Episode #39- Going In To the Body

 

Today's podcast includes two exercises for going in to the body.

Going in to the body, instead of retracting and dissociating from it, is an important way to start building a mind body connection.

It is a process you can use for processing emotion, decreasing physical pain and resolving trauma.

 

Follow Betsy on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

 

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it  https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 39, Going Into the Body. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become Unstoppable Body and Mind. Hello, my friends. Today, we're going to talk about going into the body.
But first, I have some updates. My total podcast downloads this year has almost reached 5,000, which is exciting. I have 31 ratings now on iTunes.
You guys have been really doing your part, giving it ratings and reviews, which I really appreciate. I am still doing a drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card. So if you submit a rating or a review, then take a screenshot, email it to me, or if you follow me on Instagram.
So there's three possible entries per person. So on November 15th, I'll do a drawing for those who have entered to win, and someone will be the lucky winner of $100 Amazon gift card. My email is info at bodyandmindlifecoach.com, and all the information will be found in the show notes.
I've had a lot of listeners from Katrina Ubell's podcast who have started listening, so welcome to all of you. Many of you are physicians, and I've been doing a lot of consults these last couple of weeks with some of you. It's been awesome to talk to different physicians, people in the medical field, people who are interested in learning more about the mind-body connection.
And so I've been thinking of what I've been teaching that I could share with you on the podcast that might be helpful. One of the main principles that I teach is about going in to the body, to really describe the sensations and the feelings as if you're doing it very neutrally. I do this in the Somatic Tracking Meditation episode of my podcast, but I am gonna talk about it here today as well.
I've been listening to Peter Levine's book Healing Trauma, which I totally recommend. It's so interesting, and it talks about how trauma is biological. So I had this realization that was so funny this week.
The things that I've always thought were biological and physical, I've been learning about treating emotionally. And then something that I thought was mainly emotional, like trauma, that you would deal with by talking and analyzing your emotions. Peter Levine talks about analyzing and addressing biologically.
But what is really fascinating is that what I have been learning through life coaching, mind-body medicine, and with Peter Levine, there's this common modality, a way of addressing pain, disease, processing emotions, going through trauma, completing the cycle, is to go in to the body. Think of all the dissociation we have from our bodies. When you have chronic pain or you've suffered with disease, you may think your body has betrayed you.
You may hate your body. You may not trust your body. There may be resistance and even fear, thinking about how your life is limited, what you can or can't do.
There's a lot of times fear of the unknown, what if it gets worse? What is my future hold? What if something else happens?
When you have sensations, you may try to retract away from them, to tighten up, to resist, to push through, maybe even just ignore your body and whatever sensations it has. Now, what comes up for you, as I talk about your body? Take a moment to think if you have a loving relationship or fearful relationship with your body.
Do you feel like you're at war with your body? Are you scared of it?
Let's try right now just to be curious. Let's put the history and the past and the diagnoses and the prognosis over to the side. You can have them back when you want them.
But right now, I want you to just experience going into the body with me. So if you're driving or can't attend right now, maybe this is something that you can just listen to and come back to later when you have a chance to take it deeper and start integrating back into your body. So start by sitting or laying in a comfortable position.
Take some time to feel your body resting against the surface. You can close your eyes, rest them gently closed, and start to lengthen the amount of time you're breathing out and breathing in. And start to lengthen your breath and notice where you feel your breath.
Notice where you feel your breath in your body. Notice if you feel it in your nose, in your throat, in your lungs, maybe the rise and fall of your chest or of your stomach.
Start to pay attention to the movement, to the oscillation, the in and out of your breathing, and make it longer and longer as you calm and relax.
Begin to scan your body.
And describe anything that you come upon in your body. What grabs your attention? And how can you describe it neutrally?
Start by the area of the sensation that you have. And you can describe how big or small it is. If it seems to be dense or moving.
If it has a color, what would it be?
What quality does it possess? Is it a sharp or dull sensation? Is it a warm or cold?
How else can you describe it?
Keep focusing on this area, and notice what happens as you bring your attention to it. Does it change at all?
Maybe you can breathe air into that area. Imagine the breath swirling around whatever area you're feeling this sensation. And as you exhale, imagine anything coming out that's no longer serving you.
Pushing it out, releasing it, exhaling completely like you're wringing out your lungs before you breathe back in.
Try and be neutral as you notice this area. Try and go a little deeper as if you could shrink yourself down and look inside into that place. Maybe look with a flashlight like you're shining it around, being so curious about what you find, reacting so calmly to what you see.
There's really nothing to be upset about in this moment. We're just curious about what's there, going deeper and observing.
When you feel sensation, remember that you can go into it rather than pulling away from it. You may even ask it, why it's there? Does it have a message for you?
And then just calm your mind, breathe in and out, and listen. Some people hear a voice, some people feel a feeling, but maybe you can be open to whatever comes to mind. Even if you think it might be silly or irrelevant, maybe question it.
The more you practice asking your body, the more it will give you answers. Now, you can open your eyes. This is an exercise you can do anytime that you're feeling pain.
If you're feeling sensation, even if you're feeling emotions and want to process your emotions, you could notice when something's feeling off in your day. Maybe you're feeling frustrated, or you're feeling nervous or anxious, or maybe you're feeling excited about something. Really notice when you have these emotions, what they feel like in your body.
You might describe them as where they are in your body, how the quality of the sensation, how it feels. The more you tap into these signals from your body, the more aware you can become of what emotions you're feeling. It sounds weird, I know, to think we have to become aware of the emotions that we have.
But honestly, we're not taught to recognize our emotions. If anything, we're taught that we shouldn't feel certain emotions. People who are into coaching, sometimes we coach ourselves out of feeling so quickly.
So notice if there's something in your body, though, that's not quite feeling right. Maybe there is a little residual emotion that you're not recognizing. Or maybe you can start to recognize those emotions that come up frequently for you.
This is a way of connecting with your body. It's a way of becoming more in tune. It's a way of processing emotions and also releasing trauma going into your body, describing the sensation that you have.
Now I want to do one more exercise with you. This is from Peter Levine's book Healing Trauma that I referred to earlier. And he talks about getting comfortable with penduluming your emotions, basically where you are able to ramp up or increase your excitement level and then come back down.
He said people that have had traumatic situations that have not been resolved have difficulty when they do start to experience that heightened sensation of their nervous system ramping up. And so this exercise with going between emotions of excitement and grounding can be really important. So I want you to get comfortable and close your eyes again.
Really feel the contact you have with the surface that you're sitting on or laying on. Closing your eyes, letting the muscles of your eyes relax.
Taking deeper and deeper breaths, letting your shoulders relax away from your ears. Notice if there's any tightness that you're keeping in your body and try to soften it.
Now here we're going to visualize that you are a tree. So you can be any type of tree that you want. A willow, an oak tree, a pine tree, a big majestic tree that has branches and leaves.
It has a trunk that's stable and strong, and it has roots that go deep, deep into the earth. It's as if there's a magnet pulling those roots to the earth, to the center, and also spreading the branches and leaves up into the air, away from the earth.
Imagine this in your body, that your trunk is the trunk of that tree that is strong and resilient. Now imagine the leaves and the branches. They begin to sway in the wind.
And as the wind picks up, they really start to rustle. They begin moving more and more. And notice this in your body.
Where do you feel movement? Where do you feel intensity?
A big gust of wind comes. It blows the tree completely over to the ground.
There is some anticipation, some excitement, some wonder. As you notice that it's falling to the ground, how does that feel in your body?
But the tree is strong, and it comes back up. The trunk has been centered. The trunk is resilient.
The trunk is strong, and the roots pull it down, down to the earth. Feel this grounding sensation. Feel the stability in the core.
Feel the strength in the base. Feel the roots grounding to the earth.
Now shift your attention again to the leaves and branches in the wind. Feel how your body changes as you observe the movement.
Now, return again to the roots. Return to the grounding. Return to the trunk and the base.
Okay, so you can open your eyes. Now, going back and forth, you may have been able to feel the difference between those two emotions, of excitement, or maybe even a little bit of anxiety or worry, and then the grounding and relaxation and trust. Those are a couple of brief examples I wanted to share with you today about going into your body.
This principle is very important in desensitizing your hypersensitivity to pain. The more neutrally you respond to these situations, it sends the signal back to your nervous system that it doesn't need to be hypervigilant in this area. It sends a signal back to your brain that it does not need to continue to amplify the pain production.
So though it may be something you've avoided, going into your body is actually one of the first things that you can do to work on rewiring your brain to produce less pain. So that's what I have for you this week. Be sure and check out my Instagram.
I'm putting out a lot of new content there. And give yourself some chances to try going into your body this week. Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.