Sunday, March 11, 2018

It's not just about calming down- how to kick your shoes off with flair.

I love that Somatic Experiencing allows people to reconnect with parts of themselves that may have been long forgotten. Rather than simply calming their system, they become more grounded and connected to their system.  

A client walks into my office, perhaps just arriving from their job.  She’s professional, crisp, confident, and utterly unrelaxed. This is the face that we are often taught to wear in the business world:  Strength, focus, and a sore upper back. As a massage therapist I’ve dealt with the stiff backs for 14 years, but now I get to see the other side of things; I get to see how the flip side of that strong, driven professionalism is a level of forward momentum that can be difficult to slow down.  An unstoppable force. An interminable charge forward. It’s hard to enjoy a peaceful moment when your drive is almost throwing you off the rails.
Fast forward to thirty minutes into the session, perhaps three or four sessions in.  The client still comes in professional and confident, but now they are kicking their shoes off.  Instead of choosing the chair they are stretching on the floor, or opting to bounce gently on the yoga ball as we talk.

As they let themselves shift out of their “business face”, they find their mind wandering. They enjoy playful memories they hadn’t thought of in years. The memories lead them to insights about the challenges of today.  Most importantly, they look more like themselves. Peacefully, powerfully themselves.
What’s happening here?  There are many fine ways to explain it, but the way I see it is that this type of person has learned to use their Sympathetic Nervous system to its finest.  They are harnessing the power of their fight-or-flight drives to get things done, to make hard decisions, and to show up as a force of strength in challenging situations.  This is like a superpower. The cost of the superpower is that they can sap their energy reserves. They can overuse their adrenals. They can have difficulty slowing down even once a task is accomplished.  Though they feel exhausted, they are so driven that it becomes hard to rest, and challenging to be fully present in the tender, human moments of the day.

We want those tender moments.  No matter how driven we are, we want to enjoy life.  We want connection. We want joy. What I seek to do in session, then, is to help the nervous system learn how to transition from fight-or-flight into rest and relax.  To develop the skills required to let the heart rate slow, allow the breath to deepen, and the eyes to relax and wander.

Surprisingly, this doesn’t mean trying to ‘calm down’.  Often in a session we’ll actually take some time to really enjoy the charge that comes from working hard, from these accomplishments.  We’ll talk about their biggest achievement of the week, and then I’ll prompt them to notice the emotions and physical sensations that come with that sense of achievement.  The energy coursing through their limbs. The excitement in their chest, and the determination beaming from their eyes. After experiencing the height of that moment, their system will often settle into a peacefulness they hadn’t even realized they were thirsty for.

As a practitioner, this is such a delight for me to witness.  I know that the more they make this transition in session with me, the easier it will be to do it on their own.  They’ll come home from work and actually feel done with work.  And when they come back to tell me a story about taking some time out of their day to sit and gaze at trees in the forest, I’ll know I’m seeing a nervous system returning to harmony.

A brief experiment to give yourself a taste of this state-switch:

  1. Feeling a lot of drive?  Mentally racing through your list of what you have to get done during the day?  Great. Let that happen. And ask yourself this: As you notice how driven you are, check in on your body state.  What does it physically feel like to be so ready to act?  How is your breath? The tension in your belly?  Warmth in your limbs?
  2. Once you start noticing a few physical sensations, allow yourself to shift your focus onto those sensations.  It might be a little intense! Feel the charge of it for a few moments, letting those feelings build to a gentle peak.
  3. When you’re ready to take a break, shift your focus outside of your body.  Let your eyes slowly wander around the room, and let your head follow your gaze.  Notice things in the space that are pleasant to look at. Allow yourself to enjoy looking at them.  Spend a couple minutes with this, moving on to the next lovely focal point any time you feel bored or otherwise ready to move on.  
  4. Notice how your body feels now compared to before.  If you feel unsettled at all, spend more time in step three. If you feel things moving, settling, or anything remotely pleasant, give it some time to sink in, and enjoy.


Good luck!  I want you to enjoy a life that's both as productive, and as full of joy, as you wish.