We are in rough seas. Even before this past week’s racist, anti-Semitic mob attacked our Capitol building, we have been living through multiple pandemics -- COVID, racism and the backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement, lives lost to police and state sanctioned violence, and a profound environmental crisis.
In the context of our world today, we all need to renew ourselves, and support our wellbeing to sustain our families and our communities. But how do we have time to replenish ourselves, how do we rekindle our inner fire after a week (month/year) like this?
All of us feel the impact of what’s happening in the world today in our daily lives, in our minds, and in our nervous systems. One stressor piles up on top of the next and our bodies, minds, and hearts don’t have time to recover. This puts our sympathetic nervous system (the gas pedal) on over drive and floods our body with the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. It overrides our parasympathetic nervous system (the brakes) which is what helps us generate comfort and calm. It’s also the part of our brain responsible for problem solving, creativity, and connection with others/empathy. This non-stop gas pedal to the floor burns out our nervous systems, our circuits are shot. It can lead to reactivity, burnout, and exhaustion.
At the same time, alongside this past year’s grief, loss, and chronic stress, we’ve also shown a ton of grit and grace, activism and endurance. We have shown incredible creativity and ingenuity. We need to continue to fuel this, but not in an endless list of “self-care” (read=self-improvement/self-deficit) “to-do” lists. None of us need more “to-do”.
In the next three posts, I am going to share three key elements to support our wellbeing during this time. They are:
1. Calm our nervous system
2. Access our inner resources
3. Deepen our connection with others (outer resources)
Today we’re going to focus on calming our nervous system. Learning how to calm our nervous system is a skill that grows with practice. We first need to acknowledge our level of stress, and make sure that we are taking time to support our nervous system. To come back to balance and calm. If we are operating in a constant state of stress elevation, we aren’t able to access the parts of our brains most effective for problem solving, responding with creativity, and connection with others. Of course, when we really need to pause and release stress is when we forget to practice, or don’t have time. But, in fact, as soon as you pause and take a deep breath you activate the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve puts us into our parasympathetic state of renewal, replenishment, and comfort.
So today, let’s take a couple of minutes to practice together. I like to think of this as preparing our minds for optimal life. Let’s create some space in our minds from the stress so we’re ready for connection, creativity, and problem solving. Our families and our world need you to have a full tank of gas right now.
Below is an audio link to a guided exercise I recorded from Dr. Shauna Shapiro (link to her website below). She has written many books, given a TED talk, been on countless podcasts. I heard her lead this exercise on a wonderful podcast called, “Raising Good Humans with Dr. Aliza Pressman” and loved it (link below). I also love this podcast, but that’s another story for a different post.
Here is the link to the audio recording: The text is also below in the resources section, if you prefer recording it in your own voice. Please try it out and let me know what you think!
Resources
Dr. Shauna Shapiro, https://drshaunashapiro.com
Raising Good Humans Podcast / Dr. Aliza Pressman.
https://aliza.libsyn.com/dr-shauna-shapiro-on-using-mindfulness-to-help-grow-our-emotional-resources-and-our-childrens-self-regulation
Preparing for Optimal Life Exercise (if you prefer to record in your own voice)
You can begin by letting your eyes close. If you don’t like to close your eyes you can look down at the floor and just take a moment to arrive, here together. So, let’s first focus on arriving in your body right now. What I mean by this is start to gather your attention back into yourself. You can put all the worries, the to-do lists racing around in your mind, or other demands on you to the side for the next few minutes. You can always pick them back up when you need to. So, start by literally bringing attention to your body. Wiggle your toes, feel your feet, feel both legs, your seat on the chair, your spine straight and upright, soften the shoulders, let your awareness rise. You may notice that your mind is wandering. It’s OK, that’s natural, gently bring your mind back. If it wanders, just bring it back, don’t judge it. It’s natural. Feel the palms of your hands, feel your belly and the breath moving your belly, as you inhale the belly rises and fills with air, and as you exhale you release. So, receiving the inhale, releasing the exhale. Oxygenating the body with each in breath, releasing letting go of stress and tension with each out breath. The body knows how to take care of you, the breath knows what to do, you don’t have to try, just let yourself breathe. When you exhale you’re exhaling carbon dioxide and stress, when you inhale you’re receiving the nourishment in the oxygen. And continuing up the torso to the chest. I want to invite you to put your hand on your heart. Notice what this feels like. For 50% of us, simply putting our hand on our heart cues the release of oxytocin, one of our key “feel good” and connecting hormones. Begin to feel the heart. Begin to feel the heartbeat. Don’t worry about it if you can’t feel it, some people’s hearts are located a little differently physically, but it’s definitely beating. The heart is sending oxygen and nutrients to every cell in your body. The heart is taking care of you right now. Can you receive that nourishment, and then continuing up into the throat, into your face, soften your jaw, release any tension, soften the eyes, forehead, the temples, the whole face, you can tilt your chin down a millimeter and let the back of the neck lengthen, feel the sides, the top of the head. And just get a sense of the whole body resting.
Notice how you’re feeling after just a couple minutes of practice. And bringing this open, kind, curious attention with you as you let some light back in the eyes. You can go ahead and stretch arms above the head. Good. Great job. Now go back to busy life.