Welcome to this short clip of me,
Relationships Coach Nicola Williams,
Talking with somatic therapist and educator Gwen McHale about finding freedom when we're caught in a loop of worrisome thoughts and feelings.
And the full interview is also available.
What would you say is your current kind of learning edge around relationships?
What are you meeting now?
What's the next challenge?
Do you mean personally speaking?
Within the same really isn't it?
Well,
At the moment what I'm working with at the moment is a really good question,
I'm really glad you asked it.
At the moment I'm working with seeing my thoughts and my feelings,
So feeling the feelings that are arising in me and seeing the stories I might have around that feeling and not identifying with them.
So if a worry comes up,
A worrisome thought comes up in my mind,
And I feel a churny belly,
And then I start to kind of get into that story and that feeling to really just bring as much presence as I can to that.
And seeing that it's not who I am,
And this doesn't mean something about who I am,
This is actually an experience that's passing through and so it's really embracing the feeling,
Not trying to push it away,
Allowing the thoughts to be there but seeing them for what they are,
Instead of getting lost in them and getting consumed.
So I feel like I've been doing that since I was a teenager,
I've been practicing that,
But lately it seems to have gone up a level and it also seems like I'm having experiences that are giving me the opportunity to do that so really challenging experiences coming,
Where I might be thinking something over in my mind and something difficult come up in a relationship with someone,
And I'm awake at 2am,
It happened last night,
So I was awake for an hour in bed,
Really saying right Nicola just bring everything you've ever learned to this moment to bring presence and to just allow myself to be free,
To just,
Yeah,
As free as I can be here and as loving and kind,
Without trying to get this perfect but just recognizing there is another way than being stuck in these mental emotional patterns,
Because it takes up so much energy that I could be using,
You know,
In other ways in my life.
Yeah,
So earlier right at the beginning of our time together now you were speaking about your relationship with yourself.
And so I feel like I think an example of what you meant by that here.
So,
Yeah,
So there's a part of you who's in a loop,
You know,
And I suppose from my perspective,
You can let me know if this resonates with you,
And my work as a somatic therapist,
I would think,
Perhaps you'd gotten triggered into a trauma loop,
And there was some emotional,
Somatic,
And mental components to the trauma loop.
And when we're triggered like that it's so easy to get just sucked into it and we're just in it and we've merged with it,
And we just are that part who's suffering.
And so when I hear you say your practice is to bring your presence to the experience,
So that you can relate to it.
And that feels really,
Really quite exciting and liberating I get the sense of,
Like you say there's the potential then to disidentify with the experience,
While also allowing the fullness of the experience,
Allowing the one who's suffering to suffer,
And being able to witness them from a place of presence,
So they're not alone in the suffering anymore.
Exactly,
That's exactly it.
