Five minute feels.
Many of my clients come into my office and are what we call dysregulated.
They're emotionally overwhelmed or shut down and really have a hard time figuring out how to come back into themselves,
Ground in the moment so that they can respond rather than react.
One of the quickest ways to come back to ourselves into ground is to come back into the body.
However many of us have been taught to hate the body or at least that the body is not as friendly or as useful.
This is a very quick way to allow yourself to come back into your body in a safe and kind way.
When someone's overwhelmed and very emotional,
Helping them drop into the body helps with the emotionality.
When somebody is numbed out and dissociated,
Bringing them back into the body helps bring them back into the window of tolerance.
We want our window to be as wide as possible which allows us to experience stress,
Overwhelm,
Random things that happen throughout our day and not tip over as we call it in my world.
Meaning we can handle the stress and we can respond appropriately to the moment and not just reactive based on past experience.
So for this exercise we're going to breathe and we're going to follow the sensation on our skin.
Using our five senses is one of the fastest ways to help ourselves ground into the moment and come back into our own being.
So begin to breathe in through the nose and out through the nose.
In one two three out one two three in two three out two three.
Continue to breathe in and out while elongating your exhale,
Slowing it down,
Allowing your body to come into the parasympathetic pieces of your nervous system.
The rest and digest stay in play side of our social engagement.
Calm and quiet.
Inhaling and exhaling and then with your eyes closed or your gaze softened,
Whichever works for you,
Begin to pay attention to your skin.
Feel the outside edges of you.
The top and the bottom,
Whatever supporting you.
Feel the right side and the left side,
The front of you and the back of you.
Just allowing yourself to feel whatever is touching your skin.
Noticing the differences maybe between what you're wearing on the lower body versus the upper body.
Areas that are covered with material to areas that are free to the air.
Just noticing how it feels on the outside edges of your skin.
Bounce your attention around.
Maybe noticing how your feet feel or your hands.
Maybe the front of your thighs to the middle of your back.
The tops of your shoulders,
The back of your head.
Noticing all parts of you at one time inside your skin.
Notice if you feel any breeze or air circulating around you.
Maybe it's cool or warm.
Maybe it's still.
Notice if you feel anything like the sun or shade.
The warmth of a blanket or the coolness of not being covered.
Just notice all of the sensations on your skin right now.
There's no need to judge whether you like it or not.
Whether it's good or not good.
Whether it should be that way or not that way.
You can take care of those things later.
Right now you're just studying how it feels on your skin.
Take as long as you want to experience the sensations that all the nerve endings in your skin are creating for you right now.
Bounce around.
Notice the external edges of you.
It may be time for you to pause this so you can continue to pay attention.
Continue to be present to this moment.
The one you are in right now.
Take as long as you want and when you're ready you can come back to this recording to end.
When it is time and you are ready just allow yourself to experience once again the top of you,
The bottom of you,
The left and the right,
The front and the back and then feeling all the outside edges of you at one time.
Begin to wiggle your fingers and your toes bringing small movement back to the outer body.
Flutter the eyes open and just allow your gaze to move around the space you are in without labeling anything,
Without judging anything is good or not good liked or not liked.
Just observe where you are and what's around you with nothing to do,
No need to fix anything.
Just to notice the things in your environment and when you are ready return to your day.
