A Somatic Series: From Disconnection To Feeling Present

This practice will help you to move out of activated states like fight or flight in order to down-regulate your nervous system to experience calmer more balanced states.

So settle into your seat and I want you to begin to orient to your surroundings.

This is a very creature-esque practice.

Every animal does this as a way to really arrive into a space.

Begin to slowly look around your environment.

Slow head,

Neck and eye movements.

Keep your eyes open and resist the temptation to let the eyes dart around to have fast jolty movements.

Slow everything right down and simply let your attention just gaze and wander around the space you are in.

Let your eyes be drawn to whatever they feel drawn to.

Resist the temptation to judge,

To create story around your environment and simply observe with curiosity.

Just continue doing this practice.

Just slowly gazing,

Playing a little bit with perspective,

So looking at things that are further away from you,

Looking at things that are closer to you and using the full range of your eyes and head movements but slowly.

So this practice reminds our nervous system and our neuroceptive abilities that we are safe,

That our environment is safe.

It slows us down enough to be able to determine this.

So keep slowly looking.

Allow your gaze to be soft.

Notice if you go into intense staring.

Soften your eyes.

When we're in this hyper aroused state we often end up intensely staring.

This can also happen when we're continually looking at a screen.

So this practice really helps to take us out of that.

Play a little bit with perspective,

Looking at things close and further away,

Maybe looking out a window.

But do this slowly so you're not jumping around and start to notice what happens in your body as you do this.

Can you feel your breath slowing down?

Your heart rate decreasing?

Maybe you notice more saliva in your mouth?

So this is also a sign of coming into a more balanced state.

And if you feel any sighs or yawns that are wanting to be released,

Allow for that free flow of release in your body.

Just orienting for another few seconds to your environment,

Gazing slowly.

Now release this practice and pause for a moment and just notice your physical experience.