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
7 practicesWith your eyes closed, bring to mind someone who is glad to see you, and let your face receive that look. A small smile usually arrives in the eyes on its own.
It can be someone you love, someone who loved you, a teacher from years ago, or an animal. The point is not the memory but the feeling of being…
Sometimes eyes water during body work with no sad thought attached to it. Nothing has gone wrong, and there is nothing that needs explaining.
If it happens to you, let it happen. If it happens to someone you are working with, say something plain and warm: that this is common, that they do…
Tap the fleshy outside edge of your hand and say something like: even though I feel this, I accept myself completely. Three times, in whatever words are actually true for you.
The shape of the sentence is the point. It names the problem and refuses to make your worth conditional on solving it, which is the exact opposite of…
If several medications have failed, ask whether anyone else in the family had the same experience. A pattern of non response runs in some families.
It is a question that rarely gets asked and can save a year. If a parent or sibling went through the same list without success and then responded to…
You choose what to work on and how big a piece of it. A sore shoulder, a low mood, the belief that you are too much: all of them are allowed, and so is starting small.
The useful phrase is whatever is standing in the way of you being all right just now. Some days that is a headache and some days it is the thing you…
Deep change tends to follow self acceptance rather than the other way round. Waiting until you have fixed the thing before you are allowed to be kind to yourself usually keeps the thing exactly where it is.
This shows up most clearly with eating, drinking, and everything else people do to manage a feeling. Shame makes the feeling worse, and the behaviour…
If pain is the thing you live with, start the session with the stroking sequence rather than the conversation. Arms, forehead, crown, cheeks, slowly.
It does two jobs in one go: gentle wide contact takes some edge off the pain, and it brings a person out of guarded alertness into being able to…