Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Your body › Your nervous system
Articulate people get stuck here often, because talking is the thing they are best at. What tends to be missing is an actual experience of being safe rather than another explanation of why you are not. That can be as ordinary as a long walk, praying with attention to your breathing, or sitting a while with somebody calm.
'truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace' (Quran 13:28). Peace is tied to a practice you keep doing rather than to a conclusion you reach.
الرعد
ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَتَطۡمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِۗ أَلَا بِذِكۡرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطۡمَئِنُّ ٱلۡقُلُوبُ
those who have faith and whose hearts find peace in the remembrance of God- truly it is in the remembrance of God that hearts find peace
Qur’an 13:28read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A randomised mechanistic trial in a hundred and two combat veterans with PTSD separated mindfulness from slow breathing and found the two engage somewhat different pathways. It is a decent demonstration that different ingredients do different work, which is the substance of this point. It compared two body based components rather than talking therapy against body work, so it does not show that insight is the weaker route.
Wahbeh H, Goodrich E, Goy E, Oken BS. (2016). Mechanistic Pathways of Mindfulness Meditation in Combat Veterans With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.. Journal of clinical psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Understanding works from the top down, and the current in this system mostly runs the other way.
If you start shaking or trembling after a fright, or partway through a difficult conversation, that is usually your body finishing something rather than falling apart.
When someone finally reaches somewhere safe, do not be surprised if they fall apart rather than bloom. Stay close through that part.
Deep rest needs a dose like anything else. If a long daily relaxation is leaving you flatter each week rather than steadier, make it shorter.