Shifting From Urgency To Present

An 11-minute rest. Lisa slowly walks us through how to utilize our attention to regulate our brains/nervous systems. This is for a group and ends shortly after she says she's going to be quiet for awhile.
"This rest is perfect for when it's difficult to find a connection with oneself. It's a good entry into integrating or shifting attention to what's simple/ok when feeling stuck in a scarcity, fearful or urgency mindset." Google Lisa for learning self-regulation/her upcoming course.

Transcript

So let's just start with eyes open and again we're really we're practicing this like as a as a matter of practice because we want to train our attention and remind our attention it's important to calibrate and we calibrate with the eyes open in two ways. One to remind the reptilian system that there's no danger in the room. Now thoughts and emotions may be saying danger danger but we really want the eyes to calibrate to the room very tangibly. So we see the walls and we see that they're solid we can see the floor and the ceiling yeah and and gently you can see behind you that that gentle twist engages the psoas which is connected to our vagus nerve and we're just really we're letting our our eyes literally map. We're not going too fast we're like you know I can really see the stability I can see that there's no danger. You can also see doors windows you could you can literally leave this room at any time you're not stuck in it so you could you could walk around you could walk outside you have choice here and then we're continue to look for actual factual and now we're really calibrating the the brain with regards to noticing the actual factual through eyes so that might mean like the texture of the ceiling or the texture of the walls or the texture of fabric or carpet or floor those are some real easy ones to connect to because there's not right wrong good or bad in texture usually or colors or shapes we're letting our eyes land on what doesn't have a right wrong good or bad it just is and we might we might guess that some right or wrong thoughts will sneak in will come in that's to be expected and when they do we just know know that and then we want to go a layer under those valued thoughts to just simply an actual factual again of naming colors that just are or shapes in the room just just are the shape textures that have nothing to do with good or bad or right or wrong and make sure you're still breathing that the breath isn't holding itself while you're mapping you can also do this with scent so you might or sound you might hear an actual factual sound like the hum of the heater just simply is there's nothing right or bad or wrong about it or you might you'll hear the sounds of your home you can you can calibrate to those sounds as well at any time in your day just be like oh yeah just the simplicity of the sound nothing to argue with nothing to even like or dislike although you may have some preferences in there you might also notice the the scent the scent so you can use any of the senses to do actual factual you can do eyes visuals auditory smell taste and then when we're ready we'll let the eyes close and we'll do touch and then we'll bring our attention of the sitting body to what we're sitting on so we can feel the butt in the in the chip in the couch you can feel the feet wherever they're located if they're tucked under you you'll feel that if they're on the floor you'll feel them that way there's not a right or wrong way to be positioned or just noticing the experience of feet what feet are pressing into you've got a pillow behind you so you can feel that space behind your back and of course you can move if you want if you wanted a different positioning you can always do that you know in a way that it's easy or comfortable for your for your form and you can notice that the placement of hands or the hands happen to be fingers home there's a lot of different options for our attention to connect with but we're inviting attention to connect with something very tangible very real and those thoughts are going to come in and out so thoughts and images they're going to float in and out that's just the the mind that's what happens with thoughts you just let them be and very gently redirect your attention might use require a little effort to get attention back into something very tangible and it doesn't matter what it is could be armpits could be breath it could be the air on the face or hands let your attention kind of anchor and what's easiest to hang out with for your attention to hang out with and then I want one like I want you to invite you to make whatever the attention has selected make that the center of your universe so for example if your attention has landed and say the hands with you know it's like imagine that that the hand sensation is the center of everything right now and you're just hanging out there nothing else to do nowhere to go nothing to figure out you're just feeling the sensations of the location that your attention chose temperatures textures notice there's nothing to fix or change simply is and kind of even pretend or imagine that broth is coming from there you're just breathing what's in the center of your attention inhaling from there you're slowly exhaling from there we don't need to make sense we're just kind of playing with living our attention settle those thoughts are going to come and go different thoughts different judgments different ideas different problems so forth and so on different images this gently keep bringing your attention back to what is simple and what's actual factual in this moment you might notice some parts of your body release you might notice the breath becomes slightly more fluid there's no supposed to use or have to just notice your own experience and you can ask questions like I think you know most of you know or you know that my jaw is often where I keep tension so I might be like okay like is there is there unnecessary holding in my jaw right now or any unnecessary holding in any anywhere else that habitually holds for for you or for me and so sometimes we can let attention meander to really invite different parts of us to really surrender to really remind ourselves there's nothing to do in this moment nothing for the arms to do nothing for the legs to do for the hands to do or connecting to sitting you can just watch the body take air in we can watch and feel the breath leave hmm we're letting we're giving ourself over to simple in a very tangible way so I'm going to be quiet for a little bit and then I want you to connect with what you're discovering what is easy to include and we're not going to deny that there's challenges there might be things that are hard or challenging or whatever word we want to give to it those are here too and we can connect to them in a moment but for now take your time and when you're ready you can tell me what what you're noticing that's really simple and easy or actual factual and in this moment and just take your time you

Reviews

I like the use of the senses to bring me to the here and now 👍👍🙏