Does this sound like you?
High anxiety. Too many things to do. Financial troubles. Stress of deadlines or family pressures. Recent accident or surgery. Sleepless nights. Overly tight muscles or pain. Think you might have PTSD?
It may feel like your concentration is gone, and you can’t sleep. Your chest is tight or your throat feels like it is constricted. You have a sense of urgency and just keep saying you will deal with it later.
The time is now!
The good news: Once the nervous system knows it is safe, the body and mind can relax and the sleepless nights, and pain can begin to fade into the background.
Dr. Peter Levine has been studying this since the late 1970’s. He developed Somatic Experiencing, which introduced a new way of addressing stress and trauma. Modern research and neuroscience is now backing up his groundbreaking work. Accessing body sensation and “being with it” is a powerful way to learn how to heal from the inside out.
5 Simple Ways to connect with yourself.
Instead of pushing your symptoms away or ignoring them, simply extend an invitation to yourself to observe what you are noticing right now.
1. If you can name it… you can tame it!
2. Let your eyes look around the room and see where they want to rest.
3. Notice your breath exactly as it is without changing or fixing anything.
4. Notice how your feet connect to the earth and notice the support of the ground beneath you.
5. Try this hold for building a safe container around yourself.
If you are stuck in a state of high alert, you can’t medicate, meditate or talk away these symptoms. Often medications prescribed treat the symptoms, but do not affect the root cause of the problem. The root change needs to take place at a nervous system level.
Leading Researchers on Anxiety are discovering benefits of Somatic Therapies
In his 2015 book “The Body Keeps the Score,” Dr. Bessel VanderKolk, leading trauma expert and Harvard researcher, discusses how talk therapy alone does not fully address the issue of accumulated stress and PTSD. The body itself has to be involved in the healing from trauma. By tuning into the body, we are able to restore a sense of safety. That sense of safety and reduces anxiety and stress symptoms.
Somatic Experiencing and TRE® (Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises) are both powerful neuro-psychobiologcal ways of addressing stress and accumulated tension in the body. It helps to address symptoms to get the root of the problem. It is an effective, drug free and empowering way to reduce the effects of traumatic stress. Whether that stress comes from an accidents or the build up of stress that arises from living in our modern world.
The root change or release needs to take place at a nervous system level – Once the nervous system knows it is safe, the body can relax and natural vitality can return.
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Curious and want to know more about Somatic Experiencing or how you can become your own healer by adopting simple and effective TRE®? Book in for a free Meet the Practitioner appointment with Jane Courtney.
