CONNECTING . . .

Unresolved trauma locks us out out an accurate assessment of what's actually happening in any given moment.  Flashbacks.  Constant anxiety about the future.  Feeling impaired, frozen, captivated by trauma memories.  We miss the signals telling us danger is approaching or that we could actually make a certain choice because it feels "right."

How can we reclaim the present moment?  How can we return to the beauty of what is happening in the here and now?

To return to the present moment, we must feel safe enough - The vagus nerve is the core signal giver to our parasympathetic nervous system regarding safety and a sense of healthy connection.  An internal felt sense of safety and connection is a pivotal need for all of us as we reclaim our body and come home to ourselves more fully in each present moment of our lives.  

An effective path for establishing a sense of safety and of healing is nurturing touch and containment.  Appropriate touch from birth increases physical resilience, health, intelligence, and creativity.  Our body has a unique intelligence that gets overridden by a fearful mind whose job is to protect us from harm.

How is your nervous system responding?  The job of our nervous system is to let us know if we're OK or NOT OK.  Our nervous system loves to move and does not like feeling stuck:  unmotivated, feeling blah, fatigued, and low.

Simple tools such as self touch, breath work, gentle movement, and sound allow awareness and attention back to the current space to settle our nervous system.  Somatic tools can calm and regulate a dysregulated, anxious nervous system or can gently activate a depressed nervous system.  

Find a quiet place to return to the present moment and introduce a sense of calm presence to feel safe right here, right now, nourished and supported.  

Begin with a little gentle movement to get out of the head and get into the body - to feel more embodied and activate energy to make you feel alive.

1.  Start with gentle wrist circles, open and close hands, relax the jaw
2.  Move on to bend and straighten the arms, feeling into the elbow joints, notice sensations
3.  Relax arms and invite some shoulder rolls and gentle shoulder lifts
4.  Sweep your head from side to side, and then return to neutral
5.  Move away from back of chair and round shoulders and then pull shoulders back, lifting heart
     and gaze, stretching your neck
6.  Begin to shift hips from side to side, notice subtle shifts, feel the chair, feel feet on the floor
7.  Float feet from floor, straighten and bend knees, feel knee joints, then let legs relax
8.  Circle ankles, point/flex toes, let feet relax
9.  Curl toes in ball, flair toes out like monkey toes
10.  Breathe, feel into the stillness, Ask yourself if you're feeling more grounded?  Get curious about what's going on in your body?  Sometimes movement can bring up anxious, stuck energy, particularly held in your joints - maybe you're feeling a bit activated (sweaty, heart beating faster, heated, anxious) Whatever you're feeling, that's o.k.  Just notice.

Once settled into the body, let's invite the breath.  The breath is the window into what's happening in the nervous system.  When there's fear, anxiousness, stress, the breath tends to feel short, tight, small, and there's a faster heartbeat which leads to feeling more stressed out.  So, without forcing it, let's invite the breath to slow down.

1.  Soften your gaze, draw awareness to your breath.  How deep is it?  Any movement in your body when you breathe in and out (shoulders, belly, abdomen)?
2.  Start to invite a counting of the breath.  Start with a long exhalation  - Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4 and exhale 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Continue counting and find your own rhythm.  
3.  Next, exhale as though you're blowing bubbles through a bubble wand. Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4 and exhale blowing bubbles very gently 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  Continue for a few rounds.
4.  Soften gaze, now let body breathe itself, check in.  How are you feeling?  calm?  breathing deeper?  more rhythmic?  something else?

Finally, let's practice a simple vagus nerve exercise that brings calm regulation throughout the nervous system.
1.  Inhale 
2.  Exhale and add a deep humming sound on the way out.
3.  Play with the sound - go deeper, longer, slower, louder, quietly.
4.  Hum with mouth closed, teeth separated, lips soft
5.  Hum with mouth open in oval shape, play with how this feels

A toned vagus nerve invites feelings of calm presence and safety, even in the face of threats.  Your facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language are all indicators of the health and strength of your nervous system.  Your gut tells the brain how safe your body feels in any given moment.  

It only takes a minute to cultivate inner space and calm presence.  Start small.  Intend to create a quiet space within for peace, joy, purpose, and fulfillment.  Quiet presence, quiet breath, right there beneath closed eyes, you can feel alive, imagine infinite possibilities, experience your true home, heal old wounds, live each day with joy and gratitude.  The power is within you.  It is waiting to be noticed.  Solutions will arise.  Judgements will fall away.  A softening or gentle self acceptance brings newfound energy and invites a natural acceptance of others where judgement diminishes.

Taking time to connect within invites awareness of the truth of who you are.  Centered presence guides actions and interactions, offering peace, love, and fulfillment for a more extraordinary life that is unfolding right now.

Schedule an appointment to experience deep rest, to return home to Self.  Experience state-of-the-art Sound Beds with an amethyst biomat that amplifies bass frequencies bathing the body in sound healing.  Receive a full body aromatouch using medical grade essential oils or clear stuck energies with a tuning fork clearing.  Bring friends and have a group shake and learn how to shake stress naturally with tension and trauma releasing exercises (TRE), or learn what your voice has to say about what's going on in your physical and mental bodies with a VoiceBio Assessment.