Living In Our Body: Somatic Mindfulness

When we are grounded and emotionally well regulated, we can stay safely in the present moment, otherwise we might disconnect or escape. When we feel threatened, our nervous system activates survival responses of fight/ flight/ freeze. As we practice and become skilled at somatic mindfulness, we know what's going on inside. We cultivate a welcoming relationship and we don't shame ourselves for our nervous system responses. We orient ourselves to the present, and know we are no longer in the past when we were hurt. The language of our body is non verbal. We regulate our breath and soften our body to signal safety to our nervous system. This helps to lower hypervigilance, our neuroception (our unconscious perception of safety or danger) becomes more accurate, and we breathe easier and relax.

We can have the direct experience that it is safe to feel what is in our body. When something feels overwhelming, we store that unprocessed trauma in our body. Stored trauma creates a feeling of doom or dread, and this is why we avoid being in our body. Today, our focus is on realizing through our direct body experience, that it is safe to feel what's here, and that we can be present and inquire. We explore our felt sense of regulation in our nervous system as we’re bringing to mind something or someone that feels uncomfortable. Our nervous system reads our body for cues of danger, like holding our breath or clenching our teeth. When we feel threatened, we go into a fight/ flight/ freeze response and that often comes with certain types of thoughts in our mind. We use tools to come back into the present moment and notice we are not in immediate danger. We send cues of safety, like taking a deeper breath and softening our body.

Hypervigilance in our nervous system generates most of the compelling thoughts in our mind. We store trauma in our body along with associated thoughts and memories. Today we practice powerful tools to break the trance of worry and catastrophic thinking. We build strength and resilience in our nervous system to be more accurate in our perception of safety and allow our system to settle.

When we practice witnessing thoughts, we see they are positive, negative or neutral. Some are intense and others go through the back of our mind. When we get drawn into compelling thoughts, we use tools of tapping, frame/tracing and focus shifting to bring ourselves back into witnessing. We learn this is how our minds work. We can cultivate patience and compassion for ourselves and our wandering minds.

How can we take what we know and bring it into our life? In particular, how does the hypervigilance in our nervous system interfere with our agency, our power to choose and act? We have an unconscious system of assessing our safety that has a negativity bias and uses evidence from our past. Through somatic mindfulness, we can widen our window of tolerance. We realize that now as an adult, we can afford to set boundaries, feel, and express ourselves appropriately.

We do an inquiry where we bring something up to work with, and through being grounded in our body in the present moment, we know it is not actually happening right now. We look at images, like the angry look on someone’s face, and sensations of fear in our body. We look for cues of safety, and inquire into how to support ourselves. We do a slow motion walk through to regulate our nervous system to increase our agency the next time we’re in a similar situation.

The effect of trauma is that we disconnect from ourselves, our sense of value, and from the present moment. We feel like there is something wrong with us and we turn against ourselves. When we understand how trauma works, we understand our history. Today we're cultivating open-hearted acceptance with ourselves.

The negativity bias in the brain tends to keep us focused on all of the things we have done wrong. This practice brings awareness in twelve areas of our life. What are twelve things you enjoy? Acts of kindness like smiling, or maybe that we don’t yell at someone. Appreciating our effort and skill working with an obstacle even though it’s not perfect . What are twelve traits that generally describe you, like curiosity and compassion? We explore twelve gratitudes in twelve areas of life.

In a healthy relationship, both people act like adults. They take equal responsibility for their emotional reactions and talk things out rather than acting things out. We have trouble doing that when we are in a survival response of fight/ flight/ freeze. When we are emotionally regulated, we can learn to tolerate saying and listening to challenging information.

As you bring someone to mind and try out some examples, maintain awareness of your response in your body and breath, and remember that person is not actually here with you. Please respect my decision. I don't feel comfortable sharing with you because you tend to tell me what you think I should do. This is what's healthy for me. We use grounding tools to stay regulated as we practice.

Your boundaries have been crossed and you want to say no. Imagine you are in freeze, feeling shut down. What does that feel like in your body? Are you holding your breath? Practice setting the boundary and saying no while you’re in freeze. Now do a reset and imagine the same scenario and this time you are in a fight response. What is your tone of voice? How does that feel in your body? Now set the boundary while you are regulated and calm. How does that feel?

Without a base of belonging, a child can't develop a healthy sense of themselves and their value. We lose ourselves in favor of monitoring what's going on with our parents. I need you to be okay because if you're not okay, I'm not going to be okay. If we're used to taking responsibility and trying to keep everybody else on an even keel, it is hard to set boundaries as an adult.

Using grounding tools to regulate, we look into our relationship with our parents. Do I still feel responsible for their feelings? Do I feel resentment? Can I take the risk of being angry at my parents for what they did or didn't do when I was a child? We become aware of the cost of betraying ourselves to keep the peace. We build the courage and strength to tolerate other people's disappointment or rejection.

We feel relaxed when we think about being with them. We let down our guard. We’re authentic and have fun. They are consistently kind and engaged. Past history of high drama relationships can lead us to confuse intensity with love. The deep practice here is to try to maintain a compassionate relationship and an open heart even as we see clearly, keep our guard up, and set appropriate boundaries.

We start the inquiry with a low vigilance relationship. We feel safe enough to relax and be ourselves. We have ease in our breath and our muscles relax. We then move to someone who keeps us on edge. We look at the many reasons why we are in these relationships, some practical and some that are not healthy. With compassion and kindness, we can stop shaming ourselves about the past, and cultivate deep, lower-vigilance relationships going forward.

What is your experience now living in your body? What have you learned through this course? We’ve worked with understanding our nervous system and practices to self-regulate. We know about trauma stored in our body and how thoughts feel more real when they are associated with sensations and energy. We move into closer connection with ourselves, practice setting boundaries and talking it out like adults in relationships, and open the window to enjoying life in our body.