Welcome,
Wherever you're listening from I invite you to take a moment to arrive,
To pause and to come home to yourself.
You can go ahead and close your eyes if that feels comfortable,
Let your hands rest gently on your lap and take a slow,
Easy breath in through your nose and a long,
Gentle exhale through the mouth as if you were sighing away the weight of the day.
We'll do that again,
Inhale through the nose and exhale softly through the mouth,
Each breath reminding your body that it's safe to slow down.
Let the ground beneath you hold you,
Let your shoulders soften,
Let your jaw unclench,
Let your belly be free to move with the rhythm of your breath.
In this practice we're exploring activation,
What some call charge.
Charge is the spark of life moving through you,
It's the pulse that animates you,
The same energy that fuels passion,
Movement,
Emotion and expression.
And sometimes that same energy can feel too much,
Like pressure,
Tension or overwhelm.
There's nothing wrong with charge,
It's simply life force energy awakening in the body.
And today we'll learn how to notice it,
How to track it and how to meet it with awareness.
So begin by bringing your attention inward again and feel your body from the inside out,
The rise and fall of your breath,
The contact of your body with the chair,
The gentle weight of gravity holding you here.
And now take a moment to recall a situation that tends to bring some charge for you,
Something mild or moderate,
Not overwhelming.
It could be a moment of being criticized or misunderstood or a time when you felt pressured to perform,
Maybe a situation where you weren't listened to or where you wanted to please everyone and felt overstretched.
Perhaps it's something around intimacy or jealousy or not being enough.
Just pick one and hold it lightly in your awareness.
You don't have to replay the story,
Just sense how your body responds to the memory of that situation.
Take a slow breath in and a long breath out and just notice what happens in your body as you bring the situation to mind.
Do you feel anything in your chest,
Your belly,
Your throat,
Your jaw,
Your hands?
And there's no right answer,
Just curiosity.
Maybe your breath shortens a little or maybe your belly tightens or your shoulders lift.
Maybe your heart beats a little faster or maybe you feel almost nothing,
A kind of numbness or distance.
Whatever you do notice is part of your somatic map of activation,
The way your unique nervous system holds and expresses charge.
Stay with the sensations and breathe softly through them.
You might name what you feel,
Tightness,
Heat,
Tingling,
Fluttering,
Constriction,
Pressure.
If you could give it a color,
What color would it be?
If it had a texture,
Would it be smooth,
Rough,
Heavy or light?
And stay curious,
This is your body speaking in its own language.
And now ask yourself quietly,
Is this a place in my body that always feels some tension?
Or does it only come alive in moments like this?
Is this activation familiar,
Maybe even lifelong?
Just noticing,
Not judging.
And as you breathe,
Bring your attention to what you tend to do when that charge arises.
Do you tighten up and hold it inside?
Do you try to stay busy to avoid feeling it?
Do you rush to fix something or someone?
Do you discharge it through movement,
Through talking,
Through reaction?
Do you retreat,
Distract or space out?
All of these are intelligent strategies your body learned long ago.
They were attempts to stay safe,
To stay connected and to manage energy.
So today we're not trying to change them,
We're simply bringing them into awareness.
When you know your pattern,
You begin to have choice.
The space between reaction and response begins to widen.
Take another slow breath in through the nose and let it go through the mouth with a sigh.
Imagine the breath flowing into the place in your body where you feel the strongest charge or tension.
And let the breath meet it gently like a wave meeting the shore.
No pushing,
No forcing,
Just breath meeting sensation.
And with each exhale imagine a little more space opening around the sensation.
As if the tightness has permission to soften,
To move.
To be felt.
Now bring your awareness to your whole body as if you could zoom out and see your entire energetic landscape.
Notice the charge moves.
It's not static,
It can shift from one area to another.
It may rise and fall.
This movement is life itself.
The current of your nervous system finding its rhythm again.
You don't need to get rid of charge.
You only need to feel it consciously.
When you feel it,
It can flow.
When you resist it,
It stays stuck.
So let's take a few grounding breaths now,
Breathing in through the nose.
Feeling the breath travel all the way down to the base of your spine.
And exhale through the mouth,
Sending that breath down into the earth beneath you.
Feeling yourself rooted and steady.
Feeling the support of the ground holding all that moves within you.
You are not your charge,
You are the awareness that can feel and hold it.
You are the spaciousness through which life moves.
And as we come toward a close,
Bring your hands to your heart or belly.
And feel the rhythm there.
The pulse of life.
And whisper inwardly,
It's safe to feel.
It's safe to be with what's here.
Let your breath find its natural rhythm.
Let your body settle.
And when you're ready,
Slowly open your eyes.
Carrying this awareness of your inner map.
Your energy.
Your aliveness.
Into the rest of your day.
