Working With Activation & Trauma Responses In Relationships

This is a guided meditation for working with trauma responses and triggers that come up in relationships, or as I like to joke, "having a bad case of the relationshits." This meditation is for the moments when your lovers, partners, friends, family, parents, bosses, employees, etc. happens to be a "trigger," saying the wrong thing in the wrong way or doing something that sends you into a space of reactivity.

Transcript

Hello and welcome.

The following is a guided meditation by René Sills,

A somatic movement educator,

Energy worker and astrologer.

This meditation is intended to help support your embodied meditation practice.

If in the recording you are prompted to do something that doesn't feel good for your body,

Please adapt and modify to make it work for you.

Please also note that the content of these meditations sometimes explores deep and subtle states and memories,

And sometimes guided visualizations.

You are encouraged to work with discernment as you practice with them.

If any of the guidance René offers feels too activating or uncomfortable,

Please listen to your body's knowing and pause the recording until a later time if you wish to return to it.

These guided meditations range anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and do not require any supplementary equipment to participate.

We hope you enjoy.

Hi everyone.

This is René and thanks for joining me for another somatic meditation.

Today's meditation has got kind of a funny name.

What to do when you have a case of the relationships.

This is just a nod to all of us who have relationships,

That's everyone,

And the way that relationships can bring about really uncomfortable moments.

All kinds of relationships can do this.

Relationships with our families,

Relationships with our friends,

Definitely relationships with spouses,

With lovers and partners.

We get into some weird,

Sticky places often and things come up that are deep.

The people who are the closest to us are the people who have the most access to our most childlike selves.

There are times in relationships where we just seem to get triggered and trigger one another constantly.

This meditation is for when you're having that kind of time.

We're going to be dealing specifically with the relationship between the head and the adrenal glands.

Your adrenal glands,

If you want to find them,

Are located just on top of your kidneys.

If you feel with your hands for your bottom ribs and then you kind of trace your fingertips back along the curve of your bottom ribs,

Your kidneys are at either side of your spine at this area.

Just around your bottom ribs at either side of the spine,

You have two kidneys left and right or most people do.

The adrenal glands are like these little kind of spongy caps that sit on top of your kidneys.

When we think of the adrenal glands,

Adrenaline is often the first thing that comes to mind.

Adrenaline is one of the hormones that the adrenal glands produce.

Adrenaline is secreted when we're under stress.

Of course,

When you're going through a situation that brings up your issues,

When you get triggered,

This is stress.

The people closest to you can bring this out right away.

Another hormone that the adrenal glands secrete is cortisol.

Cortisol is important for regulation of metabolism and immunity,

But it's also something that's secreted when we have to focus to pay attention and to respond to things that could be dangerous.

Often our closest relationships bring up very,

Very deeply embedded,

Unconscious fear.

Especially if you have lived through any kind of abuse or trauma and if you have had any situations in your life where for whatever reason you actually felt fearful for your survival.

This is about perception.

It could have been that the situation wasn't actually about to kill you,

But in that moment,

Maybe you were a little kid,

You were dealing with somebody who was a lot bigger than you.

They were yelling or you were having some other kind of experience where your perception of that moment caused a feeling of,

I could die.

This happens with loss.

This happens with aggression,

With violence,

With any kind of power imbalance where we get fearful about our survival.

Again,

I just really want to reiterate that trauma happens through perception.

This is always about your experience with things.

It's not cherry picking facts like,

Well,

Did this actually happen or did that actually happen?

Who said what?

This kind of thing.

This is about your perception in that moment.

Because a lot of these experiences that bring up trauma,

That bring up a stress response are triggering some very young memories and sending us into the parts of our brain that are kind of the reptile parts like the survival instinct.

Often we can't explain them.

Often trying to explain them or going into the story will,

In fact,

Re-traumatize us.

If we spend a lot of time trying to hash out details or thinking about why or what,

Just the thought sometimes can release these stress hormones.

Of course,

If you're in a situation with somebody that has any kind of significant impact on you,

Your spouse,

Your child,

Your parents,

Your boss,

Anyone that is reminiscent,

That reminds you of any figure in your life that may have caused trauma,

Then these responses can come up and they happen really fast.

For anybody who's dealing with trauma,

You know this,

That you can be just fine one second and fall apart the next second.

Oftentimes there's no warning or there seems to be no warning.

When we have relationship issues,

This is something that most of us deal with,

Is our traumatized selves,

Is our infantile selves.

Part of being an adult in relationships and coming into balance,

Finding healthy relationships is learning to care for ourselves in the moments when we're activated,

In the moments that we're triggered.

This is why I want to offer this meditation.

I'm offering it from a place of my own exploration and curiosity.

For full transparency,

I'm somebody who,

Like many of us,

Has had some trauma in my life.

Gosh,

My important relationships,

Particularly my partnership,

Will bring it out like nothing else.

I can be a totally competent adult one second and just a miserable crying mess a second later.

What joy that we get to deal with this together.

It's part of our healing,

The capacity that we have to hold space for ourselves and for one another to negotiate and renegotiate these emotional traumas in this kind of terrain.

To find resolution,

To find integration,

To find compassion,

Forgiveness,

This is a great gift that we can give to ourselves and we can give to one another.

I really want to extend gratitude to all of you who are going to practice with this and utilize it in your lives.

The healthier we all become in our relationships,

Then that means our communities are healthier,

Our children are healthier,

Our families are healthier,

And we lessen or cease,

Hopefully cease cycles of abuse and trauma if we've been part of them.

We learn some really good tools to help out our friends and loved ones and family members when they get activated,

When they get traumatized.

We all go through it.

If you're dealing with it,

Please have a great compassion and love for yourself.

This is tender work and it's everyone's work.

It's not just you.

The first step to healing is always acceptance,

Affirmation,

And forgiveness.

Thank you for joining.

I think that for this meditation,

You can do whatever you like.

You can sit,

You can lie down,

You can move around.

Things may come up,

So it may or may not be important to you to be in a private space.

You may or may not want some tissue nearby if you're an easy weeper.

I know I am.

Sometimes if I know that some feelings might arise,

Then it's nice to just have that around.

Go ahead and let your eyes begin to soften.

You can do this with your eyes open or closed.

When you let your eyes soften,

It's a feeling of release for the front part of your brain.

In this part of the brain,

We're in our decision-making mode,

Our focusing mode,

Our logical thoughts mode.

This part of the brain is not very intuitive.

It's not super creative.

It's not very emotional.

It's very rational.

A lot of us spend a lot of time here.

I want you to feel that your eyebrows and forehead can relax.

Eyeballs can relax.

Then start to take some deep breaths in.

If it's comfortable to inhale through the nose,

Go ahead and breathe in through your nose and then exhale out your mouth.

We'll just take a number of breaths like this.

Your eyes can be open or closed as you prefer.

In these opening moments of our meditation,

We're simply arriving.

There is a conscious relaxation of the thought processes,

All the planning,

All the details,

Organizing that you do.

The space of meditation is always in the moment that is now.

One of the best ways to arrive in the moment that is now is to pay attention to sensation.

I'll invite you to feel the quality of your inhale and your exhale.

If you're breathing through your nose,

You might notice that the inhale is cool as you breathe in the air from outside.

As you exhale through your nose or through your mouth,

You might feel that the exhale is warm,

Releasing the breath from inside.

You can feel the passage of your breath as it moves into your nostrils,

Into your sinuses,

Into your mouth,

Into your throat,

Down into your lungs,

Expanding into your ribs and back.

You can feel the quality of your exhale and that sighing release,

Letting all of your joints relax,

Letting your jaw and your tongue and your brain soften.

As we breathe into the face,

You feel the passage of breath through your face and through your head.

When we get triggered,

One of the first places to respond is usually the face,

The eyes.

If you have a dissociative response,

You might commonly have a sensation that the eyes get wide and pulled back.

It's kind of a shock feeling.

If you have an anger response,

Sometimes it feels like the eyes get hard and the space between the forehead narrows.

I'm just going to invite you to take a couple of breaths here and feel that the breath is received into your face,

Into your eyes and into your skull.

As you exhale,

Just relax your face and relax your brain.

This meditation is for the moments that our relationships trigger us,

But not the moments that we are literally in danger.

These are for the moments when we actually want to have more of a balanced response,

Not be so reactive.

When you feel your face getting tense,

Your mouth getting tight,

Your brow getting furrowed,

Your eyes getting hard or hurt,

Sometimes just closing the eyes or softening them and letting your brain relax can be a really great friend.

Sometimes that's all you need.

You can breathe into your ears,

Feel your ear passages relax and widen.

As you exhale,

Feel your pelvic floor and your legs and just remember your root.

Just concentrate on that root for the next couple of breaths.

You're going to inhale still and feel this passage of breath into your face and into your head.

Then as you exhale,

I want you to let your weight drop towards gravity,

Through the base of your spine,

Through your legs,

Through your feet and then in the direction of the earth,

Wherever it is in orientation to you.

I'd like you to imagine here a root.

If you're sitting,

You might imagine this top root that moves down out of your spine or if you're standing or if you're lying down,

You might imagine many,

Many,

Many roots from the part of your body that's towards the earth extending down.

This is an invitation to remember that eventually all things change,

That any emotional process that you experience no matter how intense at some point will pass,

That everything at some point will end,

But nothing will end as well.

Your energy will just change.

It will transform the things that make you feel tight and gripped now,

Someday will cease to exist.

You can invite any awareness of tension or of conflict that you might currently have to just rest down and root down and move through all of your roots and into the earth and allow the earth to just receive it and know that it's turning into neutral.

That when we offer the earth our profound trust and release,

I don't know what to do with this feeling,

Can you take it?

She says,

Yeah,

I can take it.

It'll end.

It doesn't matter.

And you feel that sense of the great mother,

The infinite mother that's just holding this experience right now.

She's saying,

You're okay.

You are okay as you are with all of the feelings,

All of the experiences.

And as you hear those words,

You are okay.

Notice any responses that arise in your body.

And my invitation is to breathe into them.

If there's a resistance to that idea is to hold it gently.

If there's an acceptance of that idea,

Then to yield into it.

Can you let yourself connect with earth energy,

With this grounding energy,

This kind of infinite okayness that everything at some point will be reabsorbed into earth and her process is long and undefinable by our human minds and she has such magic,

Such alchemy.

Everything is going to be okay.

Let yourself just rest into that.

Now I'd like you to bring your attention down into your diaphragm.

And your diaphragm is a sheet of muscle and it separates the lower and the upper,

The abdomen and your belly from your chest.

And it attaches to the ring of your lower ribs.

And so again,

You could use your hands and palpate your lower ribs.

You can feel the place where they come together in the front,

Right below your sternum,

That's soft notch called the xiphoid process.

It's a little sticky outy thing.

And then you can move your hands around and feel your lower ribs,

These floating ribs and back.

And feel the way that the front part of your diaphragm is higher than the back part.

And then inhale and feel how your lungs can expand into the front and the back.

And then they expand down in the back portion.

And you might just imagine that kind of plane of the diaphragm.

And it's somewhat of a circular shape.

And it has,

Oh I'm forgetting the name of it right now.

Anyway,

It has like an opening closing part around the spine.

And it connects to your spine.

And the diaphragm actually holds your heart.

It supports your heart from underneath.

And so as you inhale,

You might feel the way that your lungs wrap around and cushion your heart.

And your diaphragm supports the heart from underneath.

And then as you exhale,

You might feel the way that your heart can rest back in towards your spine and down onto the diaphragm.

And there is a glandular function in this meeting point as well.

And sometimes it can feel really supportive to just bring attention to that relationship of diaphragm to heart.

So I'm going to invite a quality of breath here that's like water moving through sand.

It has a seeping quality.

And it doesn't matter how deeply you breathe right now.

But I want you to imagine that your breath can move into the volume and into the circumference of your diaphragm,

Into the front and into the back and into the sides.

And particularly in the back body,

Close to the bottom ribs around the kidney and the adrenal area is where we often get really tight and constricted when we're experiencing stress,

When we're experiencing a trauma response.

And in the front body,

There can be a collapsing or closing and shutting off of the heart energy.

So what I'm going to invite you to do right now is to find a relationship of the adrenal area.

Again,

Your kidneys and adrenals,

Either side of your spine,

Close to the bottom ribs.

And then you'll have to imagine this space in your diaphragm that's just below your heart.

But if you bring your other hands to the notch below your sternum,

If you were to point it right back,

You could touch your spine and you would be just about underneath your heart.

So the invitation here is to breathe into this relationship.

And again,

Like water moves through sand,

So through a sponge or something,

There is just an absorbent quality of your breath and there's no right way to breathe right now.

You just want to feel that your breath moves into all the crevices and all the tight spaces.

And give yourself whatever kind of support you need to facilitate that movement.

And so this could mean that if you're sitting or standing,

You might prefer to lie down or to stretch or to move.

You might find that,

Oh,

There's one part and I just can't move my breath there.

And if you kind of stretch your spine around,

Move your ribs,

Then you can get your breath into that place.

So go ahead and take the next minute or so to just explore with your breath.

And if there are places where the breath doesn't easily move,

You might experiment with moving your body and seeing if you can direct the breath more fully into those spaces.

And we'll just continue to sigh out on the exhales.

And I'm going to invite,

I'm not going to do it repetitively,

But I'm going to invite you to make a hissing sound as you sigh.

And so that's kind of like a snake hiss.

And just feel the way that that kind of slows the breath down,

But it also facilitates a different kind of gentle relaxation.

And again,

Just exploring,

Exploring your body with your breath,

Allowing yourself to move or get whatever kind of support you want.

So I want you to let this breath be really nourishing and nurturing.

You don't have to hold any posture that would create rigidity.

So this area that we're working on right now,

Again,

Is an area that commonly gets tight and restricted when there is conflict.

And sometimes we get,

There's a feeling of getting pushed in from the back body if we're like stressed and we're feeling forceful,

Like I have to defend myself.

And sometimes there's a feeling of collapse and tightness in the front body,

Maybe for the same reasons,

Slightly different response.

They could also go together.

And just as I say those words,

And as you kind of recall whatever your situations are,

You might even feel some of those instincts come up.

And if you want to feel them,

All you need to do is think about a fresh argument or a place of conflict.

And then you might feel how almost immediately there is a sensation.

I feel it starts in my heart and then it kind of drops into my belly and it's like the upper body and the lower body get disconnected.

So the invitation is to continue to soften the space and to feel that there's permeability between them.

And then to imagine again the flow of inhale into your head and exhale through your root and into the ground,

Into the earth.

In this inhale exhale you unite the upper and the lower bodies.

And the lower body is where we tense a lot,

Where we get ready to run,

We get ready to move.

It's also our grounding.

So if we're getting a lot of stimulation in the heart or in the head,

Sometimes we lose our ground.

And I just want you to keep opening the pelvic floor,

Relaxing your legs,

Feeling your root,

Feeling your weight,

Dropping into that space,

Inhaling sensation in your head and then softening the space between.

This kind of gate in between around the diaphragm that can sometimes get very rigid or hard.

Okay.

And then we will bring our attention into the pelvic floor.

And the pelvic floor is one of the first responders to stress.

And the instinct is usually to grip in the pelvic floor and tuck the tail.

So this is the animal response to fear,

To stress,

Is to tail tuck.

So can you relax your coccyx,

Relax the tailbone,

Relax your anal opening,

Relax your pelvic floor,

Relax around the genitals,

Relax your low belly,

Inside your hips,

Inside the pelvic basin.

And then I want you to imagine that this area of the low back where your adrenals are can rest downwards.

And it's like your kidneys are sliding down and they're sliding back.

So they're moving towards the space behind you.

They're moving down towards your pelvis.

And then you're going to relax your pelvis fully.

And that adrenaline energy is going to flood down,

Pour down into the pelvis,

Into the legs,

Into your feet,

Into the soles of your feet.

And I kind of want you to just imagine all of it just pouring through pelvic floor and soles of your feet into the earth.

This is the practice is all the stress energy.

We want to let it descend down and find its root,

Find its release.

And then we go through all the steps again.

Just checking in,

Feeling the inhale,

Feeling the head space.

The eyes are relaxed,

The forehead and the face are soft.

Letting all of the head energy descend down,

Feeling the head energy meet the heart energy.

Heart energy is relaxed and supported from underneath,

From both sides with your lungs,

From the spine behind.

And then underneath the heart,

The diaphragm is soft,

It's spacious and absorbing your breath and you're relaxing your belly and you're relaxing your kidneys and the adrenals.

And all that energy is moving down into your belly,

Into your pelvis,

Into your hips,

Your thighs,

Through your legs,

Out into your ankles,

Into your feet,

Soles of your feet,

Releasing into the ground.

Let's go through the chain of events.

You're in a moment of relating.

Somebody says something,

Does something,

Whatever they do.

You have an association,

It's immediate,

It's instinctual.

There's tightening.

Tightening can happen in the pelvic floor,

In the tucking of the tail,

Tensing of the pelvic muscles.

Tightening often happens in the belly,

Happens in the kidney area,

This thrusting forward,

Tightening around the spine.

Collapsing or constricting through the front body and in the heart space,

Protecting the heart.

Readiness through the face.

Eyes get hard,

Forehead gets grumpy.

So whatever it is,

You probably know your own stress responses.

Maybe you're feeling all of them,

You're like,

Yup,

I do all of those.

Maybe there's one or two and you're like,

Those are my guys.

Get familiar with them.

This is about building a toolkit,

Not erasing what the patterns are,

Just gaining more capacity to be responsive,

To be adaptive,

To be adept.

So get familiar with your particular stress response,

What you go to first.

And then we're just going to practice continuous relaxation and release through the chain of stress.

So the chain of stress,

You know,

It happens in the brain,

In our eyes,

In our ears,

In the sense organs that we get alert or we get dissociative,

We shut off,

Fight or flight or freeze.

So can you feel the container of your skull?

Can you feel your breath?

Can the eyes relax?

Can the ears relax?

This is like you stop listening to somebody's words and you just start to attune to energy.

You relax your brain and then you feel that the head energy can descend on the exhale.

And sometimes it might get caught in the throat,

Heart,

Chest area.

So then we consciously release,

Relax any joints that get tense,

Any muscles that get tight.

Feel that the heart is supported.

Relax your lungs.

Feel that the space of the diaphragm is absorbent,

Is porous,

That you can breathe into it.

There's a relationship and a connection between your upper body and your lower body.

Really relax and soften around the heart space.

Really relax and soften around the adrenals and the kidney space.

Feel that energy descend down into the belly,

Into the pelvic floor and into the hips.

And then let it continue to move out through your legs,

All the way through the soles of your feet,

Through the skin of your body and down into the earth.

And know that the earth is neutral.

So you releasing your tension and anxiety,

She doesn't care.

She's happy that you're relaxed.

The more relaxed you are,

The better off we all are.

She's like,

Yeah,

Relax it,

Release it.

Sorry,

You're okay.

So again,

Connecting with that nurturer,

That inner nurturer,

The big divine mother,

Divine nurturer and feeling her behind you,

Around you,

Holding you,

Supporting you.

You might imagine like her loving touch on your forehead or your heart or your belly saying it's okay.

You're okay.

You're safe.

Everything is going to be all right.

I love you.

You belong.

You're okay.

These moments of activation and trigger,

We go into some pretty scary places.

And again,

If there is trauma there,

It might just bring all that up.

The place in the brain where trauma is stored in the amygdala,

It doesn't know time.

So when trauma is activated,

The trauma is present.

It's not about,

Oh,

That happened 20 years ago.

It's happening right now when you get triggered.

So here we want to become our own best support,

Our own nurturer,

Our own comforter,

And give ourselves the support that we need to know that,

Oh,

Okay,

This is safe.

It's a safe space.

There might be conflict.

There might be tension.

There might be whatever the shit that comes up with the people that you love,

But this is not done.

And you are okay.

And sometimes if I am feeling really activated,

I try and call in that inner nurturer and then I hug myself.

I try and give myself the physical holding,

Put my own hand on my forehead.

Sometimes I pat myself,

Go,

You're okay.

You're okay.

You're going to be okay.

And I think it's a great tool.

So I'd highly recommend that you do that.

There's nothing to be ashamed of.

It's not weird.

It's so healthy to be your own support system.

And again,

As you give yourself that,

Sometimes that's all you need to move through or to resolve a little piece.

And if you're working with history,

If you're working with some deep stuff,

Sometimes it's just one piece at a time and you take them as they come up and here are some tools for you.

So I'm going to now lead us into closing.

If you need more time here,

Please feel free to pause.

But I'm going to lead us through a coming back exercise because sometimes if we've really been activated,

If we've done a lot of self-soothing,

If we've gone into a deeper space,

It can be hard to come back.

How do we come back into the relational world?

So now I'm going to invite you to open your eyes if they've been closed and take a deep inhale and a long exhale and breathe out.

And you might make a sound or hiss or just exhale sigh.

And I just want you to look around wherever you are.

And with the looking around,

You're placing yourself and I just want you to name to yourself what you see.

Potted plant,

Book,

Shoes,

Whatever it is.

You might say hello to the familiar objects.

You might recognize colors.

You might notice preferences.

Oh,

I like that thing.

Oh,

I don't like that thing.

Whatever it is.

You're just saying hi.

Hi to your surroundings.

And then I'm going to invite you to use your hands and to touch yourself.

I want you to,

If it's comfortable to touch your face,

To touch your hair,

To touch your chest,

Your arms,

And kind of just give yourself a rub,

A pat down and feel your skin.

You might give yourself some firmer,

More penetrating touch like squeezes,

Little massages.

You feel a grounding touch.

And as you touch yourself,

Your whole body,

I just want you to say,

Hey,

Body,

Hello.

And you might name the parts.

You could look at them and you could say like,

There you are knee.

Hello knee.

You're my knee.

You're my body.

You're my knee.

And just say hello.

Reacquaint yourself.

If you're so inclined,

You could say thanks for being here.

I appreciate you.

So wherever you are,

You might,

You know,

Hold your belly,

Kind of imagine your internal organs like,

Hey,

Belly,

Hey,

Guts,

Hey,

Lungs,

Hey,

Heart.

Oh my God,

You guys do amazing work.

Thanks for being here.

Breathe in and feel them.

And then we're going to do some lighter,

More stimulating touch.

And so this could be like scratching or tickling,

But lighter touch that stimulates your nervous system into your skin and kind of gets your energy to come more out into the space.

And I just want to say that if this is too activating for you to stay with the more penetrating touch.

So the penetrating touch has a calming effect.

It's a containing effect.

And the lighter stimulating touch has a nervous system engagement.

So it gets your energy to start to come out,

But one or the other might be more appropriate.

So you can choose,

But either way,

You can be like,

Hi skin,

High nervous system.

Hello.

You're greeting yourself.

And then what I'm going to invite you to do is kind of a gesture of clearing your space.

So you might just imagine the space immediate around your body.

And there could be spaces around your body where you feel that emotion gathers.

And in astrology,

In elemental practice,

Emotion is the water element,

It's fluid.

And so it can,

Just like water,

It can form these tide pools or gathering spaces.

And so what I want you to do is just clear your space around you.

And it's kind of like,

Like if you're smudging or if you're,

You're sweeping or cleaning even you can use your hands and just like clean the space around you.

And as you're doing this,

The invitation is any feelings that need to move on,

Please move on.

Anything that I can let go of that's not serving me right now,

Please move on.

You can also ask that anyone else's energy that's not yours,

That's not helpful to you,

Please move on.

So if you've been in a conflict or a moment of tension,

You feel like somebody slimed you like with a shitty look or an unkind word,

You're just like,

Ugh,

Let's clear that off of me,

Clear it out of my space.

Like let's move on.

You just,

You know,

Again,

These are for moments of safe relationships.

So we're just like,

Okay,

You were being a jerk right then.

I'm just going to clean off that slime that you unskillfully slimed me with and goodbye.

So you're just clearing your own space,

Clearing it out.

And again,

Any places around you where you feel like it might gather,

You could do some circles,

Figure eights.

I like a lot like these figure eight patterns I feel like is kind of a magical shape.

So if there are places in your body that feel habitually tense,

You might move them into figure eight,

You might move your hands around them.

If things feel really dense and really icky,

You might imagine scooping it up with your hand and just like throwing it off you like goodbye,

Ugh,

Get off,

Clear it out.

Okay.

You can do that as much as you need and also just start to release with your breath.

So you can inhale and exhale,

Sigh out.

You can make sounds,

You can do lip rolls,

You can shake out your face.

You could yell a little bit if you want.

I find shaking to be really satisfactory if you want to just like shake out your limbs,

Like get it out,

Like okay,

I'm done with this emotional process right now,

Moving on.

And this shaking can be really satisfying for any kind of instinctual reactive spaces.

So sometimes you just want to get in there and you just,

They can be really little shakes,

Like really,

Really,

Really little.

Sometimes they want to be big shakes,

Sometimes they want to come out with some sound.

You just let it come out.

Again,

Take as much time as you need.

Feel free to pause whenever you need.

I'm just going to keep going on though.

And then eventually what we want to do is just invite the inhale back in.

So you're inhaling and you let it fill up your lungs,

Fill up your head and then you exhale and you sigh out and you're like,

Okay,

I am here.

I am in the here.

I'm in the now.

In the here and in the now.

You're just noticing what's around and you kind of releasing whatever energy is lingering.

And this is generally a good moment to check in with yourself and then ask like,

Is now the time to go back and have more dialogue or do I want to do something else for a minute?

And you know,

With the ones that we love,

When we get into these sticky spaces,

Sometimes time and space is the best gift we can give.

And if you're a person who is like more of a instinctual processor and you're like,

We got to talk this out.

We got to figure it out.

It might be a little counterintuitive.

And if you're someone who's more avoidant,

You might want to just pay attention to that and listen to yourself.

Like,

Do I need some more space?

Do I need to be distracted for a bit?

Maybe now is a good time to like get up and go exercise,

To watch a movie,

To read a book,

Take a walk,

You know,

Do something that is just different.

And now might also be the time when you're like,

You know,

I got in touch with something and I want to stay in that space that I'm in touch and re-invite the conversation.

And what I want to offer is that when you re-invite the conversation or when you re-engage,

That if you can do it from an energetic place in your body of receptivity and love,

If you can be soft in your chest and soft in your face and relaxed in your trunk and feeling your connection to the ground,

Your voice will be different.

The way you connect will be different.

And that field that you create around you will actually help your friend,

Your partner,

Your relationship,

Respond to you better.

Your energy is the communication.

In some ways more important than your words.

So that's my invitation to you is to communicate with your vibe and let your words really come from your heart.

And when you notice yourself getting tight,

When you notice yourself getting gripped,

You can close your eyes for 10 seconds,

Take 10 deep breaths,

Do all of these things that we just did in like a nanosecond.

Soften,

Soften,

Soften,

And then come back.

All right?

So I hope that this is helpful to you.

Again,

It's coming from an honest place of my own exploration,

Dealing with my own relationships.

And I found it to be helpful.

And thanks as always for practicing with me.

I hope that it serves you well.

If you like these guided meditations,

Please consider donating.

I love to offer them for free.

I really appreciate your financial support and always really appreciate you sharing these with your friends and networks.

That's it for now.

Much love to you and until the next time.

Bye.

Reviews

Such a helpful , practical tool for moving energy and reconnecting to myself and my truth within conflict 🪄

Such an educational and loving listen, thank you for the freeness this offered me :)

Thank you. Feeling much better now.

Really good information. Very heady information though, with small incursions into body connection. There's a practice called 5 Rhythms dance, where there's a saying 'get out of your head and into your body'… I found this meditation to be very head based. Useful, still.

Wow, masterful. The biology, breathwork, soundbath, empathy: a full package. Thank you! I was in hospital this weekend with an accident and palpating the adrenals and diaphragm was such a needed gesture. I look forward to returning to this practice. 🙏🏼

Admittedly, I fell asleep halfway through. I will listen again using a different posture and change my environment.🙏🏻

Excellent and helpful but I wish we could talk more about when one is triggered to the point of panic attacks accompanied with insomnia. This for me is the greatest challenge stemming from trauma or veing in an abusive marriage over 30 yrs. Ago

That was really sweet, so helpful and educational. I love your tone of kindness and support, and I really appreciate how skillfully done this was while at the same time being natural and honest.

Gentle! Calm voice. She's down to earth, literally 🤗 thank you!

Wow really loved how you explained everything this is one of the best meditations I’ve ever done thank you 🙏

Beautiful and amazing. ❤ I can hear all the love in your very grounded and calming voice. Thank you. 😊

Wonderful session ... such a calming voice Namaste 🙏

So insightful 🙏🌸

Such a skillful combination of vulnerable self-disclosure, gentle humour, and concepts from somatic experiencing. Her personality and humanity shone through her words, I felt so connected and supported during this! Thank you 💕✨

Excellent. Thorough, wise, real. Thanks.