Les 1
Feeling At Home In Myself, A Guided Somatic Inquiry
What does it cost me when I'm not really present in my body and my life? The effect of trauma is that we disconnect from ourselves, our sense of value, and the present moment. When we feel overwhelmed, we escape into fight/ flight/ freeze and store unresolved trauma in our body as sensations with associated memories. Through somatic inquiry, we learn about ourselves and our nervous system's perception of threat and safety.
Les 2
Feeling At Home In My Body
Stored trauma is part of why we are disconnected from our body. We feel uncomfortable or are afraid of being present with the swirl of energy and sensation in our body. We feel unsafe because these feelings are associated with traumatic memory. Many people feel they have been at war with their body their whole life. We don't fit in. We have a lingering sense of shame from childhood.
Lean in and work with how to be connected in a way that's nourishing and feels comfortable, and also gets deeply into that feeling of, this is my body, this is where I live. I'm an adult now and I can be present in my body. I want to connect and I can build resources to be in a healthy relationship with my body.
Les 3
Feeling At Home In My Body With My Younger Self
I am an adult now and I will protect you. You're not alone anymore. These are two messages our younger self needs to hear. We begin with tools and practices to self-regulate. We work with somatic sensations and the energy of stored trauma while staying present. Our younger self experiences the attuned wisdom of an emotionally regulated adult that they didn’t have access to when they were young. We then let go of the verbal layer of this and connect directly with the energy of our hurt and scared younger self.
Les 4
At Home In My Heart
Welcome to this exploration of our heart and emotions. We know how challenging it is to be present with our feelings and emotions, and also how gray it can feel to not be in touch with our emotions.
We repress what we can't afford to feel and it gets stored in our unconscious mind, which is also very much in our body. In this somatic inquiry, we use tools to stay in the safety of the present moment while we look into our body’s response when we ask "Can I afford to feel this?".
Les 5
What Will I Discover As I Know Myself?
We develop beliefs based on our experiences. If we feel isolated, on our own, and unloved, we believe that the reason for that is because we’re not lovable. We’re disgusting, broken or inherently bad. We needed emotionally connected adults when we were a child. Fortunately we can be that supportive well-regulated adult for ourselves now. We can afford to see and challenge these core deficiency beliefs. We can cultivate a kind connected relationship with ourselves.
Les 6
Polyvagal States And The Stories We Tell Ourselves
When we’re in dorsal vagal or a shut-down survival response, the flavor of our stories is about losing hope, feeling lost, untethered in the world, and not connected to other people. We are more vulnerable in this state to believe core deficiency beliefs.
Coming up into a state of fight or flight, the story might change into being angry about what you were feeling despair about. In fight and flight, our stories are about our adversaries. We don't care about connection. We focus on survival - anger, anxiety, action, chaos, and it's about taking a side. I'm sick of being controlled by “them”, the other side.
When we come up from fight or flight into ventral vagal, our regulated state of calm, trust and connection, our stories are full of possibilities and choices. We might reflect on what we have learned, and how we are going to work together to address injustice.
Les 7
Outsider? Gender Identity And Sexual Orientation Inquiry
In this inquiry, we explore, through the lens of gender identity and sexual orientation, how each one of us fits in and doesn’t fit in with dominant cultural conditioning .
How we name our experiences affects how we see ourselves and how other people see us. I am a woman. I am a man. I am gay or I am heterosexual. I am cisgender or I am nonbinary. I fit in with the dominant culture and never gave it a thought until recently. I felt shame and isolation from childhood on around my gender expression or sexual orientation. Inquiry: I'm 100% welcoming and accepting of everyone. What feels true for you? There are no right or wrong answers.
Les 8
It’s Not Personal
Feeling left out at times is a common experience, and is not personal. When a stranger looks at us with contempt, that does feel personal. What is your response to these reverse inquiries? I am immune to the opinions and actions of others. I accept that what people think is not mine to control.
People survive best through inclusion and protecting each other. Being targeted feels personal and it feels like a threat. How can I not take it personally, especially if it's directed at me? My response is in my body and mind. The solution isn't to be unaffected by other people's judgments and behavior. It is to recognize that each person has their own internal environment that affects how they see and treat us. The less we take on others opinions, the more freedom we have.
Les 9
I Know And Welcome All Of My Parts
Loving ourselves involves getting to know ourselves. I can practice welcoming all parts of me, the hurt parts, scared parts, the impish joy, the kind-hearted, the creative, and the part of me that cares so deeply about life. In this inquiry, we connect somatically with the energy of each of these parts and welcome them. This is a lovely way to overcome disconnection caused by trauma. We can come right into our body and feel and affirm that all parts of us are welcome.
Les 10
An Undefended Heart
Can I protect myself without defending my heart? Yes. What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror and smile? You might see the eyes of your younger self looking back at you. It’s true that people have hurt us. We isolate to protect ourselves and sometimes we turn against ourselves. What might your life be like if you were consistently kind with yourself? Let yourself feel that ease and connection.
Les 11
Reshaping Our Nervous System With Awe
Small moments of awe and joy build and reshape our brain. There is a direct connection between what we think the future is going to be and the amount of joy, awe and wonder that we cultivate in our daily life. We don’t have to think positive thoughts to turn this around. We simply have to notice and pay more attention to awe and joy, because this change happens in our neural networks. Self-compassion is an emergent property of ventral vagal. Notice when we feel gratitude for someone, we have a natural urge to reciprocate. Cultivate that.
Les 12
Compassion And Our Regulated Nervous System
Elevation is an inspiring feeling that comes when we focus on acts of human goodness, courage and compassion. Our ventral (trust/connect) and sympathetic circuits (fight/flight) are both activated. We are both touched by the experience, and we are moved to offer an act of kindness.
We can work with the obstacles that make it hard to feel compassion, using nervous system regulation to come back into a state of trust and connection. People on our side and the “other” side all have similar experiences with nervous system activation. We finish the segment with an inquiry on staying present with our feelings and responses around someone we can’t forgive.
Les 13
Mindbody, An Integrated Whole
We can practice experiencing ourselves as an integrated whole, and working with reducing what distracts us and keeps us narrowly focused on the compulsive thoughts in our mind. What can you afford to share and with whom? What lights your fire? What are you passionate about?
In the second part, we explore the koshas, the layers of our being from our physical body, which is the most solid, through to the pranamaya kosha, the layer of energy and breath. Then there are two levels of the mind, the lower level (monkey mind) and our wisdom and intuition. These surround the anandamaya kosha, the layer of bliss, and all of these surround the center, which is our Being.
Les 14
Our Spiritual Home
We have a body, breath, thoughts in the mind, and feelings, energy, emotions, and sensations. All of that is part of our experience as a human being. The direct experience of deep knowing ripens over time, where we overwrite some of the earlier experiences of not feeling safe.
Healing and connection are a foundation for life and an entryway into a deeper knowing. We can also turn our eyes in the other direction. Who is aware of our experience? Move away from what you are aware of, into awareness itself. This is also who we are.
