Hi and welcome to wear it soft.
If you're in TSW right now,
Before we do anything else,
I just want to remind you that your skin,
Your mind,
Your nervous system,
They might all feel like they're working against you lately.
And while there may be moments you feel let down by them,
Remember that they're not failing you.
Your skin,
Your mind,
Your nervous system.
They're doing exactly what they were built to do under circumstances like these.
Your body has been under sustained attack from the burning,
The itch,
The sleep you've lacked,
The fear of what tomorrow's skin will bring.
So it's state switched on,
Alert,
Scanning,
It's not a lack of discipline or you not being strong enough.
It's just a nervous system trying to keep you safe the only way it knows how.
Which means things like,
Just relax,
Was never going to work.
You can't logic your way out of a threat response.
Your nervous system doesn't really respond to instructions like that.
What we're going to do instead is much softer.
We're not trying to solve your skin in the next 20 minutes.
We're not trying to heal perfectly.
We're just trying to give your nervous system one brief,
Safe experience of not being on high alert.
A pocket of softness in a condition that's been pretty hard.
I know it might feel impossible to imagine your body ever feeling calm again.
You don't have to believe that right now.
You just have to be willing to sit through the next 20 minutes with me.
Before we close our eyes,
Or don't,
That's completely your choice.
I want you to know that there is no wrong way to do this.
Try to let go of any pressure to do this perfectly.
Just sitting here in stillness,
Following my voice,
Will have its own benefit.
Let's start by looking around.
If your eyes are open just set your gaze up and a little further away from yourself.
However far ahead of you,
You're able to look in the room around you.
I want you to notice one colour in the room.
Just name it in your mind.
Now,
Can you notice another color around you also in the room?
Find something.
Is it darker than the previous color you found?
Is it brighter?
Smaller in size?
What do you notice about its texture?
Is it smooth?
Jagged.
Glossy or flat.
Notice that the room is not asking anything of you right now.
Nothing in this space requires you to respond.
To explain.
To defend.
To itch or to move.
For these 20 minutes,
There is nowhere you need to be and nothing you need to solve.
If it feels okay.
Now let your eyelids lower.
Or let your gaze settle somewhere soft and still.
We're not going to breathe deeply or dramatically.
Just a small change.
Nothing forced.
Breathe in through your nose.
However long feels natural.
And when you breathe out,
Let it take a little longer than the breath in.
Not longer by force,
Not counted or perfect,
Just slightly longer with a sigh finding its own way out.
In.
And out a little longer.
In and out longer still.
Your body reads a longer exhale as a signal.
It's one of the only direct messages we can send from the outside in.
That it's safe to settle down now.
You don't have to make anything happen,
You just have to let each exhale finish a little later than it initially wants to.
In out slow.
I want you to picture a house.
It's evening and every light in this house is on.
Every single one.
The porch light,
The hallway light,
The lamp in the bedroom,
The light over the stove.
The bathroom light left on from hours ago.
It's a house lit up like it's expecting danger.
Like something might happen at any moment and someone needs to be ready for it.
This house is your nervous system.
It has been lit up like this for a long time now.
Maybe since when this flare started,
Or since TSW started running your life.
Every light has been a form of vigilance.
Every light has been necessary at some point,
For some reason.
This house has kept you safe by never fully going dark.
Tonight we're going to walk through this house together and turn the lights off.
Not all at once,
But room by room,
Slowly,
And every light we turn off.
Were going to acknowledge what it was doing there in the first place,
Because it seemingly earned its place.
It wasn't wrong to be lit.
We start in the entryway.
Imagine this is the light that watches the door.
The one that stays alert for the next flare,
The next bad night.
The next thing going wrong.
You can turn this one down now.
Just for now.
It doesn't have to be forever.
Just dimmed.
For the next few minutes.
The door is closed.
Nothing is coming through it right now.
Walk further into the house.
There's a light in the hallway.
This is the one that's been keeping watch over those fears that you carry,
Maybe about your skin never healing or your life not coming back like it once was.
This light has been burning bright for a long time.
Because that fear has felt too big to live in the dark.
For the next few minutes,
You can turn this one down too.
The fear doesn't disappear.
It's just allowed to rest in dim light instead of full glare for now.
Now as we walk through the house a little bit deeper you notice that there's a room further back Maybe it's the bedroom.
Maybe it's somewhere you don't visit much anymore.
But this is where the grief lives.
The grief over what you missed doing or who you were before this.
This room has had its light on because it felt too painful to sit in the dark with that loss.
You don't have to turn this light off completely.
Just turn it down to something soft.
You're allowed to let that grief rest in low light instead of full brightness.
Even for a few minutes.
Notice how you feel now that a few of the lights have turned down.
Not all of them,
But progressively getting there.
Now,
We reach the kitchen.
The light that's been on for the exhaustion,
For every night you didn't sleep,
For the sheer effort of getting through each day in this body.
This light has worked so hard.
It deserves to be turned down more than any other.
Let it dim now.
We're not asking for the exhaustion to disappear or to ignore it.
You're just giving it permission to be something quieter for now.
Again,
Feel how the house is different now.
Not dark,
But just dimmer.
Softer.
It's a house that's still standing.
Still watching a little.
But no longer lit it up like an emergency.
Breathe in that stillness.
Breathe in that dimmer energy.
And remember that this is a moment that you can return to.
That you can give yourself permission to dim a few lights or even just one at a time throughout your day.
In this dimmer house,
There's one room left.
And it's already soft.
It's always been soft.
You just couldn't get to it while every other light in the house was blazing with brightness.
This is the room this practice is named for.
This is where it's soft.
You don't have to do anything in this room.
You can just stand in the doorway and notice that it exists.
That this part of you underneath all of the alarms and the vigilance has stayed gentle the whole time.
It's always here,
But it mightn't be the easiest to find.
Stay here for a moment in this part of the house dimmed Quiet,
But still standing.
Notice the flow of your breath as you stand here.
In the quiet.
I want to say some things now to you about your body.
You don't need to feel anything specific while I say them.
Just let them flow through you and take whatever resonates.
Your body has carried the pain and weight of a heavy,
Demanding skin condition that asks a lot of you.
It's been holding out through every single day and it hasn't given up.
Your body is allowed to be tired.
Without that meaning,
It's losing.
You are allowed to grieve what you've lost to this.
Maybe your confidence.
Your social life.
Your regular day-to-day activities that you didn't think much of before all of this.
You're allowed to grieve all of that,
Without it meaning that this is forever.
Acknowledgement of what hurts does not mean that there's an absence of better things ahead.
You don't have to have hope right now.
You just have to be here in this dimmer house.
For a few more minutes.
You are allowed to be soft with yourself.
Especially while your skin and body find its way back there.
Say it for yourself.
I'm allowed to be soft with myself while my skin and body find its way back there.
And let that sink in.
Softness isn't just what you get when you're out of TSW.
It can actually be what helps you get there.
Let that land for a few moments,
And soon we'll come to the end of this practice.
Just sit here for as many breaths as you need.
And I'll return to wrap up the practice.
Slowly start to bring some movement back.
Wiggle your fingers.
Roll your shoulders just slightly when you're ready.
There's no rush to open your eyes.
But when you're ready,
Let them open.
And let them land on the same color or texture you noticed at the start.
As we come to the end of this practice,
Remember,
The house is still dimmed.
You don't have to turn every light back on the moment you stand away or step away from this practice.
You can carry this quieter version of your nervous system into the next hour and into the days ahead.
And remember that it's possible to find your way back here.
Thank you for spending these 20 minutes here.
This didn't fix everything,
And it wasn't supposed to.
It just gave your nervous system one pocket of stillness and a moment of not being alert.
That counts for something,
Especially on the hardest days.
Take what you need and leave the rest.
You're always welcome back here where it's soft.
