Since I was a little girl I have been waking up early, journaling, meditating/praying with spirit, and working out. This is not something modeled to me by my family of origin, quite the opposite actually. Raised by a single mother of three, who worked and went to school, gave us a lot of autonomy, freedom, and choice. My dad, a firefighter/paramedic, lived an hour away and we'd see him on weekend visits. I appreciate all the work my parents did. They are in part why I love working with people in somatic therapy. The value of helping our communities and collective was a family principle, this is in my bones. With no helicopter parent in sight, we had very little structure besides the regular school, sports, and work routine.
A Chaotic Childhood and the Search for Structure
My childhood was chaotic and anxiety-provoking for a little sensitive human like me. My dad's ongoing alcoholism, suicidality, and unprocessed C-PTSD were disorganizing for me. I felt torn, confused, and emotionally distraught a lot of the time. Then when my brother died when I was 15 years old the fever pitch of emotional dysregulation ran at an all-time high. I was grieving my brother and my parents, and the world as I knew it would never ever be the same. I learned some external strategies that became the foundation of my resiliency. The strategies scaffolded me, feeding information to my internal compass.
Like a building, our emotional infrastructure needs a foundation, framing, and scaffolds. Without these foundations, there is no container or pathway for emotions. These emotions need to be felt, held, expressed, and discharged. You might feel disorganized or reactive. You might default to anger (to go against), to get scared (to go away from), shutdown (to immobilize), or go along with (to please). Or, in other words, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These are all normal emotional reactions when emotional activation happens.
Integrating Somatic Therapy into Daily Life
Here are a few ways you can integrate somatic therapy in San Diego, CA into your daily routine for better emotional regulation:
Sleep. Start the day before with a good sleep routine. Stop caffeine after 12 noon, before you snuggle in do a light stretch, have some chamomile tea, or read a bedtime story. Sleep 7-9 hours. Sleep helps reset your nervous system, integrates activity, and helps your brain and body heal (Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker). A good sleep routine starts in the morning, getting early morning sunlight to your eyes, face, and body sends signals to your body, hormones, and brain set up and push buttons to establish a circadian rhythm.
Eat and Drink. There is a feedback loop between your nervous system, your adrenals, your blood sugar, your hormones, and your brain. This feedback system can be altered by any intervention along the sequence. Eating healthy, whole, and varied foods that have protein, fats, and carbohydrates gives your body the sustenance it needs. Eating for mental health has come a long way. Leslie Korn's Nutrition Essentials for Mental Health and Julia Ross's The Craving Cure, or The Mood Cure, give backbone to how what we eat has direct impact on our mental, emotional, and nervous system health. Part of the equation is eating quality food, the other half is eating regularly to keep your blood sugar and adrenals from having to do all the work.
Practice Scanning Inward (A.K.A Interoceptive Awareness for us neuroscience geeks). Pursuing emotional regulation requires the ability to reconnect inward and become aware of how you are feeling. "Going inside" or "dropping in" to your inner experience develops stronger emotional resiliency. You can just pause here, use your mind's eye to drop down into your body, and sense your legs, feet, belly, and heart. Some of my favorite led body
and sensation scans can be found on Insighttimer.
Tara Brach's "A Pause for Presence"
Jack Kornfield "Breathing Love in, Breathing Love out"
Amanda Helen "Heart Coherence"
Kiki Rae "5 Minute Body Scan"
Sarah Blondin's "Loving and Listening to Yourself"
Grounding and Orienting. Our nervous system scans for safety or threats minute by minute. We can shift our nervous system out of threat by grounding into a safe or familiar environment. We can further our emotional regulation by orienting to pleasurable, familiar, or beautiful sights, sounds, and smells. Music, essential oils, flowers, our loved ones, sunsets, and nature all have the capacity to up or down-regulate our nervous system. Practice grounding and orienting a few times every day and your nervous system will start to come out of threat! If you are in an environment where there is an emotional or physical threat, like an abusive relationship, war, or during a natural disaster it is efficacious to first develop a plan to access safety if possible. In those cases, your nervous system is doing its job and is "on" to help you survive.
Notice Your Breath. Learn to slow, lengthen, and deepen your breath. Explore different types of breath sequences to find the one that makes you melt. A few different breath options to start: voo, box breath, or the physiological sigh.
Establish times you regularly check in with yourself. Before you eat? While you shower or use the bathroom? On your way to work in the car? Every time you text? In bed upon waking and going to sleep? The act of checking in with your sensations and emotions has a regulating feedback loop.
Stroke your face, neck, and heart with light fingertips. This is so simple and so effective. The nervous system, the part we want to activate when we want to calm, innervates the face, neck, and heart. By slowly dragging the fingers along these areas we can stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. You can also hold your belly or heart, this can be done more discreetly if you need to use tools like this when you are around others.
Move Your Joints. Going back to our architecture metaphor, we need the whole body online to succeed in emotional regulation. Moving the major joints acts as a light switch for turning on more rooms in your container. More room equals less overwhelm. This can be as simple as when you feel emotionally stuck, roll off the couch, and roll your ankles, hips, and neck. Or If you are feeling anxious start articulating your neck, thoracic cavity, shoulders, and hips. Expand your container.
Feel and Deal vs Judgment. Judging or bracing against a normal human internal experience only makes things worse. Like a child who needs attention, the emotion will only get stronger and start acting out. Face it head-on, deal with it with understanding,
and it'll move through.
Developing Emotional Regulation Skills
As a somatic therapist, I learned that moving my body and checking in through writing, in silence and solitude, slowed me down. You can develop the capacity to step back and learn how to build emotional regulation. Try on emotional regulation techniques and build them into your day. When we begin to integrate wholeness into our lives we are doing embodied living.
Living Wholistically and Fully Alive
What time of day do I need to practice emotional regulation?
What techniques can I practice right now?
What sensations and emotions do I have a negative response to?
Connecting to your inner landscape and applying soothing techniques throughout your day increases your window of tolerance and supports greater resiliency. Truly wholistic. Fully alive. Find support for incorporating somatic therapy into your life from our skilled team at Compass Healing Project.
Begin Incorporating Somatic Therapy Into Your Life With Somatic Therapy in San Diego, CA and Golden, CO
Take the first step toward a more balanced life by exploring somatic therapy, where you’ll learn powerful techniques to regulate your emotions and connect with your inner self. Whether you're looking to reduce stress, manage anxiety, or simply feel more grounded, somatic therapy at Compass Healing Project can help you build lasting emotional resilience. Begin your journey toward a healthier, more connected you by following these three simple steps:
Reach Out and Fill out our New Client Inquiry Form to get started.
Schedule a discovery call with one of our skilled somatic therapists to discuss your needs and goals.
Begin building emotional resilience with the help of somatic therapy.
Other Counseling Services at Compass Healing Project
At Compass Healing Project, we provide a holistic approach to therapy, incorporating a variety of modalities to address a wide range of issues. Alongside our somatic therapy to help you with emotional regulation, we offer EMDR, Clinical Sexology, hypnotherapy, ketamine-assisted therapy, and embodiment practices. These therapies are effective in treating anxiety, depression, PTSD, grief and loss, sexuality concerns, and relationship challenges. For more information and to get to know us better, visit our blog. Our Colorado and California clinics are staffed with caring therapists who specialize in trauma resolution, emotional healing, and integrative therapy.
Kommentare