Archives for November 2022

When Focusing On The Breath Doesn’t Help, Try This

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While meditation can be incredibly soothing and peaceful, many people, especially those with a trauma history, find focusing on the breath triggering. Often, this activates memories of stressful times and can feel even more disturbing. If that is your experience, even if it’s only your experience some of the time when meditating, there are other ways to anchor in your body. You might find comfort, solace, safety, and serenity by focusing on different physical sensations, like:

Putting your hands on your heart.

Feeling your feet on the floor.

If standing, shifting your weight slightly from left to right , forwards and backwards, or in circles, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Placing your hands on your thighs. This can feel very stabilizing and grounding.

Using the Jin Shin Jyutsu butterfly hug. This is a different version from the one on YouTube. Here, you cross your arms over your chest with your four fingers of each hand under your armpits and your thumbs facing up on the front of your chest.

Another great way to ground in your body is to actively focus on body parts that might typically go unnoticed, like your earlobes, elbows, behind your knees, chin, sides of your calves, back if your head, etc. Here’s an example: So Hum Breath Meditation & Yoga Nidra Inspired Body Scan

Trying a mantra, with or without mala beads. You can read more about mantras here: Mantras For Emotional and Psychological Healing

The 5-4-3-2-1 mediation is also wonderfully grounding, especially if you don’t feel like focusing inward. You can find it here: Grounding Techniques To Calm Anxiety & Panic

Move your body through walking meditation (here’s one you can do at home from the Insight Timer app: https://insighttimer.com/evabruha/guided-meditations/walking-meditation-8).

Qigong (I highly recommend Jeff Chand’s YouTube videos)or yoga. Yoga With Adrienne on YouTube is another excellent, free resource.

Some aromatherapy essential oils can be very valuable here, too. You might try lavender, chamomile, cedar, birch, pine, or citrus. The easiest way to do this is to put a few drops on a tissue and breathe in the scent for a few minutes.

All of the above, as well as attending to ambient sounds around you, can ground your awareness in your body or your environment and calm your nervous system. They let you experience the joy of self-regulation and help re-balance your nervous system.

 

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang

You can’t re-parent yourself but you can parent yourself.

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You can’t re-parent yourself, but you can parent yourself

While there is much talk in therapy circles about reparenting yourself, that ship has sailed. You can’t re-parent yourself. It’s impossible to go back into your childhood and give that younger you what they truly wanted. The good news is, you can parent yourself until the day you die. With enough patience, attention, and practice, you can give yourself the loving parental behaviors you wish you had received starting right now.

What would those actions look like? 

What would they sound like? 

What would they physically feel like?

How would they make you feel emotionally?

While there are some universal loving, supportive phrases that most people crave, there are also differences based on who you are now.  These might include:

Speaking kindly to yourself.

Speaking to yourself in a soothing tone of voice.

Calling yourself by an endearing name, like sweetheart, darling, my little love, honey, pet, or anything that resonates with you.

Stroking your arm, putting your hands on your heart, or tummy, holding your own hand, or giving yourself a butterfly hug. Here’s a video of a butterfly hug:   

Telling your inner parent what you’re thinking, feeling, experiencing, afraid of, desiring, or processing.

Having your inner parent say the supportive words you want to hear, whether they are encouraging, praising, reflecting your true essence, or simply loving.

Reassuring yourself you can invoke your inner parent whenever you want that unconditional love.

At first, all of this will feel forced, awkward, and unfamiliar. You may even think it’s a fool‘s errand, but it isn’t. Just imagine how different your life will be if you spend the rest of it being kind, nurturing, and supportive to yourself.  You can reliably become the refuge you seek. It will take a lot of effort, practice, and determination. There will be many times when you think it isn’t working. But you’re planting seeds and when you least expect it new sprouts will break through.

This is a different form of self-compassion. In time, it will feel authentic. Even if it doesn’t become your automatic default, you will have the tools to comfort and reassure yourself that you can handle life’s slings and arrows.

Copyright Nicole S. Urdang