Nervous System Working With Sensations

So let's get started with just kind of tuning into our body.

This is not a neutral topic,

Working with trauma and the nervous system.

Most of us don't know a lot about our nervous system unless we've had some kind of specialized training in it.

And one of the things that we have a wealth of information about now is how our nervous system works,

How we go into fight-flight-freeze,

Survival mechanisms.

Dr.

Steven Porges talks about the polyvagal system and how that evolved through time in our human bodies and how we have this higher level brain development as well that we can use in addition to our primitive brain and the nervous system generated thoughts.

So we have a nervous system that always is on the lookout for threat and danger.

And that makes sense because that's how we evolved.

And then we have this primitive brain system that has a negativity bias and that's always working for us.

So we want to know and we want to remember threats in order to keep ourselves safe.

That's something that worked really well in the past when most of the threats were not social.

They were tigers leaping out from behind bushes and that kind of thing.

And now we have a highly developed nervous system that's pretty alarmed a lot of the time in our modern life.

And especially since COVID,

We've had this worldwide pandemic and very real threats.

Many,

Many people have gotten COVID and some have recovered,

Many have died.

There's been a lot of grief and fear and our lives have been really disrupted.

So what we're going to work with today is how to down-regulate a little bit so that we can calm our nervous system and then we can go into really paying some attention to what is it that's going on in the body and how can we be a little bit more present with that.

So as you're getting started,

Just notice what's going on right now.

So usually when we tune in with our bodies,

We notice some parts are quite tight.

We might be holding our breath or maybe our breath doesn't have a lot of ease in our breath.

That's a possibility as well.

So just notice when you tune in,

What do you notice,

What attracts your attention first?

And people tend to hold tension in a certain part of their body.

For some of us,

It's the forehead and eyebrows.

It's kind of frowning or worried.

So if that's the case,

You could lift your eyebrows up and take a moment,

Two or three exhales just to soften the forehead,

The eyebrows,

Your eyes.

It's very common for people to clench their teeth.

So if you find that you do that a lot,

See if you can train yourself to keep a little space between the top and lower jaw so that you're not clenching your teeth.

Even if there's tension there,

It won't be quite so hard on your teeth.

But also see if you could let go of some of the tension in the hinges of the jaw.

You can move your jaw around a little bit if you like.

And very common,

We hold our attention in the neck and shoulders.

So if your shoulders are around your ears,

You could relax and let them fall away.

And as you're breathing in and breathing out,

Notice what that feels like.

You could lift your shoulders a little on the inhale if you want and exhale,

Let your shoulders settle down.

One of the things that's interesting about the back of our neck and shoulders and the large muscles of the upper back is that some of that is muscles.

We tense our muscles.

But there's often also feelings of some kind of emotion.

Sometimes we feel like we're bracing ourselves against threat.

Sometimes we feel like,

Ugh,

We just have such a burden and we're carrying that on our shoulders.

And if you bring your attention around to the front of your chest and notice the large muscles of your chest and around the heart center,

Are there any sensations there that don't really feel physical?

So if you were,

For instance,

To think about someone you really love and enjoy seeing or being a dog or horse or cat or something or person,

Let yourself just kind of visualize them and remember what it's like to see them and maybe hold them or whatever.

Use all of your senses to bring that in.

Notice if there's anything happening in your chest,

In your heart center area.

Take a few deep breaths and let that kind of settle in for a moment.

And then if you think about,

Bring to mind a time when you had to go out and maybe there was some kind of fear around,

I don't know what's going to happen.

Maybe you have to walk into a grocery store with COVID and you're not really sure.

But if there's anything that brings up fear,

Notice if that creates any kind of sensation or energy in your stomach.

It could be the navel center,

The pit of the belly there somewhere.

And notice what happens to your breath as you think about that.

Coming back to the nervous system,

What we're looking at is we have this primitive brain that stores memories and associates sensations in our body with stored memories.

So if you're thinking about being scared,

You're going to have probably some kind of feeling in your body about that too.

So let's come back to regulating.

You can do that.

You could hold your own hands if you wanted.

You could look around the room and look for cues of safety.

You could take a few deeper breaths and let your body know through your breath that you're safe to do this.

One of the things about our breath is that we often hold our breath when we're scared.

That's part of our survival system.

And then our breath,

When it's held like that,

Can become a habit.

And that signals to our nervous system that there's some danger here,

When actually there's not.

Taking some deep breaths,

Long,

Slow exhalations can really help to reassure our nervous system.

Thinking about are we safe or not isn't really all that helpful for our nervous system.

It needs some kind of evidence through the senses.

So longer breaths will help.

Looking around the room,

Letting your eyes notice if you're safe,

That helps.

Listening to sounds.

So let's go into now the whole of our body from head to toes and notice if there's any sensations there.

So the space that your body is occupying.

And some of the sensations are physical.

We have sensations of our feet on the floor,

If you have your feet on the floor.

If you're holding your own hand,

You would have that warmth,

That texture,

The sensation of that.

You might feel the air as it flows into your nostrils.

It's a little cooler when you breathe in.

And then look for the non-physical sensations.

Like maybe you just had a tightening in your gut when we were bringing to mind something that we're scared about.

Or you notice your shoulders kind of got activated there.

The idea with this is that we're remaining grounded in this moment in time.

So in this moment in time,

There's no danger here.

Your body is safe.

And then from here,

This awareness,

This sense of right now my body is safe,

I'm safe.

Then we're going to look and see what's going on in the body.

So we keep coming back to this and all of these tools and techniques,

A big part of the purpose of them is to remind our nervous system that we're not back in the past,

That we're right here in this moment and right now we're safe.

And we know that in one way because if we weren't pretty sure we're going to be safe,

We wouldn't be here doing a practice.

We'd be attending to the danger somehow.

So notice if there's a sensation.

So I'll use the sensation of a fear response in the belly.

And if you've got something else going on,

Just do that with whatever's going on in your body.

Oftentimes when we feel sad,

We feel a heaviness in the chest.

Thinking about something we want to say,

But we don't really feel safe to say it.

Sometimes we have a tension in our jaw or there's a pulsing in our throat.

So we have all kinds of signals from our body all the time.

Notice your breath and notice what is the energy or sensation you're going to work with.

Pick one if there's more than one.

And the first thing we might do is notice,

Do you have an image of the sensation?

So sometimes people will have an image of a black hole in their gut and there's this feeling like if they got too close to it,

They would be pulled into it,

Annihilated.

It'd be something like that or it could be anything.

So notice if you have an image,

And this is generally something to do with the way our brains work.

I'm not very visual,

So I don't generally have images,

But some people have images of sensations and if you do,

Then you could work with it like any other image.

You could have your eyes open and put it in a frame on the wall on the other side of the room.

Have a look at it,

Look at the colors,

The shapes.

You could do some tapping.

Just take your attention away from the image and into the sound and sensation of the tapping on your forehead.

Take a few deeper breaths.

And then let's move into how would you describe the sensation if you were in a scientist's lab?

So would you say,

You know,

Is there a shape?

Is it like a small fist in your gut?

Is it more diffused?

Is it kind of tight at the beginning,

At the middle,

And then it moves off and gradually it disappears?

And as you're looking at that,

Is it moving or still?

That's another descriptor we could look at.

Sometimes a sensation will have a sense of whirling or throbbing or pulsing or something.

It might be growing in size or changing.

Other times it's completely still.

Notice that,

Is it moving or still?

And look at any other kind of descriptors.

Is it painful?

So sometimes it's painful in a kind of a hot,

Stabbing way or an ache.

Notice if it's painful.

There's physical sensations of pain that come with it.

And now let's look at all the space around the sensation.

So if you have a tight fist in your navel centre,

For instance,

Notice if it goes up into your chest,

If it goes out to the edges of your body.

Is it just in that one little location?

Notice the sensation and notice the space around the sensation.

If you have words coming up as you're doing this,

You could notice that.

You could put those words up or you could put an image if you haven't.

Put it into a frame.

Open your eyes.

Look at the frame.

Look at the space on the outside of the frame.

You could take your eyes around the outside space.

So if you have words coming up,

That's a really good way to bring your attention to it is to do some tapping on your forehead or use the tools we have to deal with thoughts.

And then come back into the sensation.

Is it something that feels kind of stationary?

Is it moving?

Is it still?

Is it hot or cold?

That's another descriptor.

And sometimes if you have a sensation like something in your throat or chest,

You could also notice is your breath still getting through?

Like your physical breath,

Is it still going through your throat into your lungs?

And it is,

But we.

.

.

So keep coming back.

We're just kind of nibbling around the edges of this.

So sometimes we can go right into a sensation and go right into the middle of it.

And we're going to do that in a moment.

But other times it's better just to keep this kind of scientific approach.

So we're really aware that right now in this moment,

We're safe.

We're looking at,

We're paying attention to sensations in the body.

And sometimes those sensations will have memories associated with it that will come forward.

But right now we're kind of doing the science approach.

We're just looking at the size,

The shape,

The descriptors,

The location.

And then look to see what's your felt sense?

Is this sensation or energy here to hurt you?

So is there a sense of malice or bad intentions in it?

Is it something that's here to hurt you?

Or is it here for some other reason?

And if it feels like it's here to hurt you,

Notice how you notice that.

Is it words?

Is it associated memories coming up with it?

What is it that gives you that feeling?

If it's words,

You could work with them,

If it's images.

But let's now come into just that realization oftentimes people will have is,

It's not actually here to hurt me.

It feels like it's here to warn me about something,

Or maybe it's something that I need to know about.

So we have these quite intense sensations and feelings sometimes.

And we try to avoid them because it feels like it's overwhelming or it's painful or maybe it could hurt us.

And often when we are able to stay grounded in awareness and in this moment,

We're able to sit with them and see,

Actually,

It just wants to tell me something.

It wants me to know something.

So let's move into what we call mining.

So we're just going to ask the sensation why it's here.

So we could also figure that out in our head,

But that's not really how the nervous system works.

The nervous system is more of a felt sense.

It's more of our unconscious mind in the body.

So if you could put your attention right in the middle of that sensation,

As though you're in the middle looking around from the inside,

You could do that.

If that doesn't feel comfortable,

And often it doesn't,

That's fine.

Then just kind of put your attention on the space around the sensation or on the outside of it.

And then let's sit for a moment and just ask the question,

Why are you here?

What do you want me to know?

Stay connected with your body and your breath and with this moment in time.

Mostly these things are here because of memories.

You need to notice your breath.

Notice the space around the outside of the energy if you're starting to feel like it's getting a bit intense.

Can always open your eyes.

You can move around.

Hold your hands.

Do one of the down-regulating practices.

And what is it here to tell you?

Let me just kind of sit for a minute and give it some time to answer.

If you're working with a fear sensation maybe in your stomach,

You could ask why,

What is it you're afraid of?

And sometimes we can ask too or look to see is there a certain age?

Is this a five-year-old who's frightened?

Is this a 27-year-old?

Is there an age?

Sometimes there is.

What is it that they want us to know?

And if it's a part of us that's younger,

The way the traumatic memory works is that there's not really a sense of time.

Time doesn't update in those kind of memories.

So it might be a younger self who maybe just needs some reassurance that they're not alone.

And I know that sounds kind of goofy.

If you haven't done a lot of inner child work,

It can feel a little awkward.

But what we're really doing is just paying attention and keeping our own adult system regulated.

So keep awareness of your breath,

Of your body,

That you're safe in this moment.

Sometimes that will be reassuring to the nervous system.

Sometimes we do a practice of welcoming.

As though you're talking to the energy,

You could say,

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for coming to my attention.

I love you and you're welcome to stay as long as you like.

I'm happy that I can connect with you.

And that is exactly the opposite of what we often do,

Is we try to push these away,

These sensations and energies and thoughts,

Memories,

Because they're painful.

And maybe they remind us of a time when we didn't have anybody on our side,

When we couldn't really get support from someone else,

And we're scared and alone and hurt and we want some comfort.

And now we could provide that for ourselves.

Let's stay with that for a little bit longer.

Just notice what's your experience.

Does it feel like it's okay for this energy to be here?

Maybe even welcome?

Notice your breath.

People who've worked with the energy in this way,

It doesn't take long to reach a tipping point where we realize that this energy is not here to hurt us,

Where we get really interested in and are really welcoming,

Because this is some part of us that didn't get attention when it needed it.

And there's some unresolved memories or situations where we needed some kind of soothing or support we didn't get.

And now we can do that,

Just to be able to welcome the energy that's here.

And then if there are memories coming up,

Then that's kind of another piece of work that we can do with it.

We can remain in this moment in time.

We might need some help with that.

We might need someone else to sit with us or ways of keeping ourselves grounded in this present moment where there is no threat.

But it's a wonderful way to get to know ourselves.

And as we do that,

Then we release that stuck energy out of our body.

Our bodies get looser.

My shoulders used to be so tight.

I couldn't even hardly get a massage because it was like cement in my shoulders and upper back.

And over the years of doing this work,

I've released a lot of that and I just don't have that anymore.

I have a tendency to tighten my shoulders if I've got something going on,

But that's not my usual state anymore.

So it's really encouraging.

I've seen that certainly with myself and a lot of other people,

That our bodies just want us to pay attention and tune in and be kind and patient.

And whatever it is that's stored that we couldn't process at the time because we didn't have the maturity or the resources,

Maybe we could do that now.

So coming back to noticing your safety.

If you're feeling a little shaky,

You could do one of the practices.

Let's do the 5,

4,

3,

2,

1.

So look around the room and if you can say it out loud,

Say it out loud.

Five things you can see.

I see some pictures.

I see trees outside.

I see five things you can see.

Four things you can touch and touch them if you can.

Feel the table.

Feel my hand on my heart.

The three sounds that you can hear.

My voice and the birds.

What are three sounds that you can hear and say them out loud?

And two of your favorite smells.

Cinnamon buns baking or the rain in a forest.

What are your two favorite smells?

And then one favorite taste.

Now take a couple of deep in-breaths.

Long exhalation.

Let your body relax.

This is a practice of paying attention to our nervous system on a physical level.

So there's the physical body and then there's the energy and sensations and feelings in the body.

So when we have a heartbreak,

It feels sometimes like we have a broken heart.

We feel heavy in the chest when we're sad.

We feel tight in our body when we're scared.

We might have a lot of restlessness in the arms and legs.

It's not really physical.

It's more energetic and it's a way of our body signaling us,

Maybe it's not safe to be here.

We need to get out of here.

The learning,

The signals of our body can be very helpful.

And then minding the energy.

We need to be able to be present with the energy in a way that we can stay present in this moment as well as paying attention to the energy.

So noticing the space around the outside of the energy,

Noticing the qualities like hot or cold,

Moving,

Still.

Noticing if it feels like it's malicious.

Is it here to hurt you?

And then realizing it's not.

It's here to be seen or heard or have some kind of a connection with us.

It's something we've suppressed that we can now bring forward.

And all the way through that,

We're really working with the tools to stay grounded.

And last week's practice is now up on Insight Timer as a guided practice,

So you could go to that so you can refer back to those.

I think this is one of the most important things that we can do for healing ourselves is to learn how to welcome what's happening in our nervous system and understand that it's not something we can think our way out of,

That we really have to have the experience in our body of safety and that it's okay to be here with this.

I realized that there's nothing inside of me that's not lovable.

And I think that when we don't really know that,

We might think it in our mind or sometimes we'll do practices around that.

But when we do this kind of work and we really experience in our own guts that all that's here is just something that didn't get processed when we were younger.

Maybe younger meaning five minutes ago or maybe meaning 50 years ago.

But there's nothing bad inside.

And these energies and sensations,

All they really want is to be heard and attended to.

And we can do that as an adult.