Feelings Sensations And Energy In Our Body

We're going to work with sensations and energy.

See where that takes us,

This exploration of what so often we avoid.

So let's start by tuning in as we always do.

Notice that we're here.

As you're tuning in,

Notice that you have a body,

That you're here in a body.

What does that feel like for you right now?

One of the questions that sometimes we explore is why do we want to do all of this work around being more present in our body?

One of the things we know about trauma is it's stored in our body as sensations,

Feelings,

Energy,

Along with associated thoughts.

So a very legitimate question is why do we want to stir the pot?

Why do we want to know what's going on in there?

It has to do with our nervous system and the nervous system's real priority is to keep us safe,

To keep us alive.

And it signals us all the time.

The signals of this is safe,

It's okay to take a few breaths,

To relax.

If we've ever been traveling on a stormy road where there's a lot of rain or snow or something,

And then we arrive home,

We might notice,

Oh,

I was white knuckling it the whole time.

My hands were gripping the wheel or I was really tense.

And then we come into safety and we can feel right away,

Oh,

That feels a lot better,

I know that I'm safe now.

We're always looking for safety,

Our nervous system's always doing that.

But the way that it warns us or that it signals us is through the sensations in our body and through the energies,

Through thoughts in our mind.

We can work with that,

Knowing that that's the way our body works.

We want to be able to bring the unconscious sensations and signals up to our conscious awareness so that we can work with them.

If you have an experience of a certain person or a certain set of circumstances makes you feel uneasy,

We don't want to go back into the traumatic memory that caused us to be wary of that.

But we do want to notice that it's happening.

Otherwise,

We have this ongoing pervasive feeling of threat or I'm not really safe.

And then that affects everything about our relationships.

We often are going into a fight,

Flight,

Freeze or fawn response.

We're not sure why we feel so jacked up.

Having this somatic awareness,

What's happening in my body?

What is my nervous system trying to signal me is very helpful.

The key to being able to know what those signals are is to stay here in the present moment so that we're not getting dragged back into the past.

But sometimes what happens when we have a strong energy or sensation in our body is that it activates the memories,

It activates the thoughts.

So if that's happening,

We have those tools to work with thoughts.

We could tap on our forehead,

Take your attention away from the thought and into the sound sensation on your forehead.

We could put that thought up into a frame on the other side of the room.

We've worked with those tools for thought.

And as we're working with sensations,

It's a good idea to keep those in mind.

You could open your eyes and just look around the room.

If you're caught in some kind of a memory and you open your eyes and look around the room or you hold your own hands,

It helps us to come back and go,

Oh,

Okay,

That's a thought.

It feels kind of real,

Partly because I have this feeling of heaviness in my chest or I've got some anxiety in my body,

But I'm not actually there.

All the way through these practices of knowing ourselves,

Knowing what's going on,

What are the signals,

It's really important to stay here in this moment.

So we use all those tools to stay here in this moment.

And then what we find is we can start to work with this.

As you're listening and kind of tuning in,

Notice what thoughts are in your mind.

You're probably having some kind of thoughts and associations with what I'm saying.

And also notice what's happening in your body.

If you were to do a body scan,

Quite often what attracts our attention with body scan is some kind of tension.

It might be clenching your teeth,

Might be shoulders up around your ears.

You might've stopped breathing smoothly so you're holding your breath.

We could take a moment to counterbalance with maybe some cyclic sighing.

Let's do that together for several breaths if you want to,

Or you could do something else too.

Inhale through your nose twice.

It's a double inhale.

And then a long,

Slow exhale,

Like you're breathing out through your mouth,

Like through a thin straw.

And as you're breathing out,

Let your shoulders release,

Let your body relax from head to toes.

Do that for three or four breaths.

This is such a beautiful reset that we can use anytime we're starting to get too engaged in ruminating about the past or anxiety about the future,

Catastrophic thinking.

Or if we're feeling kind of some intensity in our body that we want to ease a little bit,

We could do the work with the images or thoughts,

But we could also just come right in to do a reset of our body.

We could also just come right in to do a reset.

Come back to noticing,

Let your body soften.

The next thing that we might notice as we're scanning our body is what are the sensations or energies that aren't really physical,

They're more energy.

What attracts your attention if you scan through,

Especially from your neck to the hips?

What's happening in your heart area,

Your stomach area,

Your throat?

These energies can happen other places in the body too.

What is the sensation or energy that might be attracting your attention right now?

And if there's nothing really,

If your body feels kind of relaxed and neutral,

It might be that you're in freeze,

So you're kind of disconnected,

Or it might just be there's nothing particular going on.

So if you were to bring up a memory of something that frustrates you or scares you,

Not a 10 out of 10,

Just something with a little bit of juice,

And then notice what happened in your body.

Did your breathing change?

Is there a sensation or energy there?

If for instance,

You have some kind of feeling in your chest,

One of the first things that we could notice is what is the location?

It's in my chest,

That's a pretty broad description.

Does it fill up my whole chest,

The whole rib cage?

Is it more in the center,

Maybe the size of an orange?

Is it more like quite big?

It's kind of pressing out through the skin out to the outside.

So sometimes we can feel an energy in our body as well as right around.

And notice,

Does it have a definitive place where it stops or does it taper off?

More often than not,

Energy tapers off.

So it's quite strong in the middle and then it starts to dissipate.

It's not as strong,

It's not as strong.

Notice where it is that you don't feel it anymore.

So maybe you feel it a little bit up into your throat,

But you don't feel it in your jaw or in your eyes.

Notice the dimensions.

And then we go into describing.

We're helping our brain notice that we're describing an energy.

There's a location.

Then we look at how would you describe that energy or sensation?

If you were in a lab and a scientist was asking you,

Is it moving or still?

Sometimes there's a edginess or a movement to the energy.

It comes in waves or there's some kind of a twisting motion.

Other times it's really solid and unmoving.

What's the situation with this particular energy right now?

And that can be a little bit concerning,

Especially if it's moving or if there's some kind of a doom,

Like it's really heavy,

Unmoving energy.

We wanna maintain that awareness that we're here,

We're witnessing sensation and energy.

Don't let yourself get too lost in the sensation.

Keep that stepped back perspective like you're a scientist looking at it.

And then notice,

Is there a color?

Is there a shape?

Some people have a visual image of sensation.

If you have a visual image and it feels like kind of intense,

You can reduce the intensity usually by putting it into a frame on the other side of the room,

Looking at it and going,

Okay,

That's the image that comes up.

Then you could take your eyes around the empty space,

Those things that we do.

We want our brain to know that right now we're doing an inquiry practice.

We're noticing what's in our body.

Is it hot or cold is another thing that we might notice.

Does it have a color?

Is it a certain shape?

Is that shape static?

Is it moving?

So we're describing things with our observation.

What are you observing right now?

Or what are you witnessing as you're paying attention to this?

So one of the benefits of that is that it helps keep us here in the present moment,

Aware that we're working with a sensation in our body.

Sometimes the sensation goes away,

Sometimes it gets stronger.

Sometimes we might need to kind of bring back that memory that we're working with.

Sensations and energy in our body are a signal from our nervous system that there's something that we need to be alert to.

And it might be that it's stored trauma.

It might be that there's something going on that is familiar enough to a prior threat or danger that our nervous system has kind of created an ongoing yellow alert around that.

Some of these sensations are very familiar to us.

If you were to think back,

When is the first time as a child,

Did you remember that sensation?

Yeah,

I remember it when I was in grade three or four or whatever that might be for you.

We're not going back into that timeline right now.

What we're really doing is staying with the energy.

So we've located it,

We've described it.

And now as you're sensing into it,

Notice that there's space all around the energy.

If it fills your whole body or if it goes a foot or two outside your body,

Notice that it doesn't go across the room.

Energy has a containment.

It doesn't go on forever.

So we can notice that.

And then instead of putting your attention onto the sensation or energy,

Put it onto the space on the outside of it for a bit.

So it might be that you focus your attention on your arms and hands.

Notice your feet,

Your seat.

You can relax your forehead.

Notice all the different parts of your body where the energy is not there.

Bring those parts into your awareness.

Bring your attention back to your breath as well.

And some people are able to go right into the middle of that energy and look at the world from the inside of that energy.

And some energies invite us in.

It's like,

I want to be known,

I want to be seen.

And other energies,

It's like,

No,

That feels too intense.

I don't wanna go into that.

There's no right or wrong answer.

Either way is fine.

But just to let yourself kind of settle into putting your attention on the inside,

Just experiencing for 10 seconds what it's like from the inside.

And then bring your attention back out.

Notice the space around the energy.

And another question or inquiry we can do with sensation in our body is,

Is it here to hurt me?

What's your immediate answer to that?

And what's your sense of that as you sit with that for a minute?

Especially if it's painful,

If it's moving,

A lot of this energy is associated with a sense of danger.

Sometimes it's hot or cold,

It's sharp.

There's a pain element to it.

Is the energy malevolent?

Does it feel like it wants to hurt you?

It might be painful,

But is there a bad intention there?

That's a kind of an odd question to ask about a sensation.

See what your answer is.

What's your intuitive sense of that?

And if there is a sense that it does want to hurt you,

Then how do you know that?

There must be some kind of thoughts.

The reason that I bring that up is we often have that kind of adversarial relationship with energy in our body.

It hurts,

It feels uncomfortable.

When I pay attention to it,

It takes me into a traumatic memory.

So we don't want to be connected.

We don't wanna feel connected with that energy.

So if it's not here to hurt us,

Then it's here to alert us.

It's a signal.

Our nervous system is detecting some kind of a threat.

And the way the nervous system works is it has a negativity bias.

Better safe than sorry,

The motto of the nervous system.

Our nervous system also uses history,

Including when we were a powerless child,

To predict what is a danger now.

So if you were bullied in grade four,

And now you have a bully at work,

You're gonna bring that forward.

There's a lot of ways that our nervous system tries to warn us.

And sensation,

Energy,

Feelings,

That's a lot of what's going on.

There might not be any threat right now in this moment as you're doing this practice,

But our nervous system is warning us of some potential here.

And sometimes it's just a history.

There's so much unresolved from our past that we are called to go in,

And we don't have to go in this directly of working with sensation.

We might do relaxation practices,

Or body scans,

Or attention and release practice,

Different ways of being in our body and connecting in our body.

Or we might do a practice of welcoming,

Of letting the energy in our body know that it's okay for it to be here.

What does that feel like right now?

What's your initial response to that?

If you were to bring your mind and your attention back now to that energy or sensation,

And the thing about energy and sensation is that it moves,

It shifts,

It changes.

That might not be the same now,

Probably isn't as it was 10 minutes ago or 20 minutes ago.

You can put your hands on your heart,

Or on your stomach,

Or wherever you're noticing that sensation,

And bring to mind again your experience of the sensation.

So notice the location,

Notice if it's moving or still.

Sometimes there's associated thoughts,

You might notice that too.

There might be a sense of an age.

Bring all of that to mind,

And then as if you're talking to that energy,

Let it know that it's welcome to be here.

These are signals from our nervous system that there's something we need to be paying attention to.

So we could say something like,

Thank you for alerting me.

Thank you for being here.

I get it that you're trying to help.

Even though it can feel kind of scary or intense,

You're welcome to be here.

I'm an adult now,

And I'm really working with widening my window of tolerance so that I could welcome you to be here.

I don't need to push you away anymore.

Take some breaths.

Let yourself either pay attention directly to the sensation,

Or the space around it.

Let yourself be present.

Notice that you have a whole body.

The sensation is in part of that body.

Or if it feels like it kind of permeates your whole body,

Notice where it feels strongest and where it doesn't feel as strong.

You can let it know,

Especially if there's a sense of an age and maybe an image comes up,

View with your childhood face.

You could welcome that.

There's something in us that needs to be seen,

Needs to be reassured.

That's not a practice we're gonna do today,

But we could welcome whatever this energy is trying to let us know about.

We could welcome that to be here.

And as we're able to stay with the energy in our body without being dragged into the past,

Traumatic memory might come up and we go,

Okay,

I'm gonna pause,

Open my eyes,

Look around,

Put it in the frame on the other side of the room.

Then we come back into regulation.

We might come back into some cyclic sighing.

We have the confidence after a while that we're not gonna be carried away,

That we can be here and be present.

We can take a few breaths.

When we breathe,

That signals to our nervous system that we're safe.

When we hold our breath,

It signals danger.

We're noticing right now it's safe enough to breathe.

I can take some deep inhales.

I can let the breath go.

I can let my body soften.

And as you think back and I review the practice over the last 20 minutes or so,

Notice what your experience was in terms of,

Yeah,

You know,

Most of the time I actually was able to remember that I'm here safe.

There's no danger here in this moment.

Most of the time I was able to stay in the experience and also witnessing the experience.

So that's something that we need the direct experience of in order to really feel more confident that this is okay to do.

And we don't have to do it directly.

Like I said,

We could do body scan relaxations.

We could work with longer exhale breathing.

There's so many ways now.

You could go outside for a walk and notice the air that's coming into your nostrils or the way it feels on your skin.

There's a lot of ways to come back into our body.

And that's how we heal.

So that we become present.

We connect,

We're with ourselves.

These explorations of our experience can be a very powerful way to change our relationship.