Areas › Your body
Your body
You cannot think your way out of a body that is braced. This area starts there: the breath, the ground under you, moving, eating, resting, and the small physical things that change how the rest of the day lands.
What works for this
Working from the body first
A body that has not slept, eaten or moved has less left over for holding itself steady. Changing the state you are in is often faster than changing the thoughts you are having, and it is more reliable when you are already worn out.
One move, today
A long slow out breath, longer than the in breath, three times. The out breath is the part that does the work.
What matches
5 practicesThe same breathing serves different jobs at different times. Early on it may be there to help you sleep and stay contained. Later it may be there to help you feel more, not less.
This is worth knowing so you do not judge yourself for finding a practice useful now that was useless six months ago, or the other way round. In the…
The best ending is often that therapy stops and the practices carry on. People finish their sessions and keep the yoga, the bodywork, the acupressure, the sitting quietly.
It is worth building towards that from early on rather than at the end. If everything that settles you happens in one room with one person, then…
A skill that lives in your own body and your own phone stays with you after the appointments stop. That is worth choosing for.
Plenty of what helps during treatment ends when the relationship does. This does not. People often say afterwards that the breathing thing was the…
Feeling worse as things get safer is confusing, and it is common. When the guard finally comes down, whatever it was holding down gets felt.
This shows up when someone starts a calming practice, or moves somewhere safer, and instead of relief they get grief, irritability or a wave of old…
When someone finally reaches somewhere safe, do not be surprised if they fall apart rather than bloom. Stay close through that part.
People who have lived on high alert often start grieving once the danger stops, and it can look like going backwards: more tears, more fear about the…