Hi my friend.
This meditation is to help you regulate your nervous system.
It includes breath,
Grounding,
And a containment hug to help you find more safety and come back to your center for your body and your nervous system.
Go ahead and start by closing your eyes,
Getting comfortable.
If you're feeling really dysregulated in this moment,
Giving yourself grace and space and inviting a sense of compassion and curiosity to what's here,
What you're experiencing in this moment.
And go ahead and start by bringing your feet to the ground if they are not already.
And if you can ever do this practice outside in nature,
It's really helpful to actually put our bare feet on the earth,
But not necessary.
Feeling the soles of your feet on the ground and maybe wiggling your toes a bit and applying some pressure on your feet,
Really feeling that connection to the earth.
You might even visualize roots extending from the soles of your feet all the way into the earth.
And then breathing into the base of your spine right at your hips and visualizing a tree trunk connecting right here all the way into the earth and letting these roots,
Letting this trunk be wider than your body,
Deepening more and more into our beautiful planet.
You might feel yourself really plop into your body or you might still be feeling like you're not here,
That you're really struggling either in fight or flight,
In hyper arousal,
Or maybe you're feeling really disconnected or shut down in hypo arousal.
And next we're going to move to a containment hug.
This is one of my favorite practices.
We're going to bring our right hands to our left shoulders and then your left hand right underneath your right arm,
Right in your armpit basically,
And give yourself a nice firm squeeze.
How often do we hug ourselves?
And as you give yourself a hug,
As you feel this connection with the earth through your grounding,
Taking some breaths,
Softening your belly as your breath expands,
Letting it move up your rib cage and your heart space up and down your shoulders.
And for a few moments,
Invite in a quality of softening,
Space to be with yourself exactly as you are.
Feeling yourself supported by the chair or the floor that you're sitting on.
Maybe you can even lean back a bit,
Any way that you can rest more in this moment.
And then we'll move into an extended exhale breath,
Which is another very powerful tool for nervous system regulation.
And what this does is this helps our body know that it's safe.
The extended exhale helps our bodies really feel into that.
We'll be breathing in to a count of three through our nose.
And then exhaling through our mouths to a count of six.
And the exhale is done through pursed lips,
Which is if you envision drinking out of a straw,
How you would have your lips positioned,
That's how you will be exhaling out your mouth.
So breathing in through your nose,
One,
Two,
Three,
And exhaling through pursed lips out your mouth,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Finding your own rhythm,
Finding your own flow.
And you can also do a count of two,
And then an exhale of four.
The goal is to have that exhale be twice as long as the inhale.
So find what works for you.
Breathing in through your nose,
One,
Two,
Three,
And exhaling out through your mouth with pursed lips,
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six.
Taking a few more breaths here.
When you're feeling dysregulated,
You can do one of these practices,
Maybe the breath or the grounding or the containment hug.
Or I would recommend doing all three for a very potent combo to really help us connect to safety and centeredness.
We'll be here for a few more breaths.
And then if you'd like to,
You can stay here.
You can extend this practice for as long as you like.
Or if you're ready,
Slowly coming back and reorienting to this space that you're in,
Opening your eyes as you're ready.
And this is a practice that I would recommend doing for about five minutes every day if you can.
You can use it in moments of dysregulation to come back to center,
But I recommend also practicing these tools when you are centered,
And that way you kind of build that muscle memory in your body and you know what tools you have available in those moments there where we really don't have access to all of our awareness when we're having a really hard time finding ourselves.
And if you want to dive deeper in all things regulation,
I have a talk called Nervous System Regulation 101,
And it briefly breaks down our different states and how we can become more aware of our states and find ways to come back to center.
Thank you so much.
Sending you a virtual co-regulation hug.
Have a beautiful rest of your day.
