Signaling Safety To Our Nervous System

This nervous system regulating practice focuses on what we're signaling through our breath, tension in the body, and our thoughts. When we hold our breath, we unconsciously signal danger. When we breathe diaphragmatically with ease and smooth continuous breath, our body knows we are safe enough to relax. Through this practice, we sharpen our neur-ception so we are accurately assessing our situation in the present moment.

Transcript

We're doing a practice today about signaling safety to our nervous system.

A mindfulness practice of noticing what is here.

What am I experiencing right now?

Do I feel safe in my body right now?

That's a really good question to pay attention to.

Let's check in.

As we get started any practice we start with what's here.

One of the ways that we might notice is through our eyes.

If you look around the room that you're in or the location you're in and look behind you as well.

We're letting our eyes notice.

Is there anything here that seems dangerous that we need to be on the alert for?

And what we find when we do that is that in fact everything is either neutral or it's okay.

Is there anything actually alarming?

And notice if that has an effect.

What does that feel like to look around and see?

Actually no it's okay.

There's nothing here that's alarming.

And then we could also add in the safety side.

What is it that's nurturing for you as you look around to the location that you're in?

Our homes if you're in an indoor space provide safety from the elements.

We have built this sense of safety in our environment.

It's never perfect safety but is it safe enough that we could look around and go very very likely there's no threat here right now.

I could take a few deep breaths.

I could let my body soften.

When we're looking at safety and signals of safety what we're looking at is our nervous system pays attention to our senses.

That's one of the reasons why we use our eyes.

If our eyes take in that there's no danger here it's a direct communication to the nervous system.

We use our sense of touch.

Putting a hand on our heart or holding your own hands or noticing that our bodies are supported in the environment.

You might be on a floor or a chair or a bed whatever that is.

Our bodies are supported here.

We can feel that.

We have an automatic assessment of that.

One of the other senses is our hearing.

As we hear the sounds in our room we might notice is there anything that signals danger in the sounds in your area right now?

And again we could look at is there anything that's signaling safety?

For many people I hear that my voice creates a feeling of it's okay to relax.

It's soft.

It's warm.

Anybody who's been coming to these practices for a while now we've got associations with my voice,

With relaxing and feeling safer.

So that is a positive cycle that happens as well.

It's set up to alert us right away if there's something going on that's dangerous and it doesn't pay attention so much to what's safe but we can notice that.

We can focus on that.

So that's very helpful.

What are the visuals,

The sounds,

The touch that help me to know or experience that I'm safe right now?

So our nervous system has a negativity bias.

It's far more interested in what could be a potential threat.

It's one of the ways that it keeps us alive.

It's a little bit more of the ways that it keeps us alive and it has a history.

So a lot of the sense of I'm not safe right now has nothing to do with the present moment.

It has to do with either thoughts about the future or something could happen that's going to be not good.

It might be dangerous but it also might be something I don't want to have happen.

Some kind of pain or suffering or loss.

Part of what's going on in the mind is we have that predictive quality.

We take all the evidence from the past,

All of our past associations,

And we predict what might happen in the future.

And then we have all of the thoughts of the past and the associations of that.

And we come back to our visual sense of sight.

One of the things that we can do is notice what are the images in our mind.

And this is one of the reasons why it's helpful to not watch videos of alarming events.

Our brain doesn't know that 100 years ago moving pictures were invented.

It doesn't know that it's not true,

That it's not happening in our area.

It's not an immediate threat because until 100 years ago everything that we saw as a moving picture was something that was 50 or 100 or a few hundred feet away.

One of the ways that we might work with that and many of you are familiar with it is when we have images that are alarming we could put them on the wall on the other side of the room just like we're looking at the image in a frame.

So if as you're finding that you're feeling really kind of hypervigilant or tense and that some of it seems to be image related that's one way to work with that.

Once you get it over there then our eyes can see oh that's happening over there.

We're more aware in our nervous system that we're looking at an image,

A thought.

And then take your eyes around the empty space on the outside of the frame a couple times in one direction and a couple times in the other direction.

And then when we look back at that image again sometimes it's faded sometimes it doesn't feel as real.

And one of the reasons for that is because we've let our brain know that's an image that I'm looking at it's not something right now.

And the other reason is because when we are alarmed by something we often have an associated sensation or energy in our body.

What's happening in your body right now and how are you interpreting that?

Oftentimes people have a I'm ready for action feeling in the body.

It might be kind of a jitteriness if we're in more of a freeze response or might be kind of a dullness or a heaviness.

And then specifically we might have some kind of energy in a part of our body.

It's very common to have kind of a bracing energy in the back of our neck shoulders upper back.

Might have kind of a crawling anxiety or fear in our belly and our gut.

Heaviness in the heart area.

And on their own those sensations we are aware of them on a nervous system level even if we're not aware by paying attention to them.

But they are always signaling something.

So if we were to bring our shoulders up a couple times on the inhale and exhale let them release.

And as we're doing that see if you could let the shoulders the large muscles of the upper back soften.

If you want you could turn your head again look behind you let your eyes really see oh in fact there's nothing behind me.

I don't need to brace myself.

I could allow my shoulders to move around.

I could allow my body to open a bit.

Maybe I could even take a few deeper breaths.

So one of the ways that we have this experience of I'm not safe is that we have sensations or energies in our body that have associated thoughts and memories.

By themselves the sensations signal something but then we're very often caught in a train of thought.

And often that train of thought is worst case scenarios or catastrophic thinking generating a stream of well what if this happens or what if that happens.

And each image would be more alarming.

Part of that is because our brain doesn't know the difference between what we vividly imagine and what is actually happening in this moment in time.

So it's not to say what we're worried about might not happen it might.

It often doesn't but it might.

And the more we have solid evidence from the past the more likely we are to feel like that's very likely to happen.

As we're working with this we're working with this mind body.

It's not one thing it's all working together.

What we're looking for here is little points where we can enter in and signal safety.

One of the ways to do that is to notice when the sensations are in my body could I notice them kind of like a witness.

I have this heaviness in my chest for example.

Does it go through your whole body?

Is it a very specific kind of sensation?

Does it feel like it's dark or does it feel like there's something pressing on your chest or is it more diffuse?

We could look at these sensations like we would describe them to a scientist.

So we notice the edge of the sensation.

We notice is it moving or is it still?

And often when we look at it that way we can go into an inquiry around what is this associated with.

So right now though we're really just getting a little bit of information and very often what will happen of course when we're focusing on a sensation is the associated thoughts start to come forward and then we could maybe start to bring our awareness into putting it into action.

And then we could maybe start to bring our awareness into putting it in the wall on the other side of the room in that frame.

Or we might just look and see as long as we can remain aware that we're not in danger right now because of that image then it's okay.

So we've got sensations in the body,

We have thoughts in the mind and we have our breath.

Most people will say,

Yeah I notice that when I get really upset I hold my breath.

We don't really want to breathe in again.

We breathe in it's like it feels a bit overwhelming sometimes and when we've got some breath we might not want to give it away.

So this habit of holding our breath and the raggedness kind of of our breath is a strong signal to the nervous system that there's something to be alarmed about.

Because normally we don't breathe that way unless we've had a lot of trauma in the past and we've developed a habit or a pattern of breathing that way.

Our body breathes diaphragmatically is how we're meant to breathe,

It's the healthiest way to breathe.

And what that feels like in our body is as we breathe in our stomach area expands or rises and as we breathe out the stomach area softens and comes back towards the spine.

So you can imagine if you're holding your breath we often have tight muscles,

Tightness in the chest.

Women are really encouraged to suck in your gut,

Don't let a stomach show.

If you have a habit from that you'll probably be breathing more in your chest because you've been blocking the natural softness of the belly and of the rhythm of the diaphragmatic breath.

So without really changing your breath,

Although it's probably starting to change a little,

Just notice how you're breathing and what parts of your body are moving as you and what parts of your body are moving as you breathe.

Ideally we have a smooth even breath about the same length on the inhale as the exhale.

Or if we're doing a relaxation breathing we might be breathing out longer on the exhale but it's smooth,

It's continuous,

There's ease in our breath.

So it would be more calming to breathe in to three seconds or two seconds if you can relax and let that happen than to try to breathe in to six or something like that,

Unless that's something where you can still remain relaxed,

Let your belly soften.

What we're signaling to our nervous system with a smooth diaphragmatic breath is that it's safe to breathe.

When we're afraid sometimes we breathe in and then we hold our breath.

We don't want anyone to notice that we're here,

That doesn't feel safe.

So just to have a normal movement in our body and have a normal inhale and exhale,

It's a little bit of a sound sometimes in the breath.

And that's okay.

So we're signaling to our nervous system it's safe enough to breathe.

Whereas before,

If we're holding our breath,

If we're breathing up in the chest,

What we're signaling is there's some danger here.

And we might do that all day long for years because our nervous system has not been able And we might do that all day long for years because our nervous system has developed this experience of there's danger here.

And now with this simple practice,

We can signal that our body's safe.

So we don't signal that by thinking about it,

We just signal it by doing it.

So notice your breath.

As you're breathing in,

Notice the coolness of the inhale through your nostrils.

As you're breathing out,

Let your body soften.

Certainly the muscles of your stomach,

But also our body wants to soften on the out breath.

Let's focus on that for a bit,

Linking the exhalation with the softening in our body.

As you're breathing out,

You might soften your forehead,

Eyebrows,

And eyes.

Focus on that for a few breaths.

Notice if your mouth and jaw are relaxed,

You could move your lower jaw around.

Loosen up a little bit through the hinges of your jaw.

Many people hold a lot of tension in the jaw.

And let your teeth come to rest so they're not touching top to bottom.

Let your sense of speech also be at rest.

You relax your throat,

The sides of your neck,

Back of your neck into your upper back.

Notice if you're bracing yourself at all.

Threats that come from behind are more difficult to know.

Part of the reason why we might look behind and let our eyes reassure our nervous system.

As you're breathing out,

Let your muscles soften through the upper back and through the chest.

And notice your arms and legs.

Let a wave of stillness or softness come through the sides of your neck and shoulders,

Down through your arms,

Hands,

Fingers,

Fingertips.

Notice your legs,

From your lower belly down through your hips,

Thighs,

Legs,

Your feet and toes,

Your heels.

And just for a moment,

Let your body be still in the sense of,

I don't have to jump into action right now.

You might stretch your arms or legs,

Might move a little.

There's all kinds of ways that we can signal to the nervous system that we're safe.

We're safer,

We're safe enough,

Maybe.

The mind might still be generating ideas and thoughts about things.

Sometimes we're really chewing on something or ruminating on something from the past.

It's stuck.

It's stuck in our mind.

We could use that,

Put it in the frame practice.

We could notice the connection between the thoughts and the sensations in our body.

The important thing is to notice,

What is it that's giving me this sense that it's not safe right now?

Very often it's some kind of thought about the past or the future that's linked or associated with sensations,

Energy in our body.

We can't change the way our nervous system works.

Our nervous system has a negativity bias.

It remembers everything that's ever happened that's been dangerous,

Including things that happened when we were a child.

And a lot of those things,

Although they were harmful or scary,

We have a different experience now as an adult.

We can move away from them,

We can protect ourselves in a different way.

So sometimes those things that were really alarming to us as a child,

They're kind of embedded in our assessment mechanism.

So it's very helpful to become more accurate in our nervous system.

We're not trying to say that these things are not harmful or dangerous,

They often are and were.

We're just noticing right now in this moment,

What is my level of safety?

Which ones of the dangers are present moment or what could I let go into the background for a moment as I relax and become more aware?

Right now I'm safe.

It's safe enough to breathe.

So taking our attention away from the events in the world and in our daily life and with people we care about and with ourselves,

Of course,

Isn't selfish.

It's not self-centered.

It's a really practical way to build a more accurate nervous system,

A more accurate assessment of safety,

And also that we can then bring that resilience and strength into our life.

We're not pretending that things aren't hard,

They often are really hard.

We're just looking to make our perception of this moment in time more accurate and open up some space for ease.

We're looking around and going,

You know,

I could really appreciate the sunshine this morning where I am.

And if we're really wrapped up in the past or the future,

We forget to look around and appreciate what's here.

And then we bring this strong open heart into the rest of our day.

It's safe enough to breathe,

Safe enough to relax,

It's safe enough to go off duty.

Ironically,

That's the best way to protect ourselves,

Be here in this present moment,

Accurate in what we're assessing.

And I hope you have some ease and joy in your day.

Reviews

This is another great practice to remind our nervous system that we safe enough now and we can relax our body and stay in the present. Thanks Lynn. These practices are really helpful for easing bodily tension. ❤️

Another extremely relaxing session, Lynn ❤️ From a big elephant on my chest to lightness in my heart. Thank you so much for these tracks and all the soothing events we get to be part of ❤️

Very soothing. Felt so safe I dosed off at the end. Thank you

Thank you, Lynn! This is another beautiful inquiry that has both soothed me and taught me how to better understand my nervous system. I highly recommend all of Lynn's work, including her courses!

Excellent and very helpful. Will return to this. Many thanks. 🕊️

Thank you, so very helpful. This is a strategy I will use in the future.