Witnessing Our Emotional Heart Center

Notice that you're here.

And as you're noticing that,

Notice how you're coming in to the practice.

You're coming in with a pretty settled nervous system.

Are you dysregulated?

Wow,

It feels so good to just sit back or lay back and let my shoulders release some of that tension.

It's always such a good idea to bring ourselves into this moment through the body.

And notice that we're here.

Notice that we have a body.

One of the effects of trauma is that we store it in our body with these sensations and energies.

It can feel kind of scary to be present in our body.

And as we do a simple relaxation or a deeper somatic practice in our body,

We also have the direct experience over time that it is safe to be present with our body and in our body.

We're witnessing our experience,

But not from a distance.

We're witnessing it from right here,

In this moment,

In this body,

In our mind.

If you take a few deeper breaths,

What does that feel like?

And as you're getting settled in,

There might be some things that you could adjust.

Check around in your environment.

Are you comfortable?

Is there anything you need to change?

Really feel into that.

No,

Actually,

There's nothing I need to change right now.

Let yourself be aware of that.

And then as we're noticing our physical body,

We also notice the energy,

The felt sense of what it's like to be here in a body.

We can bring that into awareness as well.

It's so closely tied to our physical body,

So we might move our body a little bit.

Move your head around,

Move your shoulders,

Shake your hands or legs,

Or do something kind of vigorous,

Or something a little bit more flowing and soft.

We could take a few deeper breaths and let ourselves notice,

What does that feel like?

Let's do a little bit of breath awareness as we're arriving with more awareness into our body.

If it feels okay,

You could go right to the belly and notice how your body moves as you breathe.

And as you're noticing how your body's moving,

Notice if your breath is continuous,

If you're breathing with sufficient volume.

Sometimes we barely breathe,

Just enough to sustain us,

But not enough to nourish us.

See if you could nourish your body with your breath.

You could do a long exhale.

You could use a syllable like voo,

Or any syllable that you like to use,

Om.

Let yourself feel into that,

What does it feel like to do a longer exhalation?

And then bring your attention into the head,

Spend a minute with the thoughts in the mind.

One of the reasons that we do that is because it's one of the ways to know ourselves,

But also it can be a real clue in terms of,

Am I aware and present,

Am I regulated?

Am I in a fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Or fawn response?

Is my attention really caught up in something,

Or is it fairly easy to let thought move to the background?

If you are watching your thoughts stream,

Some of those thoughts are quite innocuous,

They don't really grab our attention.

You might notice that sometimes thoughts come in as sounds,

Or sometimes as images.

Images are colors,

Shapes that our mind interprets.

They represent something.

You could also pay attention to your forehead,

Eyebrows,

And eyes as you're also watching your thoughts.

And let yourself kind of go into a stream of thought and watch and see what the content is.

What's the energy of it as well?

We have thoughts in the mind and they have associated energy in the body.

If you were in a freeze response,

Probably there's not much thought activity going on.

It's kind of numb or blank.

Might not be a lot of awareness in our body either.

If you're in a flight response,

You might be thinking about something else,

Daydreaming or fantasizing or just off in the past or the future somewhere.

If you're in a fight response,

Your thoughts are probably a bit scrappier.

Oh,

That was so unfair.

Or when I see that person,

Blah.

Just notice what your fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Regulation or dysregulation,

What's the state of that for a moment?

What does that feel like in your body?

And what are the thoughts in your mind?

And just noticing that we're often coming back into more of a regulated nervous system,

But it can give us some good information.

Now,

If you're more in a fawning response,

That feels different.

What does it feel like in your body?

There's often more of a feeling of shame or an anxious kind of reaching out.

Notice that if you notice your thoughts in your mind seem to be going into a people-pleasing scenario,

Notice what that feels like,

What the thoughts are.

That might morph into like a fight response or something too.

Our minds,

Our nervous systems are not static.

Let's just notice for a moment the thoughts in the mind.

What does that tell you about your nervous system regulation at the moment?

And of course,

Survival responses aren't the only thing that's in the mind or the thoughts.

Let's come down now to the heart.

Bring your attention to your heart center.

They're not so much the heart chakra as the emotional heart center.

The area in the chest,

Place where you tend to feel emotion.

It might be the heaviness of grief or the heat of anger.

So bring your attention into your emotional heart center.

The thoughts might come into the mind.

We're listening to what the thoughts are to give us more information,

But we're not really thinking about our emotion,

We're just present with it.

Let's settle here for a moment.

If there's a lot of sensation in your heart center,

You might notice that.

Is it hot or cold?

Is it moving or still?

What are the edges?

Does it taper off?

Is there an image?

Notice the sensations in the heart center.

Or you might just be aware of the feelings,

The emotion.

Give this a few minutes to see what's here.

Your mind will often label what's here.

Well,

I feel sad.

And there might be some thoughts about something.

We can let the label be whatever it is,

But come back into the heart and just see what's going on in the actual space of the heart.

What kind of feelings are there?

How do you know that it's sadness?

Or how do you know that it's anger?

There's usually thoughts and there's usually a type of energy.

This is all kind of unconscious mind.

We know what that is when we tune in.

Can't necessarily explain it,

But we know.

Let's continue to sit with that.

What's happening in your heart center?

We don't have to change what's here or fix anything.

Sometimes what'll come up is a younger part or an experience,

A memory of something.

We might hold ourselves in compassion,

Your hand on your heart,

Or just bring compassion and warmth into that heart that's coming up,

Whatever that feeling is,

That memory is.

And then we stay here,

Stay in the heart center.

What does the heart know?

Notice your body,

Your breath.

Let your mind be present,

Attending to the experience.

You might have thoughts coming into your mind.

You could notice those,

Notice the flavor.

Is it a fight,

Flight,

Freeze,

Or fawn response going on in your thought stream?

We don't have to make ourselves wrong for that.

We can just acknowledge that's how our system works.

And as we're tuning into the heart,

The sensations,

The energy,

We might notice that things have changed.

Things tend to move.

We might've started off with a certain sensation or energy and we moved through something else and now we're into this other thing.

So notice if we're not directing traffic.

Notice what it feels like.

What's your ongoing experience?

What does your heart want you to know?

Notice if you're open to that.

It's okay if you're not.

You could back away a little bit,

Observe a little bit more from a distance,

Or do more of a body scan,

Work with your breath.

There's no right or wrong way to do a somatic inquiry.

And as our mind quiets,

We have more access to our intuition or knowing.

The thoughts are coming in that are disturbing your concentration.

Let them move to the background and move right back into the heart.

We might notice if it's a familiar energy.

There's not usually anything brand new.

If we have a feeling of heaviness because of grief,

We felt that before in different ways,

Different experiences.

A lot of the sensations and energy are quite familiar.

We could be interested as well or invite forward knowing why this particular energy,

Why right now?

What does the heart want me to know?

What could I attend to and stay with for a bit?

Anytime you want,

You could bring your awareness back to your physical body,

Back to your breath.

The experience in our body changes as well.

We might have noticed that our shoulders have released or our jaw,

Or maybe that we've tightened up.

We could take a deeper breath again,

Couple of long,

Slow exhales.

Continue this intimate witnessing.

What's going on in your body and your heart,

Your emotions,

Your feelings?

Let your mind be quiet and still so that you could listen.

In the last few minutes of the practice,

You might review what came forward.

Maybe there's something that would be helpful to stay with for a while or get back into again later.

Or maybe it's something that came through and it's like,

Oh,

Okay.

And I sat with it for a few minutes and then it kind of eased.

It feels like that's complete.

Notice the energy again.

Notice the space around the energy in your heart center as well.

Even if the sensations are quite strong,

There's always the space around the energy.

We can come back into more awareness of the whole body,

The whole experience,

This intimate relationship we have with ourselves.

What did we learn?

What did we push away?

What did we invite in?

Without any judgment,

It's just whatever our experience is.

You can bring that warm,

Compassionate energy of the heart into more conscious awareness.

Let yourself feel the blessing of your own open heart,

Your good will towards yourself,

Your compassion,

Kindness.

We so often judge ourselves or we have an inner critic and then we can come into this.

Actually,

When it comes right into the heart,

I could be here,

Present and kind.