Coming Home To Myself

The effect of trauma is that we disconnect from ourselves. This guided practice is a way back home, a way to reconnect with our bodies, feelings, and our younger self. We may have been a "fair weather friend" until now because it was too painful. We still have an opportunity to connect and come home to ourselves.

Transcript

When we come into awareness of what's here,

Sometimes what we notice is how disconnected we are a lot of the time.

When we have this extra attention that we're putting into our present moment,

Sometimes it feels like,

Oh,

I didn't know that my neck was stiff,

Or we move our body around a little bit,

Or something happens.

Quite often we have a sense of the energy that's going on.

We might have a sense of,

Yeah,

Right now I'm feeling pretty stable.

I'm feeling pretty anxious.

I'm feeling kind of disconnected.

So one of the reasons that we start every practice with tuning in is we don't just jump right into something.

We need to know what's our baseline.

It's very helpful to know that.

And this is a mindfulness practice that we can do all day a lot of the time.

When I'm working on the computer,

I'll just notice my breathing.

We don't have a big need for a lot of air when we're just sitting around.

But oftentimes I'll notice when I take a few deeper breaths,

I feel a bit better.

We always do a little bit better,

Releasing some of the carbon dioxide and bringing in the oxygen.

Sometimes people will notice that they're holding their breath.

Holding our breath is a habit that forms over a long period of time.

And it can take a lot of somatic awareness to come back,

Take a few deep breaths.

And then I'm gonna monitor that.

And over time,

What happens is that that habit changes.

It's like the habit of breathing up in your chest instead of breathing diaphragmatically.

Holding your breath at the end of the inhale or at the end of the exhale.

These are habits that we form from experiences we have in our nervous system.

And we can work with those habits and turn them around.

Holding our breath was necessary at some point in our life.

We wouldn't have developed that habit otherwise.

We don't need to hold our breath now.

It's not helpful.

It's hard for the heart muscle,

But it's also signaling danger to the nervous system.

We don't need to give ourselves a hard time about it,

But it's good information.

And notice your physical body.

What's happening in your physical body right now?

And you could move your head around a little bit or move your shoulders up or shake out your feet or bring your arms out and give them a shake or something.

Move your body for a moment and settle into,

What does this feel like?

Combine that with some breath awareness as well.

And bring your awareness into your heart.

We can bring our awareness into the heart area in our body,

That location in our body.

Sometimes it helps to have a hand or two hands on our heart.

Bring your awareness into your feelings,

Emotions.

What is your situation emotionally right now?

Coming home to our body really means we're noticing what's here.

As we're noticing what's here,

We might also be making sense of,

Well,

Of course I'm not in my body that much.

It feels uncomfortable or uncomfortable.

I'm trying to avoid that feeling of dread in my gut.

I have pain in my body or there's something going on that doesn't feel comfortable.

Gaber Mate has so many good ways to describe the effect of trauma.

One of them is that we disconnect from our physical body.

We disconnect from our body,

From the moment,

From our sense of value.

If we're disconnected from the present moment,

Then we're automatically disconnected from our body because our body is here in this moment.

If we're not noticing our body,

Then where are we?

Well,

We're most likely in our head in the past or the future.

And that also makes sense because we use the evidence of the past to predict our present moment and future safety.

And ironically,

When we're in the past or anxious about the future,

We're missing this present moment.

And our neuroception or our perception of safety and threat right now isn't very accurate.

It's not based on what's happening right now.

It's highly influenced from our experience as children,

As younger adults,

Younger meaning anything up until today.

Notice if we just sit back again,

Notice what you feel like right now in your body,

In your breath,

In your heart.

What's going on in your system?

When Gabor Mate talks about the effect of trauma is that we disconnect from ourselves,

Then healing trauma must involve getting back in touch with ourselves.

And if you were to tune into your heart physically with your hands,

But also of course with your mind and say to yourself,

I am willing to cultivate being in connection with myself all the time.

I'm willing to cultivate a closer relationship with myself.

And as you sit with those words,

Notice what comes in.

Let's give it a minute or two.

I'm willing to cultivate a kind,

Close,

Intimate connection with myself.

In some ways you could work with that as an affirmation.

One of the ways that we work with that is a reverse inquiry.

We say something that we wish was true and we know isn't completely true.

And when we say it,

Then our unconscious brings forward anything that is objecting to that.

If you were to say it even more strongly,

I am intimately connected with myself.

I know myself,

I love myself.

Notice what your mind brings forward.

For most of us,

That's partly true,

Not all the way true,

Not all of the time.

What's in the way of having a kind,

Connected relationship with yourself?

And at least a big part of that answer is our nervous system.

We protect ourselves from whatever feels overwhelming.

And now as an adult,

We have more strength and we can work with some of the things that we really couldn't work with when we were younger.

We're here doing a practice and we have at least the commitment to being present.

We might not be able to do that all the time,

But we're interested in that.

And what drives that sometimes is this longing.

We know that we're disconnected and we long to be connected with ourselves and with other people too.

We can't really be connected with other people unless we're really at home and connected in ourselves.

That is one of the things that's drawing us in.

What is it that gets in the way?

Stories about what might happen,

Catastrophic thinking,

Perfectionism,

Anxiety,

Ruminating about the past,

Corteficiency beliefs.

There are a lot of things that make it really uncomfortable for us to be in our body and to be present.

Notice which ones of those are at play for you.

And as you're noticing that,

Notice where your mind went.

Are you exploring some of those thoughts,

Ideas,

What's coming forward,

Maybe memories?

Or did your mind go off into something else?

That would be very common as well.

When we're doing this,

Getting to know ourselves,

It's really important to try and have a friendly,

Affirming approach with ourselves.

So when we think about being with a friend,

We want to be with friends who are interested in us,

Who enjoy our company,

Who will listen.

And if we're in trouble or we're really distressed about something that they don't just go,

Oh,

Hey,

Everything's okay,

Don't worry about it.

They'll listen and see,

What is it that you could tell me about that?

I'd like to know more.

They're not the ones who sit there and go,

You're stupid if you think that way,

Or just get over it.

Those things are not helpful.

When we're getting into this deeper relationship with ourselves,

The same principles really apply.

In fact,

Even more so,

Because we hurt our own feelings all the time.

And that drives a lot of the disconnection.

If we're judging ourselves or shaming ourselves,

Which is another way of saying,

We've got kind of a hook on perfectionism,

Or we look at our behavior and we go,

Oh,

I must've been a terrible person,

Or what was the matter with me?

All of those things are disconnecting.

If you were to imagine a relationship with somebody who you really care about,

And if you have a child in your life,

You could think about them,

Especially if it's at an age that was a hard age for you.

If a lot of things happened when you were seven or 12 or whatever age.

If you think about or kind of bring in,

What's it like at that age for somebody?

That's been very helpful for me to look at a 12 year old and see what kind of ideas they have,

How naive they are often.

How we at that age don't have a way to get away from what's going on,

So we have to figure out a way to make it work.

And often that involves disconnecting,

Turning against ourselves,

Wherever we are in our life now,

We're left with this nervous system that developed a very strong habits of disconnection and of shaming.

We've internalized that a lot.

So what would it take to start to turn that in a little bit of a different direction?

Coming back to,

I have a loving,

Kind,

Close relationship with myself.

What is your response to that now?

What's in the way?

What ideas do you need to let go of?

What habits?

And as you're doing that,

Stay present in this moment.

Notice your feet,

Your seat,

Notice your breath.

If you have uncomfortable sensations in your body,

We often feel fear in our gut,

For instance,

Anger in our jaw,

You might get hot.

Whatever's going on in your body to notice that.

If it's more of a thought,

You could do some tapping on your forehead.

You could put the image into a frame,

Keep your eyes open.

And notice that there's space around the eyes.

Keep your eyes open.

And notice that there's space around the outside of the frame.

Take your eyes around that a few times in each direction.

The sensation in our body,

We could get interested in it.

One of the ways that we might know ourselves,

And this isn't the first thing that we might do,

Although it's certainly something that can be very helpful,

Is that we might really start to tune into the sensation and want to know more about why it's here.

Trauma is stored in our body as sensation and associated memories and thoughts.

When we're working with sensation,

It might be scary because of that.

And traumatic memories might come up and we could use those tools for thought with those.

This is partly why we're disconnected.

Tuning into the energy in the body,

Notice the location.

Notice qualities,

Is it moving,

Is it still?

And what does this sensation or energy want you to know?

Why is it here?

Painful sensation can feel like it's here to hurt us.

And it might be painful,

But it doesn't have a bad intention.

Any kind of sensation or energy in our body is some kind of signal,

There's something here.

And it can be a really important doorway into getting to know ourselves better.

Notice the space around the sensation,

Notice that the sensation's not taking over.

Even if it's filling up most of your body,

That sensation's not 20 feet away across the room,

It's localized.

And it also isn't here all the time.

We might have a persistent feeling when we tune into our gut as some uneasiness,

But it's not here all the time,

Or we're not paying attention to it all the time.

Sometimes we don't have it.

Sometimes we're riding our bicycle in the sunshine and that moves to the background.

We bring to mind someone we really care about,

We bring to mind someone we really care about and we're getting together with them when we think about that or when we're actually there.

We have all kinds of experiences.

And these traumatic memories and the sensations and energies of that can be quite persistent until we turn towards them and use them as a way to know ourselves more.

Notice your body,

Your breath,

Stay grounded,

And notice that you're here in this moment.

That you have a commitment to cultivating a closer relationship,

And knowing yourself on a deeper level.

And then what do we do when somebody we care about brings forward something that they're distressed about or that was a hard memory for them or that they're scared?

If we're grounded and we're not trying to avoid it,

We welcome and we pay attention and we don't shame them.

We normalize,

This is the way it works.

When our feelings are hurt,

When we're excluded,

When we've experienced pain or fear with somebody,

This is the way the nervous system reacts.

And now right in this moment,

We can connect and we can realize that the danger isn't here in this moment.

From that more resourced adult self that's also here,

We can connect with that scared part or the angry part.

Some people who have a visual mind might have a visual of this.

I'm sitting across from this person,

Me,

My younger self,

And they're ranting about how unfair that was or whatever they might be wanting to express and connect around.

Some people don't have that kind of visual mind and it's okay,

Whatever it is.

It might be sounds,

It might be a felt sense.

The next few minutes,

See if we can really bring all of us into our heart,

Whatever's here.

And sometimes we might want to let our younger self know that they're not alone.

Maybe I've been a bit of a fair weather friend until now,

But it's not because I don't wanna know you and love you and care about you,

Because it was too hard.

Every time I let myself feel this,

I would go back into traumatic memory and I didn't know how to work with that.

And now I do,

I have tools and I also have a commitment to knowing you.

I want to know myself,

Be at home with myself,

All the different parts.

One of the ways that I'll make sure you know that is that I'll keep checking in.

I'll keep opening that door of connection.

And if I notice there's a mean inner critic or I'm shaming myself,

I'll back them off.

That's not okay.

It's not your fault that you have a nervous system that reacts to fear and danger.

That's how we all are.

And now,

This moment is the time we can get to know each other.

I'm here for you.

And we can come back to this over and over and over.

Take a few deeper breaths.

Notice that you're here.

Notice you're doing a practice of connection.

You wanna put your hands on your heart.

You can feel that warmth and that support.

I really appreciate that there are ways to work with this.

Even if we're completely disconnected,

We're connected enough to come and do a practice and to connect again.

Reviews

Lovely! I like the way you integrate so many approaches to being present with our nervous system.