Co-Regulating With My Inner Manager | Managing Brain

In this 15-minute rest recording, we support our brains and nervous systems by connecting with what our attention is attending to. By doing so we help our brains and nervous systems to discern with regards to urgency, and remember that we don't need to manage all the time. This was done for a client who wanted to help her brain and nervous system transition after work and can also be done throughout your work day.

Transcript

So we'll start,

Let's start with,

Well,

Let's just go ahead and start with the eyes open like we often do,

Because we really want to make sure that our full brain is being invited here and we can do that through cognition of sight.

And so as the theme is on managing and not managing and whatnot,

We really want with our eyes to see the things that don't need to be managed.

And some things that we skirt right over is like,

Oh,

We don't need to manage the ceiling.

But we want to include that.

We want to include the ceiling because it's just a part of the safe environment that we're probably all in.

If you were to listen to this when you're outside,

You know,

You'll just switch the words around a little bit.

But for this context,

Just notice like,

Okay,

There's solidity above me in the ceiling.

I don't need to translate,

I don't need to manage that.

There's solidity in the walls.

And I'm just looking at the bare basics,

The real actual factual of the walls that I can see.

They're solid,

They're sturdy.

Okay,

I don't need to manage them.

I'm gonna look even behind me and just do a slight,

A slight twist which activates the vagus nerve in a good way.

And we just check behind us even like,

Yeah,

There's no threat or danger behind us.

No,

Nothing to manage behind us.

And we're just,

We're fact checking with our eyes.

We're not just assuming,

We're really looking because we need to really look in order for our brain to come online in this useful way with our brain being regulated.

So we really take it seriously,

Even though it seems like a silly question.

We take it seriously that we're looking for,

We're verifying actually that there's no imminent threat or danger in our immediacy.

Not talking about like out on the streets or tomorrow or yesterday,

Just in the immediacy.

Even if I was in a car or even in an airplane,

I'd be looking just in the immediacy of my space and my place in space.

And I would include the floor as well.

Is there any imminent threat on the floor?

And I'm just gonna check it out with my eyes.

And then I'm gonna come to the chair I'm in.

Is there any imminent threat or danger?

In other words,

Do I need to manage anything about the couch or the chair that I'm in?

Or if I'm in a bed,

In the bed or on the floor,

If I'm sitting on the floor.

We're fact-checking.

If there is something to manage,

Then you can manage that.

Like maybe you need to rearrange something.

Then we come back and we double-check again.

Is there anything I need to manage about the chair?

Another way of asking this is,

Is the chair I'm sitting upon solid and supportive and pretty predictable?

When I look at what I'm sitting on,

I don't have to worry about it falling away or going somewhere.

Like I can see it's very sturdy and steady.

And then we can just slowly let the eyes close to feel what we had been seeing.

So we had been seeing a sturdy chair.

And now we're gonna invite our attention to drop into feeling it.

And our brain is still gonna be calibrating.

So we invite our attention to calibrate the resonance of solidity or predictability.

Is this object I'm sitting on pretty predictable as far as my sit bones tell me?

And I can't answer that with my thoughts.

I have to go to my sit bones.

So I have to drop my attention down into my feeling body,

My sitting body.

And I'm just kind of asking my body to discover or connect with where there's solidity.

Just letting my attention find it.

And there's no right or wrong answer.

It depends on the context of how we're sitting.

So for me in this moment,

There's a little bit of solidity behind the small of my back because there's a pillow there.

And then I can feel it under my,

I particularly feel it under my left thigh and my right sit bone.

I don't know why,

Just probably my positioning.

And then I feel it like under,

Well,

Yeah,

It is my positioning.

I feel it under my right ankle because it's how my legs are positioned.

So there's no right way to feel solidity.

We just have to discover it in the moment.

So we let attention meander and discover how it's connecting to solidity.

And then just hang out with that recognition,

Experiential recognition.

And we can feel the steadiness or the sturdiness.

We can feel through our feet or our sit bones or whatever we're connecting to in a stable way.

We can feel that there's not much to manage in those areas either.

So for example,

Like,

Yeah,

My sit bones don't need to manage much right now,

Or my hands on my lap really don't need to manage a whole lot right now.

And I'm just hanging out with that,

Just a simple truth,

Kind of an actual,

Factual.

Oh,

And I just wanna let my system connect with these actual,

Factual places of anchoring or grounding or connecting that I've already established through my cognition,

Through this experiential cognition.

And I just continue to bring my attention to the experiences that are just what they are.

There's no right about them,

No wrong about how my feet are crossed on the floor.

They just are.

I just feel the weight of them.

There's no right or wrong with how my hands are positioned on my lap.

I just,

I feel,

You know,

The way that my hands are positioned and they're just resting on my lap.

So in our own context,

We just notice what's simple,

What doesn't need to be managed or fixed or analyzed.

And we let our attention continue to connect with those simplicities,

Those simple experiences that we're having.

Just to give the managing brain a rest.

If the managing brain could speak,

It might be like,

Oh,

Thank goodness.

I just,

I get to rest a little bit here.

Just get to rest and be.

And the nervous system really appreciates that.

It's not for forever,

Just for now.

We're really letting attention just rest with what just simply is.

The body continues to breathe.

We don't even have to manage breath because our automatic nervous system just has that feature.

A feature that we get to be breathed by the mechanics of our humanness.

So we can just sit back,

So to speak,

Literally or figuratively,

In our chairs.

And we can just observe or witness or notice the experience of the breath coming in and the breath falling out.

And we just notice or experience the body filling up with the inhalation and then eventually the body filling or releasing out the breath.

We might feel ourself slightly rise to the ceiling with the inhalation or kind of take up more space because we're filling up.

And then with that exhalation,

Sometimes I like to audibly release it.

And I really get to feel my body then release into that field of gravity and the chair catches my exhaling body.

And that can feel nice for my body just to release out and any holdings that I had been accidentally engaging with might soften as I just invite my system to release out,

To let go.

And the chair will catch my body,

It'll catch the softening of my body as I release holdings.

And the holdings might be in,

For me,

They're often in my jaw.

I might have some unconscious holdings in my belly that might want to soften or could be lots of places.

It could be in the thigh area,

Could be in the hands.

Lots of people we just hold habitually on accident.

And so when we are reminded that we're really held by the chair,

We can be reminded that we can surrender a little bit to that holding to the chair.

And we're just kind of playing and experimenting here.

No shoulds or supposed tos or have tos.

We're just kind of just seeing what wants to release,

What's easy for to release without an agenda.

We're just gonna be quiet for a few cycles just to let ourself notice what's really simple in our experience.

And if those managing thoughts come in or images come in of past or future or thoughts of analyzing or whatnot,

Just notice them.

Just normal,

It's normal to happen.

I can just acknowledge them and maybe even let them know we'll attend to them shortly.

But for now,

We're just gonna continue to let the brain and the nervous system regulate a little bit longer.

And we're gonna just very gently bring our attention back to some experience that we're having right now of something that doesn't need to be managed.

And we might say like,

Oh yeah,

I don't need to manage X right now.

And just let that be the center of your attention for a little longer.

It's gonna hang out.

For me,

It was like,

Oh,

I'm just gonna hang out with my hands and feel them in the way that they are.

But then it might change.

Like then it just did change.

Like now I'm also gonna include the legs just resting.

Yeah,

So there's no place you should rest attention permanently.

But we're gonna keep including areas or experiences.

And they're just really simple.

Just continuing to keep bringing attention to simple,

Really simple experiences.

Even really,

We might think of mundane experiences like the air on the skin,

The sensation.

I always use this one and kind of it's funny is my armpits.

Like there's really nothing to manage in my armpits.

So sometimes I'll just bring attention there.

Like,

Oh yeah,

That's here too.

So simple.

And I'm gonna be quiet again for just a few more breath cycles just to let attention just rest here and discover,

Just be with what's simple.

The breath,

Be with what's simple.

And we're just reminding ourselves that there's nothing wrong with managing or nothing wrong with analyzing or figuring out.

That's,

You know,

We're planning.

That's an important part of our lives.

And we also just wanna remind ourselves that even in really busy moments,

There's both and happening.

There might be things that we need to be managing,

But there's also likely things that we don't wanna be managing and we don't need to be managing,

I mean.

And we wanna let that part of our brain and nervous system be reminded.

Like,

Oh yeah,

I'm not in complete urgency here.

I'm not in urgency.

I might just have a lot to do,

But I'm not in urgency and I can feel my butt in the chair or I can feel my exhalation.

I can feel my feet resting and I don't need to manage any of that happening.

We include that in our moments as much as we can remember in our days.

So I'm gonna end this recording soon and I hope this will be useful to come back to,

To listen,

To recalibrate and give our managing brains a little bit of a rest and our brains and nervous systems some calibration and some regulation.