“By Surrendering, you create an energy field of receptivity for the solution to appear”
~ Wayne Dyer ~
One of the challenges in the time of the virus is to keep emotionally steady. Most of us are experiencing some panic and overwhelm, states of internal agitation that can trigger a trauma response from our limbic brain. If you are finding yourself grinding your teeth, feeling short-tempered and angry, or walking around in shame or guilt for no good reason, you may be experiencing chronic emotional overwhelm. That is then causing a primary trauma response (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) to be activated.
In those trauma response states, we re-experience emotions and cognitions from our much younger selves (think 5 or 6). It is the worst time to try to ‘figure something out’ because we are not in our adult brains; we are not able to access the years of experiences we have had since childhood. When concern for our own safety or the safety of others overwhelms our coping mechanisms, we can be triggered into a fight, flight, freeze or fawn. In those states almost everything looks threatening. If we make decisions from places that are threatening, those decisions make things worse. When there is no immediate threat to safety, yet we are triggered and panicked or overwhelmed and frozen with fear or confusion; we are in the throes of our poorly regulated autonomic nervous system.
What to do if you find yourself in chronic overwhelm? Creating mental scenarios of catastrophe? Feeling victimized, helpless, or powerless over highly charged emotional states?
WE MUST GET OURSELVES TO SAFETY.
SAFETY IS THE BODY.
Below are several ways to break up vicious emotional cycles.
I: Movement
Any kind of sustained movement can break up an emotional vicious cycle. Focused movement increases your ‘bottom up’ (body to mind) connections. Most of us have too few bottom up connections, and too many ‘top down’ connections. We can convince ourselves of anything, but we have a hard time listening to our bodies. We are cut off from the body’s wisdom. We can’t use it to guide our choices, to fuel our intuition, to calm our trembling fears, to keep us grounded in our truth on this green earth. Movement boosts those bottom up signals. The Center for Mind Body Medicine offers an expressive meditation called ‘shaking and dancing’ that will help ground and calm you.
Movement does not have to be ‘exercise’. It can be as simple as dancing to music that moves you, or spending time on a mat—stretching and opening tightness and tension. The focus: to reawaken the joy of movement.
II: Deep Pressure Touch (watch the video)
Deep pressure touch consists of 2 simple techniques that can shift a nervous system from sympathetic activation to parasympathetic activation, from fight or flight to rest and digest. Occupational therapists developed these techniques as treatment protocols for children with Sensory Processing Disorder. We now know they work for most people. These techniques are safe; they require 2 people. Have a friend or partner administer this 3x/day. This works wonderfully for kids and teens too.
Weighted blankets operate on a similar principle as deep pressure: both increase proprioceptive input. Proprioception is the internal sense of where our body and each of its parts are in relation to the whole. When proprioception is increased, autonomic arousal (fight or flight) is decreased. Weighted blankets are a reliable way of getting deep pressure. Deep pressure reduces autonomic arousal, which allows for restorative sleep and relaxation. Use it nightly for sleep and as a tool to increase the power of relaxation during meditation.
III: Music
The power of music to shift moods, to move emotion “up and out”, is well known. Type “ambient meditation’ in any search engine; a very long playlist will result. These relaxing sounds can inhabit that space in your mind usually dedicated to worrying or catastrophizing. Ambient meditation (music/sound) can help turn down the emotional temperature for everyone in the house. If you have children, calming music –volume low enough to easily carry on conversations–can help calm them down too, reducing interfamilial tensions.
IV: Nature
Nature is a powerful healer. Spending time in the garden or taking slow meditative walks, we can notice how Nature is always in a state of receptivity. She uses everything–wind, rain, sun, and storm. Time spent in nature opens our deepest receptivity because Nature feels safe. Receptivity can only occur in safety.
Integration
Once you are feeling calmer and more grounded, see if you can remember the story you were telling yourself. You may have been creating stories of impending doom, or flight scenarios where you must run away, or ruminating on past hurts and pains that cause wounding when you remember them. Note what was happening: that story is one of the trip wires on your trauma story repetition, and why you have been walking around in activation. See if you can tell yourself a kinder, more helpful story from your adult experience.
Daily Practice
Several times a day (set a timer) stand up and walk outside if possible. Straighten your shoulders, open your chest, and fill your lungs with air. Repeat this powerful affirmation: “I am willing to give up the need for control. I am open and receptive to the gifts in my life” … Place hands over your own heart and give yourself a “heart-hug” letting the warmth of your hands melt into your heart space.
Most people tightly control their feelings while allowing and believing all their thoughts, no matter how painful or self-damaging. We would be far healthier if we controlled our thoughts and allowed ourselves to feeling our feelings.