under a chair.

Right,

The right of individual in the brain always orients towards them.

Orients.

Yeah.

Well,

I don't know if this is the same,

But I find that in,

Throughout my life,

My theme has been to be attracted to familiar people.

Yeah,

It's called.

To my mother.

It's called repetition compulsion.

Repetition compulsion.

Yeah.

And is that part of this too?

Yes,

Well,

In attachment,

The early experiences we have with caregivers create is called internal models.

And we are unconsciously gravitating towards people who,

For example,

Nobody's born knowing what life is or what care is.

What we experience,

We believe is what it is.

So if a father is,

You know,

Distance.

Critical.

Critical.

Critical.

Mine was very critical.

Then we will re-date the same person because.

I can't marry my father.

Yes.

But that's what most people do,

Especially.

So if you.

Yeah,

Yeah.

If you.

Interesting.

If you,

What's the word?

One of the most important things to do is to read a book on attachment.

Can you recommend one?

Yeah,

Try the book Attached.

It's called Attached and it's by a mirror of the.

I don't know if you guys.

That's a great introduction to attachment.

It shows how people unconsciously gravitate towards the same experiences that they have as a child.

They recreate them essentially.

The most moving experiences of a child in a relationship.

That makes sense though when you add it as a child.

But I mean,

Kind of add more goals from it.

Push one down,

Move one,

And it's happening.

You know,

Put one.

Yeah.

Put it up.

Put one down,

Put this next up.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh.

You said right after lunch.

Yeah,

I think lunch is like 12,

So maybe like around,

Like we generally,

There's a room here that's right adjacent,

Like the boardroom.

It'll probably be done by like 1240.

Okay.

All right.

So,

So just an important note.

No matter what degree of emotional wounds or traumas that we have experienced,

And those experiences can create what's called triggers,

Anything that unconsciously reminds us of any stimuli that's remotely similar to the original wounding event can trigger a immediate,

The first thing that'll trigger is anxiety.

Anxiety is the anticipation of conflict,

Pain,

Unsafety.

It's an anticipation that's,

You know,

There's something isn't yet happening,

But I believe it will happen.

Anxiety is that anticipation of the unsafe.

And so in life,

We can make the mistake of believing that the only way to deal,

Especially if we've had traumatic experiences,

The only way to deal is by avoiding situations or avoiding that which triggers us.

And that's actually the exact opposite of the case,

Because avoidance coping,

Avoiding things that trigger us actually leads to avoidance coping,

Which is,

It's a pernicious,

Maladaptive strategy that always invariably gets worse over time.

For example,

Somebody who,

Just to use the most run-of-the-mill example,

Somebody who one day on their way home from work after grocery shopping gets mugged,

It's a very terrifying,

Violent event.

And so coming home,

They will immediately avoid any outdoor,

They will just avoid any situations where they're out after six o'clock at night,

And they will avoid any situation that at all resembles that situation.

Now you'd think that it would just end there,

But actually avoidance coping spreads.

Virtually every person who's in the room and virtually every person who winds up,

I know this is gonna sound extreme,

Is a shut-in,

Started out where they were just avoiding going outdoors for specific periods,

And then that spreads.

For peer-to-peer who avoid interpersonal contact or some who want to be in a relationship,

Just avoid any romantic possibility,

These tendencies spread,

And they actually do not remove the feeling of unsafety.

They make us feel more unsafe.

The more we rely on avoidance coping,

The more the amygdala now constantly orients and lives its life in just thinking about any area of our life where we could even potentially be re-exposed to a trigger.

Of course,

The answer is not just to throw oneself back into a situation where one could be triggered because that will lead to flooding,

But the answer is to go back into the situations that feel unsafe but in a new way,

Titrating,

Reorienting,

Knowing where support is.

There's a whole bunch of strategies,

But the idea that,

Oh,

This thing is triggering for me,

Therefore it's bad,

That's actually the exact opposite of the truth.

Amy brought up a great point that what I was describing of orienting towards the most unsafe stimuli certainly could represent the very normative experience of women walking alone on the street in any area and where a man present could actually really be a real threat,

Not just an anticipated threat,

But could actually be,

And that very often,

Populations,

People are not safe,

And that's really absolutely very true,

And then still,

The most important thing to do is not just to singly orient towards a threat,

But to learn to reorient towards safety.

That's how we survive.

For example,

That person I was talking about,

My friend,

Who,

That stranger who was inhaling a rag,

Who was speaking in a completely,

Was not really using language,

Was just using utterances,

And who followed her out of the park,

She oriented knowing where he was,

But then she spent the rest of the time orienting towards safety.

She found the CVS,

She went into it,

She then found a way to leave.

She oriented constantly towards safety,

And that's how she was empowered to take agency.

If only thing she did was constantly orient towards the threat,

She would not have been safe.

She would not have gotten out of it.

Maybe she would have,

But she might very well not have gotten out of that situation.

So it's essential to learn how to reorient to what is safety,

Because when you do that,

Not only can you move towards that which is safe,

Like you go into a party instead of orienting towards the one person you know who you have an issue with,

If you don't,

Then if you don't see all the people that are friendly or are inviting,

Or that you could have a novel situation,

You will just stay stuck,

Frozen,

Or unable to have any engagement with other people.

And also when we orient towards that which is safe,

We have agency.

When we orient only towards threats,

What we do is we become tense,

We become tight,

We become essentially incapable of acting on our behalf.

Hope some of this makes sense.

Either way,

I'm gonna plow ahead,

Sense or not.

So we're gonna do a practice now.

So get really comfortable,

And in this practice,

I just want you to completely be as relaxed as possible.

Just really comfortable.

I would invite you just for this practice also to keep your body in what feels to be a very fluid,

Almost like you're a runner,

You're not frozen.

Don't keep yourself locked tight.

Keep yourself really like you could,

You have loose limbs,

Loose body.

Closing our eyes.

And let's just take our breaths just to create some feelings of safety.

And we'll ease so.

Nice full in-breaths,

Clenching the muscles in the face,

Locking the jaw,

Tightening the forehead,

And then breathe out.

And just relax the face.

Soften the micro muscles around the eyes,

Unclench the jaw,

Smooth out your forehead.

The second nice complete in-breath,

Lifting the shoulders up above the ears,

And then rotate the shoulders back to open up the chest,

Engage the bagel break,

And then drop your shoulders with a long out-breath.

And then just allow the arms to hang loosely or just whatever feels the most relaxed.

Just feeling that open chest,

Breathing into it.

And then our third in-breath,

In-breath,

Breathing in through the nose and expanding the belly like your belly is pulling in the air into it.

You wind up with a nice round belly,

And then as you breathe out,

Just feeling all the muscles release,

Soften.

We'll just sit here for a few moments before we go into the exercise,

Just reconnecting with your body.

Think of it maybe as like all the sensations in your feet,

Just feeling into them,

That area.

Don't visualize your feet,

Just ask yourself,

What sensations right now indicate I have feet?

And just feel the tingling sensations like,

Like stars at night becoming visible,

And then dimming.

And then let's move to the legs.

First your left,

Just feel what sensations indicate you have a leg.

Just feel what sensations indicate you have a left calf,

A left thigh.

Just feel what sensations indicate you have a left calf,

A left thigh.

Tense the right.

And then just move up your body in whatever way you can.

Method you want,

You could just continue moving up from left sensations and then right sensations,

Or you might just want to move to an area that feels particularly numb,

Or you could move to an area that feels particularly easeful.

For those of you who have any physical discomfort or chronic pain,

You might want to spend three breaths in the area that's uncomfortable and then move to the area that feels uncomfortable.

And then move to the area that feels uncomfortable.

And then move to the area that feels uncomfortable and then move to a mirroring area of your body that feels comfortable or at least neutral sensations.

And then have the same number of breaths,

So you're pendulating back and forth.

Say if you have a slight sinus headache,

So I spend three breaths just being aware of the feelings of congestion.

And then I'm going to spend three breaths orienting towards the feelings in my left palm,

Which are very soothing.

And then three breaths back,

Just opening,

Not resisting the pain right beneath my right eye,

And then going back to my left palm,

Etc.

So,

I'm going to spend three breaths orienting towards the feelings in my right palm,

Which are very soothing.

And then three breaths back,

Just opening,

Not resisting the pain right beneath my right eye,

And then going back to my left palm,

Which are very soothing.

And then three breaths back,

Just opening,

Not resisting the pain right beneath my right eye,

And then going back to my left palm,

Which are very soothing.

And then three breaths back,

Just opening,

Not resisting the pain right beneath my right eye,

And then going back to my left palm,

Which are very soothing.

.

.

.

At this point,

I'd like you to,

Invite you to bring to mind a recent interpersonal experience that didn't go well,

Or felt uncomfortable.

Nothing too overwhelming,

But something that left really unpleasant,

Or dissatisfying,

Or irritating,

Or even made you angry,

Or really sad.

Not something that was violent,

Or something that's too hot for us to work with.

Just try to bring to mind any encounter that felt off.

If nothing comes to mind,

See if you can visualize a situation that normally makes you apprehensive,

Or makes an entire scenario in your mind.

When you bring to mind this event that either actually happened,

Or that you're just imagining,

Trying to make it as realistic as possible,

But especially make sure you can see the other's face.

.

.

.

This person is oriented directly towards you.

There's no escaping it.

This could be a situation where you expect to be abandoned,

Or criticized,

Or have an important person in your life become conflictual.

.

.

.

What I'd like you to do while you have this situation clearly in mind,

Is first orient towards some sensation in your body that feels unclenched,

That feels in some way aggramed,

Something that feels secure,

Something that you could rely on.

If you're visualizing a situation with a roommate,

Or boss,

Or relative,

Or neighbor,

Or something,

Hold their image in your mind,

But now orienting awareness towards some sensation in your body that feels.

.

.

That you could rely on.

Maybe your legs,

Maybe your arms.

If you don't feel anything,

Clench your.

.

.

Bring energy either into your legs or your arms so that you can feel some aliveness.

Now return to the mental image of the other person.

Imagine them with an unfriendly,

Unwelcoming facial expression.

But then look around,

And create in your mind,

Refined from the image,

Another sensation that's not threatening.

A resource,

An exit,

A soothing color,

An open space.

Imagine being able to shift your awareness from the person's face to the safety queue while you were talking,

And then back to their face,

And then back to the safety queue.

Something that reminds you you're not trapped,

That you can leave.

Bringing awareness to the face,

And then bringing awareness to the sensation in your body that is not anxious.

Something that feels grounding,

Back and forth.

And then just let the mental image fade.

Take a nice full in-breath,

And as you breathe in,

Tighten all the muscles,

And then as you breathe out,

Just release.

Reviews

Brilliant. The sniffing was a distraction but otherwise well worth while . Thank you.

Excellent! Very informative.
Thank you so much.

Wealth of valuable and pretty straight-forward information. I found itvmade sense and was validating. There was a "10 minute bathroom break" that could have been cut out in the middle ;) But then also a valuable technique that likely takes much repetition but hopefully leads to an abilitu to face those ingrained fears and habits to live more freely and peacefully. Thank you for this talk! I feel like it is an important avenue much overlooked by professionals and laypeople alike. Hope to discover more along these lines!! Recommendations? Peace :)

Thank you so much for this talk. It’s just what I needed to take me into the next chapter of discovering and healing the past that has been holding me back in life. I look forward to finding out more in the two books that you mentioned, “Attached” and “Addiction Is Attachment Disorder”, and any other talks that you decide to share. Namaste 🙏🏻🌻

I really enjoyed this talk and I love the subject matter. I wish that the presenter hadn't been sick as it was hard for me at the end because of the sniffling and the cough drop that was audible and competing for my attention. I will practice the meditation at a later time. Thank you! 🙏

Aside from the sniffling & umming, this resonated with me big time. Especially with trauma. Will listen again. Thank you 🙏

Thank you for the insight on how we hold early life negative experiences in our body (mine in tense shoulders and jaw), and the beautiful releasing meditation. At this moment I feel so peaceful.

I have over time found success with bringing osteoarthritis pain down a couple of notches with a forty minute meditation session. This has always been accomplished with deep relaxation and observation.

Your session taught me how to focus on a specific pain and somehow reboot or reset my perception of the pain by bouncing back and forth from the pain sensation to the pleasure sensation.
Thank you so much.
I hope you recovered from your cold.
Be Well
Judy

Thank you for this deeply insightful talk and meditation.

Namaste