Expand: Mindful Nervous System Tending For Trauma Healing

Today we settle in, get oriented, set intentions, find our resources and then sink into a simple nervous system regulation practice that can be done in any posture. This is FOR YOU. You cannot do this perfectly. Let yourself be messy. Let yourself love it and hate it and check out and check back in as we arrive together. Every time you give yourself this time to practice, your making an impact on yourself and the world. Thank you for being here. Think of your intentions for the next 10-days, or just one word for what's here with you in this present moment.

Today, we continue to arrive together. Of remembering who we are… the essence of our very being. A lifelong practice. Eventually, if it does not already, these practices and ways of being will pull you towards them… effortlessly. There will be more of a need for peace than for all of the noise. These practices teach us to listen and to live differently. To meet ourselves and others with our whole bodies and beings… being WITH what’s here with more gentleness, curiosity and warmth. Today we practice sinking into refuge that is available right here and right now in this moment. We sink into breath, into our bodies and allowing a peaceful place to be here with us calling us home here and now… together.

Today, we sink into a Metta practice that weaves nervous system support through it. Metta means loving-kindness or benevolence or friendliness in the Pali language. When we practice Metta, we practice non-violence towards ourselves and others. Metta is a beautiful foundation to shine our lights even more brightly from so that we can receive our gifts and offer them even more fully to our communities and the world. Today, we meet our precious hearts and all that we carry. When we can be with and in our hearts so fully, we are super powered. It’s not that things don’t hurt but we are wide enough in ourselves and spacious enough to feel everything with care and we stay steady with it all.

Today, we sink into support. Our bodies are our homes. So many of us have spent so much time in healing work with the best of intentions sweeping the rooms of our homes, rearranging the furniture and redecorating the walls. All of this work adds to our healing. This regulation work helps us shore up the foundation of our homes. It fills in the cracks and restores the fragmented dust so our homes rest upon what is sturdy and solid, unwavering. It helps our bodies by helping our nervous systems that communicate about whether or not we’re safe to our bodies, to rest into support. It helps our nervous system smooth out its signals so that we can jump to action effortlessly and rest effortlessly at appropriate times. When that foundation is solid, we have so much space to just… BE at home in our bodies. We spend most of the session today supported by resting our intention together in various systems of the body to help them feel supported, regulated and settled.

Today, we open to compassion. Compassion is a natural movement of the heart both towards suffering and towards joy - towards it all. We can meet meet pain and happiness with warmth - to really be with it, let it in. Compassion helps us be really WITH ourselves and each other without trying to fix or change or make things different. In our practice today, we get a little creative. We start with a gentle movement practice - compassionately turning our hearts towards our bodies and our bodies towards our hearts. Then we move into a gentle breath work practice with a connected breath.

Today, we learn to hold steady. The very act of presence = love. When we place our attention here in this moment together, with our bodies, our hearts and all that is calling for our care and curiosity, it lands as love. Here, today and every day, we are learning to be accepting of our humanity, our wholeness and the full spectrum of what it means to be alive. We are tending to the pains that call us awake at night and the whispers of hope that pull us forward into life again. Today we practice becoming bodies as steady as the mountain that have enough space for all of life to move through.

Today, we welcome the experience of Equinimity. We have to be more dedicated to our own peace than we are to overwhelm and stress. LOVE does this. We’re intending towards the experience of equanimity. Balanced with a sense of calm and peace with a heart that’s wide enough to welcome the joys and sorrows and respond instead of react. When we meet emotions and experiences we wish would go away, it takes effort and energy to try to let go. When we’re ready and when we feel safe enough and full enough and supported enough, these things just go. So allowing ourself to simply Let BE… just as we are, and know we’re enough. This is the practice of equanimity. We’ve already been through enough, let’s make space for the kinds of support that allow us to just BE instead of do. Today we deepen our practice from yesterday and bring in the experience of the Mountain and the nervous system regulation work to deepen the experience of steadiness and calm.

Today, we learn to stitch together resourcing experiences through the process of savoring. We can gather all sorts of tiny moments that feel supportive, safe enough, more calm, more clear, easeful, and even pleasurable. When we can take a moment to savor them and receive the goodness that comes along with them. We can be with those moments from a felt sense. Resting into, even for a moment, the support that comes from ease, joy, gratitude, peace & pleasure. We stitch these moments together over time. And eventually - an expansion happens and they’re here and available for longer and become part of the foundation that we rest upon. Today we explore gentle movement for regulation inspired by Qi Gong.

Today, we welcome uncertainty and confusion. It’s easy to be lost from our deepest truths and sense of knowing. We spin in the stories trying to dig to the root or figure out but we don’t need to do that to come awake or heal. What needs to come clear will come clear with time and space and enough safety to take refuge in. YOU are the answer. Your body is wise. As we widen, we trust our listening to what our bodies are communicating. We become clear in our understanding. In our practice today we deepen a familiar practice with resting our intention together in a new way with various systems of the body to help them feel supported, regulated and settled.

Today, we honor this transition, reflect on these past 10 days and expand into our fullness. We’re in a transitional moment. We forget to mark these moments sometimes and I find it can be so helpful to do so so that our minds and our bodies can orient together to what’s happening in a conscious way. Transitions mean so many things for so many of us and they often can bring up emotions in every direction. So we can welcome what’s here…. Knowing that it makes sense. In our practice we welcome all of the sensations of our bodies and rest in our fullness.