Healing & Grounding In Difficult Times

This talk, with several smaller practices interwoven within it, is intended to provide techniques to heal and ground amidst challenge, difficulty, and trauma. The key is learning to consciously shift our bodies out of the sympathetic nervous system, and into the parasympathetic nervous system. This is taken from a longer class that was an offering to help those affected by the wildfires in Colorado in 2020. Practices include abdominal breathing and alternate nostril breathing.

Transcript

The topic for today's class is healing and grounding in difficult times.

I know that a lot of you there in Winter Park have been affected by the fires either directly or indirectly.

And many people in the world have been affected by all of the other challenges that are occurring.

The uncertainty around the elections,

Climate change.

In general,

We live in difficult times.

And that can be very challenging.

It can bring up a lot for each of us and in different ways.

But it can also be a great opportunity.

The key is learning how to work with the challenge and difficulty in ways that allow us to grow more fully into ourselves.

To continue healing and becoming more whole and to bring forth that which we have to offer to the world.

Before I continue talking about this,

I think it'd be good for all of us to start with just a five-minute short meditation.

Just to get more grounded and present.

So if you would,

Wherever you're at,

Please find a comfortable posture.

You can be laying down or seated.

Close your eyes.

And begin to gently observe the natural movement of the breath.

Notice if it's shallow or deep,

Long or short,

Choppy or smooth.

Simply observe.

And then,

Just to get more relaxed,

Just to get more relaxed.

Simply observe,

Allowing it to be as it is.

As you continue to observe the breath,

Begin abdominal breathing.

With each inhalation,

Allowing the abdomen to gently expand.

And with each exhalation,

Allowing the abdomen to gently contract.

Keeping the chest and shoulders relaxed and soft.

As you continue abdominal breathing,

Gently feel into the physical sensations of the body.

Observing if there's areas of tension or guarding,

Without trying to change anything at all.

Simply becoming aware of the felt sense of the body as a whole.

As you are ready,

Begin to gently and slowly open your eyes,

Taking in the world around you,

From this place of groundedness within the physical body.

As I said at the beginning,

We live in challenging times.

You know,

There's,

They say it's a Chinese curse,

But in China,

If you want to curse someone,

You say,

May you live in interesting times,

Because the ideal is to have a calm and peaceful life.

Watching the rice grow,

Not having much drama or tumultuousness.

But most often,

We cannot control the times in which we are born and live,

And the experiences that occur in the world around us.

In my experience and perspective,

I don't think that this is a bad thing.

I believe that we all come into this world with certain work that we have to do,

And the environment in which we are born and live provides exactly what we need in each moment.

And while the majority of us would prefer to not have difficult experiences,

Often it is exactly those challenges,

The hardest moments in life,

That offer the greatest opportunity for growth and learning,

For knowing ourselves more deeply,

For understanding the world,

And for doing what we're here to do in the world.

But in order to make the most of difficult experiences,

It is vital that we learn to ground within the physical space of our body,

To become more fully present with things as they are.

Now that doesn't mean that we don't experience heartbreak or grief,

Because we will,

And we do,

When difficult and traumatic experiences occur.

But we can allow ourselves to experience the grief and the sadness and the loss without being consumed by it,

And without putting up strong defense mechanisms and closing ourselves off from the world.

Instead,

We can cultivate a grounding within ourselves that gives us the courage to stay open and vulnerable,

Even when things seem impossibly hard.

There's a quote from Peter Levine,

Who's an author and specialist focusing on body-based therapies for healing trauma.

So this is from the book Waking the Tiger.

Trauma is a fact of life.

It does not,

However,

Have to be a life sentence.

Not only can trauma be healed,

But with appropriate guidance and support,

It can be transformative.

Trauma has the potential to be one of the most significant forces for psychological,

Social,

And spiritual awakening and evolution.

This is one of the paradoxes of being human,

One of the paradoxes of life,

Is that as we exist as embodied,

Individuated beings in this world having experiences of self and other,

We want things to be good and smooth all the time.

But it can't be that way all the time.

And more than that,

It isn't necessarily ideal or beneficial,

Because it's through challenges that we have the opportunity for growth,

For awakening,

For enlightenment.

It's through working with the suffering of being human,

Because it can be really hard being human.

But as we work with it,

We actually have the opportunity to cultivate our humanity,

To grow deeper in the roots of compassion and wisdom,

And to flower into the amazing beings that we are and that we are meant to be,

To offer our individual gifts to the world,

To bring more beauty into the world.

I mentioned that part of the manner in which we can accomplish this is through grounding within the space of the physical body.

So I'd like to talk a little bit about the dynamics of the impact of trauma and why this grounding is so important.

From the Western medical perspective,

We have the concept of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

The sympathetic is the fight or flight,

Or freeze,

Response.

The parasympathetic is the rest,

Digest,

And heal,

Response.

As we live our lives,

It is not necessarily that one is better than the other,

Or that we want to always be in one.

There actually should be a movement,

A cycling between the sympathetic and parasympathetic.

The issue that I often see in modern society is that many of us can get caught in the sympathetic nervous system response,

Where we're feeling bombarded with things all the time,

And we're stressed,

And we never are able to fully drop into the parasympathetic,

Where we can rest and heal and integrate the stresses of life,

To use them for growth.

Instead,

Because we are perpetually in that state,

Many become concretized and hardened,

Freeze into these patterns and defense mechanisms.

So in order to shift this,

We need to ground and return to those parasympathetic states.

In the Chinese perspective,

They see the individuated human being as a coming together of body and spirit.

The spirit belongs to heaven,

The body comes from the earth,

And they come together and meet and integrate in the individuated being.

When we die,

That goes in reverse.

The body goes back to earth,

The spirit returns to heaven.

What happens with trauma is that there's a shock to the body,

And there's a fear of death,

And the spirit will often leave the body.

Not fully,

Obviously,

But it dislodges,

Making us feel ungrounded,

Overwhelmed,

Out of sorts.

And this is similar to what happens from the Western perspective,

When there's trauma,

Is that we get kicked into the sympathetic nervous system.

All of our awareness comes up and out,

So that we can become really aware of any threats that might be coming our way,

And we become ungrounded.

We become on high alert,

And our awareness and energy is more outside of ourselves,

Rather than rooted within the body.

And so from both of these perspectives,

The way to get into the parasympathetic nervous system is to bring the awareness towards the back of the body and down to the core,

And down to the bottoms of the feet.

And this,

From the Chinese perspective,

Allows the spirit to ground more fully within the physical space of the body,

Which allows us to let go of some of the tension and guarding that arises from defense mechanisms of the sympathetic nervous system.

Of course,

The irony is that when the sympathetic nervous system is triggered,

There's generally a good bit of fear,

And the last thing the mind wants to do is go inward.

Instead,

It wants to focus on the outer world and try to find something that it can do to alter it,

To change it,

To control it,

To get rid of the threat,

To make us feel safe.

Ultimately,

Safety is an illusion.

We are all mortal.

We are all going to experience sickness,

Suffering,

And eventual death.

So the purpose of life cannot be simply to stay safe,

Not if we want it to be fully meaningful,

Not if we want to live fully.

Instead,

We have to acknowledge our fears.

So this isn't about denying that there's fear,

Because there will always be fear.

But it's about not allowing our fear to dictate our actions.

Instead,

As we acknowledge that there is fear,

We then have a choice of what to do with that fear,

How to respond to it rather than react to it.

And this is where we have a greater degree of agency.

When we choose to consciously engage in practices that ground the awareness within the physical body,

We gain a greater degree of control over our mind and a greater degree of control over how we relate to all that we experience.

Serena.

Our dog Serena,

She's out and sleeping.

And dreaming.

This is one of the beautiful things about animals,

Is that no matter what they experience,

For the most part,

They are very good at dropping back into the parasympathetic nervous system and letting it all go.

Many of you know that she had a stroke about two months ago and was completely paralyzed for a couple of days.

And the recovery that she has made over the last two months has been absolutely amazing.

And animals often have an incredible ability to heal,

As do humans.

But the great thing with animals is that their mind doesn't get in the way.

When they experience a trauma or an injury,

They don't start creating stories about it,

But then keep them in that sympathetic nervous system.

They're able to drop back in and allow their body to heal.

And this is a gift that we all have.

The body has an incredible innate capacity to heal when we allow it to.

And the way to allow it to is to bring the awareness into the body and ground within the physical body.

It also gives us a greater ability to respond to events occurring in the outer world from a more grounded place of compassion and wisdom.

So for today,

Part of what I'm hoping to leave you with is a number of different techniques that you can experiment with and try out when you notice that you're getting caught up in the outer world with the fear or worry or concern.

So that you can come back to this place within and then respond from there.

I've already touched on a couple of these.

The breathing practice we did to start the class for just five minutes,

Just simple abdominal breathing.

That is an amazing technique for getting us back into the parasympathetic nervous system.

Because part of the physiological response of the body when we go into a sympathetic response is that we start breathing from our chest.

Because part of what that's doing is it's bringing the energy in the blood up and out to the extremities so we can fight or flee.

When we're in the parasympathetic,

We naturally drop into abdominal breathing.

If you watch a dog or a cat or a baby when they sleep,

They're always abdominal breathing.

Their chest is never moving.

And then if we look around and watch most of us adults when we aren't consciously practicing and we breathe,

We're raising the shoulders,

We're breathing into the chest and the abdomen isn't moving.

This speaks to that difference between the sympathetic and parasympathetic.

But we can consciously change that.

If you notice yourself breathing into your chest or feeling more like your awareness is up in the head and the mind is activated,

Just take a moment,

You can even rest your hands on your abdomen and keep your chest and shoulders relaxed and just gently breathe into your hands,

Into the abdomen.

And it doesn't have to be a super deep breath.

Many of us,

When we've been in the sympathetic nervous response for a chronic period of time,

The diaphragm becomes somewhat stuck and can be really challenging to breathe into the abdomen.

So at first it might be really shallow,

Short breaths and the abdomen might move a centimeter.

And that's fine.

It's important to not push it.

You want to be very gentle and as you do whatever is accessible,

The diaphragm will start to release,

The abdomen will begin to expand more and our awareness will naturally begin to ground more deeply within the physical body.

Besides abdominal breathing,

Another thing that I mentioned earlier is this concept of bringing the awareness to the back of the body and down.

It's interesting.

Most of us aren't aware of where our consciousness is located.

But it is something that you can become aware of.

And I can realize oftentimes that my awareness is out here.

Our eyes get a little bit wider.

We expand out.

Our whole body posture kind of shifts forward in anticipation of the future.

This too we can use to flip back into the parasympathetic nervous system.

If we notice that within ourselves,

We can consciously draw the awareness back,

Relaxing into the back of the body and moving the awareness down,

Feeling the lower abdomen,

Feeling the bottoms of the feet,

Just experiencing any sensation in those areas.

We can allow the eyes to consciously soften.

Instead of being more hard and looking out,

Let it soften and feel as though the gaze is coming from the back of your head.

This too will begin to ground us within the physical space of our body.

Another meditative practice that some of you have probably done with me in the past is alternate nostril breathing.

Alternate nostril breathing is a great way to balance the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

And why don't we go ahead and do this?

Well,

This will be another short practice just for a few minutes.

Generally it's better if you can do this sitting up,

But it's okay if you're laying down.

You can still work with this.

What you're going to do is you're going to use your left hand,

And you're going to place the left thumb gently on the outside of the left nostril.

And then you use your,

There's different methods,

But often you use the pinky and the ring finger over the right nostril.

And what we'll do is we'll begin by gently closing the left nostril with the thumb,

Inhaling through the right,

Closing the right nostril with the fingers releasing the left,

And then exhaling through the left nostril.

Then keeping the right nostril blocked,

You'll inhale through the left,

Block the left,

Unblock the right,

And then exhale through the right.

So the movement is kind of like this.

You'll inhale through the right,

Exhale through the left,

Inhale through the left,

Exhale through the right.

So I'll guide you through one or two rounds,

But you can go at your own pace if your breath is shorter or longer.

So beginning with an exhalation,

Block the left nostril,

Inhale through the right,

Block the right nostril,

Release the left,

Exhale through the left,

Inhale through the left nostril,

Block the left,

Release the right,

Exhale through the right,

Inhale through the right nostril,

Exhale through the left,

Inhale through the left,

Exhale through the right,

Continue at your own pace.

.

.

.

After the next time you exhale through the right nostril,

When you finish the exhalation,

Release both nostrils and try to breathe evenly in and out through both nostrils.

.

In Sanskrit,

This practice is called nadi shodhana.

It's alternate nostril breathing,

But what it's doing is it's balancing the nadis,

The energetic channels within the body.

It balances the flow of prana or chi through the channels,

Balances the left and right halves of the body,

And the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

With all of these practices,

As you may have noticed just from the beginning and from this one,

It often only takes a few minutes to start to notice the difference.

And this is really important to remember.

A few times a day,

It can help to rebalance and ground the nervous system.

It can help us find that place of peace and calmness.

Because ultimately,

We all have a universe within.

We all have a natural state that is full of equanimity,

Compassion,

Of patience,

Of wisdom.

And the more we're able to continue to touch into that place within ourselves,

The easier it becomes to be calm in the face of adversity,

To respond rather than react.

You know,

I've used the analogy of the waves in the ocean before,

The turbulence.

And at the beginning,

Some of you were asking me about the storm that just came through here in Florida.

And at one point during the storm,

We went out to look at the ocean,

And the rain was whipping down on us,

And we went out and the water was just churning and churning,

And it was a mess.

It was tumultuous.

And in some spiritual traditions,

They'll liken this transition from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic to being like going from the surface of the ocean down into the depths.

Because we can relate to ourselves and the world from different levels of consciousness and from different places within ourselves and the space around us.

We can learn to find the depths within where there is always stillness,

Even when there is a storm raging on the surface,

Stirring everything up.

It doesn't mean we're not aware of the storm.

It doesn't mean that we've closed our eyes and we're hiding.

We're still perfectly aware of it,

But we're no longer being roiled by it.

Instead,

We're grounded in this peaceful place within our beings so that we can respond to what's happening at the surface.

As I mentioned earlier,

One of the outcomes of adversity and trauma is we tend to accumulate tension and hardening within the physical body.

Wilhelm Reich called this character armoring,

And it's a natural human response when we experience difficulties.

We tense against it.

We guard.

We pull our shoulders up and forward and try to close off the heart to protect ourselves from the world.

And so bringing awareness to the physical body and consciously softening those areas that we are able to to release that tension will ground us more fully.

Because the tension actually pushes the spirit and consciousness further outside of the body.

We think it's protection,

But it's actually creating greater separation within ourselves because it prevents the blood and chi,

Or energy,

From circulating freely in the body,

Which is how we heal.

So relaxation is vital to finding this peaceful place within and to becoming more whole within ourselves.

A simple way to start to bring more awareness to our physical posturing and how we're carrying ourselves is to set a timer to go off every 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 60 minutes throughout the day.

And whenever we hear that sound,

Just take a moment to pause whatever we're doing,

Take a breath and bring awareness into our physical body to notice how we're holding ourselves and to consciously relax and release the tension from the body.

As with many meditative practices,

It's not about doing something for an extended period of time once in a while.

What's more important is doing something very consistently,

Even if it's in small increments.

And so just taking a minute or two every hour to check in consciously with the breath and the physical body can be extremely transformative within just a few days.

It's also important,

Even in the midst of difficulty,

To find things that we enjoy that bring joy into our lives,

To remember the beauty,

Even if it's something really small.

Because another tendency with adversity is the mind can be hyper-focused on everything that's wrong,

And we can lose sight of the beauty that is always around us,

Even in the most difficult times.

There is always light,

Even in the greatest darkness.

And the more we can remind ourselves of the beauty that is there and that the challenges and suffering are all impermanent and they will change,

The easier it becomes to let go of the stories and to let go of the patternings of the mind that keep us focused on the challenge and difficulty.

Because whatever we look for,

We can generally find.

And so if we look for the negative,

There is an abundance of that that we can find every moment and every day.

But whatever we focus on,

We give more power to.

And so bringing some focus to the lightness and the beauty,

The things that open our hearts,

Bring us connection to others,

Can be really powerful.

And it helps us stay a little bit more in balance.

And again,

I'm not saying that this means you hide your head in the sand and pretend like everything is rainbows and sunshine and deny the reality of life that's occurring.

It's just a matter of making sure to not get too caught up in it and to find balance and harmony.

It's important to realize that we have incredible beauty within us and that there is incredible beauty to be experienced in every moment.

And often it's just a matter of shifting the mind and opening ourselves to experiencing that.

Sometimes when people are going through difficulty,

What they most need is to laugh.

Laughter is incredibly healing and it provides a break,

A bit of light in the darkness.

Now,

Part of the reason I'm giving a variety of modalities and choices is because we're all different and we all gravitate towards different things.

Different things might be more useful or appropriate for some of us and less for others.

And so all of these are just suggestions for you to experiment with and see what really works and resonates for you.

Reviews

Thank you. I found this so helpful today as we come to terms with the atrocity that happened on the shores of our beautiful country…. Bondi Beach, our hearts are broken for those targeted by such vile darkness, sending kindness, compassion and love to all those effected by this attack here in Australia and globally.

Ahhh…to remind oneself to stop and take notice of where we are from time to time. To look within with a softness for ourselves, and look outside with a softness for the world around us. Thank you for this helpful message. 🙏

Thank you, as I hit with some major challenges. I opened this teaching. I now truly understand that our spirit being kind of disengaged from our body. I understand by my own experience. Through these small meditation funnily I smiled nano second I saw the humor behind for a spilt second. Again I noticed where my awareness was and worked to do abdominal breathing. Thank you so much. As suggested I will now pit a timer. Regards

Excellent synthesis of eastern and western thought

Thank you, Thomas. Beautiful practices for grounding and peace. (And big yes to the laughter suggestion - Frasier is a ‘go to’ for me when I need a dose of lightening up.) :) Blessings.

Excellent, a great balanced talk with practices 🙏

Terribly helpful. Lol. Once again you are speaking my language. Thank you.