Happy New Year Dear Ones!
The beginning of a New Year always fills me with hope, the feeling of possibility and a renewed sense of beginning again with renewed vitality. I tell my clients a calm body is a calm mind, which I have experienced both personally and professionally. Creating that calmness within begins with starting to practice being with sensations, reactions and emotions that arise within. It is the practice of making friends with the things that we have pushed away for too long, gently with self compassion instead of judgment and shame. We are not our trauma though many of us hold onto the burdens of our childhood, like it was our fault. When examined these burdens are often not ours to carry and do not belong to us at all.
Coming back to Introception and why it is important, it is really a part of the survival mechanisms that have been passed down through our evolutionary mammalian, and reptilian DNA . In our modern technological world this is often not utilized as often or at all. This is already laid down for us in our physiology, and it takes some practice to hone into it, and to be with the body again after trauma.
This an exercise adapted from “The Tao of Trauma”, (go slowly there is no need to rush):
- See if you can remember a time when you felt most like yourself or how you would like to be more yourself. See yourself being hugged by a loved one, seen through their eyes or embracing a quality or skill that is uniquely you. Practice bringing awareness to the feeling of being the most like yourself with gentle curiosity. Take time to arrive in it and savor this feeling.
Once anchored in this resourced state go onto the next practice.
- Now explore a time where you went through some challenges or difficulties. This could be a time when there was a struggle with circumstances or struggle with self that you successfully negotiated and felt better for having gone through it. Think of that occasion with curiosity and let yourself explore your state of mind and state of being.
Take your time to feeling your interoceptive experience of a little bit of activation, and as it rises and falls, take in the sensate experience of personal growth that perhaps resulted. If this feels like too much go back to when you felt most like yourself. Ground yourself through feeling where you are sitting or standing, bringing your awareness to your hips or your feet.
For more information on how Somatic Therapies can help you in your healing journey and come back home to you, please contact me or book a free call to discuss my services.
Yours in Healing,
Caroldean Jude
Somatic Trauma Therapist
Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner
Transforming Touch® Practitioner
Internal Family Systems® Therapist