Just take a moment and look around the room.
Notice if there's anything visually alarming.
Anything that cues you,
I need to take action right now.
Is there any sounds that you're hearing?
It's quite windy here,
So I'm hearing some wind sounds.
And then notice what it feels like to take a few deeper breaths.
Is that welcome?
If we're in a more activated nervous system response,
A survivor response,
Sometimes it feels like too much.
We don't really want to go into our body.
There's a reason that we spend our time in our head often.
But it's also something we need to be able to do is to come in,
Notice what's happening.
If there actually is not an immediate danger that I need to respond to,
Then could I let my body soften and relax?
As we're breathing in and out,
You might let your shoulders rise on an inhale.
Opens up the lungs a bit and then release on an exhale.
Do that for a few times.
Four qualities of the breath are that it's smooth and continuous,
We're not holding our breath.
If we're holding our breath,
That's a signal that there's something alarming.
We only hold our breath and get really still in our body if we're feeling any threat.
So if we could move our body a little,
That signals safety.
And then if we can have some deeper breaths,
It also signals safety.
Just move your body however you feel like,
That might be helpful.
Sometimes it feels good to lift our arms above our head and really open up through the ribcage.
Or maybe you want to stand and do a little shaking at the beginning.
As we're starting a practice,
It's helpful to track our body.
Does it feel good to be still right now?
Just focus on letting my belly soften as I breathe.
What would be the most helpful?
And if you wanted,
You could do a longer exhale practice,
Which is helpful in activating our relaxation response.
Breathing in through the nose and then out through the mouth or out through the nose.
And we often do cyclic sighing,
Which is a deep double inhale through the nose so the lungs are quite full.
And then a long exhale like you're breathing out through a thin straw.
You might notice even one or two of those breaths helps us settle something.
Often it helps us to come back into our body a little bit more.
And as you're breathing out,
Let your whole body soften.
And what are some other ways that you might settle and come into this moment?
So many of them.
Breathing is one.
Noticing our bodies when we can also use our sense of touch.
So you might hold your own hands.
You might just put your hands on your heart or your chest and sometimes a fairly firm pressure there feels supportive.
There's this thing called butterfly.
So if you link your thumbs,
Bring that to your chest and just tap lightly.
It's like a butterfly wings would tap side to side.
This alternating sides is helpful for the brain.
You could do that kind of quickly or a little bit more slowly.
You might also just use your hands,
Your sense of touch,
Warm up your hands.
And then put them on your face.
You may hold your jaw,
The hinges of your jaw.
Give yourself a little light massage.
Or bring your hands over your arms,
Down through your legs.
Take a few breaths.
And how are you feeling now?
It might be similar,
It might have changed.
It's a complicated process.
It's very simple as well,
But coming into our nervous system,
Noticing our body,
Letting ourselves breathe.
The four qualities of the breath.
One is that we breathe through our nose.
And sometimes we'll do a breathing practice where we breathe out through our mouth,
And that's fine.
Just the general 24-7 breath.
We're breathing in and out through our nose.
Our exhale and inhale are about the same length.
So here we often do extended exhale,
Which is calming for our nervous system.
Which is generally when you're out and about,
You check your breath every once in a while.
So it's through the nose,
It's continuous and smooth and it's about the same length.
The continuity of the breath gets disrupted sometimes,
So we might start holding our breath or holding our body very still.
It's helpful to notice,
Am I holding my breath?
And that's not a problem if it's just once in a while.
But sometimes we'll develop a habit or a pattern of that.
As you're breathing out as you come to the end of the exhalation.
See if you could allow the inhale to start without a pause or a break.
As you come to the end of the inhale,
Let go of the stale breath,
Let go into your exhale.
Exhaling and inhaling,
Let your breath be through the nose,
Continuous and smooth.
About the same length.
Fourth quality of healthy breathing is diaphragmatic.
So you might put your hand on your chest,
Your hand on your stomach.
And notice as you're breathing,
Where is the most movement?
When we're breathing diaphragmatically,
Our diaphragm muscle flattens as we breathe in,
The stomach rises.
As we breathe in.
As we breathe out,
Let your stomach soften back towards your spine.
So with the hand on the chest and hand on the belly,
We're not feeling a lot of movement in the chest.
Most of the movement is the softening of our stomach as we breathe out.
Expansion as we breathe in.
Smooth,
Continuous breath.
Letting your stomach soften on the exhale.
You could move your body around if you want.
Let yourself notice what would be helpful.
And then notice your response to that practice.
If we're pretty dysregulated,
Either in a fight or flight,
Sympathetic arousal,
Or more of a freeze,
More of a parasympathetic freeze.
It might not be comfortable to work directly with the belly especially.
So maybe if that's the case,
You're feeling a little uncomfortable or.
Maybe it was for a few breaths,
But then you kind of got back into it.
Some of this depends on how used to the breath we are.
If we're used to working with the breath,
We're used to coming back in our body,
Then our nervous system predicts that it will be safe and pleasurable and helpful.
That might be enough to just kind of overcome that uneasiness that might be there for the first few breaths.
Just notice again what it feels like to be in your body right now,
What it feels like to breathe.
You might look around the room again or notice sounds.
Are you feeling about the same level of safety?
Has that changed?
Somatic mindfulness is all about what's happening in me.
What are the signals that I'm getting from my nervous system that I'm sending to my nervous system?
We can change those signals anytime by doing these practices.
And then what do you want to do now?
Do you want to take a deep breath and sigh?
Do you want to scream?
What do you want to do now?
And could you let yourself have some kind of movement or something that would be helpful?
And then always,
Always we can come back to some compassion and kindness for ourselves.
Our nervous systems were not developed in these kind of conditions.
It's hard for us.
All of us here have some experience with really working with our body,
Working with our nervous system and our breath,
And yet it's still exhausting at times.
We all have responses to the world that we're in and the injustice and the uncertainty,
So we could give ourselves a break if we're feeling a bit dysregulated at times.
And then just come back into this.
Oh,
It feels good to let go of that for a few minutes.
