Hey, FearMinimalist. It's Sophilia Lark of the fearminimalist.com, providing trauma
recovery tools to help women of color heal the mother wound. Today, I'm going to share
my five step process on helping you to release emotions trapped in the body, so keep watching.
For the best trauma recovery tips, tools, and strategies, be sure to hit that subscribe button
and click the notification bell, so that you will never miss a video when I upload new
content every single week. If you're new to my channel, thank you so much for being here. Glad
that you are able to join me today. I am a survivor of mother wound trauma,
a licensed professional counselor, a certified clinical trauma professional,
helping women of color resolve the effects of the mother wound,
and build resilience. So many of us with complex trauma, particularly as it relates
to the mother wound, have experienced varying degrees of disconnection within our bodies.
One of the most effective ways of reconnecting all of those split-off parts
in our bodies, is to release this trapped negative emotional energy in our bodies,
that come from these relational interactions that prompted us to create these survival strategies
to protect ourselves. And so the nervous system rebalancing cycle can help you visualize
and walk through the steps of how you can release that energy, that negative emotional buildup
from your body. So let's dive into that cycle. Before a triggering event, the body is typically
in what you call a resting state. And that is where the narrative is, “I'm fine, I'm connected,
I'm safe. I have the desire to want to engage in other activities with other people. I'm embodied.
I feel connected enough to engage in interactions where there is reciprocal support, mentoring,
and modeling.” And so this is what I call the perfect parasympathetic functioning, because
it's where the body is at its most relaxed. You typically get these results from when
you wake up in the morning and you set the tone for your day, maybe you do what I call a daily
practice of physio nurturing. Or there might be meditation, is typically where you get this
feeling of the resting state. So you can imagine what that's like, if you've done meditation.
That is what the resting state is like. When a trigger happens, a trigger or a stimulus
causes you to enter into the next stage of the cycle, which is called the rouse
state. So that means your level of awareness is heightened a bit, because something happened that
causes you to be on guard just a little bit, or to go investigate. But it's not so striking enough
to warrant a fight, flight or freeze response. So you can still say, "I'm fine. I'm
safe enough to keep doing what I'm doing. I can push through whatever's coming at me."
So you're not quite triggered to the point where you're like, "Okay, I got to fight. I got
to run." Or, "Oh God, I don't know what to do." And you feel frozen. Your interest is piqued,
but you're not quite sure if you're facing a threat, if there's some danger. And so you're
going to go investigate and see what's going on. After you do that, if there is a perceived threat,
or if there is a real danger, then that system is going to kick in full force. The
amygdala is going to ring loud and clear. It's going to send all of the cortisol,
it's going to flood you with these emotions and this energy that tells you, brace yourself. And
so you can go into either fight, flight or freeze mode, or even what you call the fawn response.
But typically here, what happens is that you can have a couple of responses. And I call this phase
ring or retract. Ring is the part where you're hyper alert. You're hypervigilant.
You're in what I call hot seat arousal. And so you're on guard. You're ready to fight or flee.
The retract state is more of a withdrawal. It's more a shutdown, an immobilization,
where you might have trouble figuring out anything. You may even have trouble moving,
mobilizing yourself. And so in the shutdown state of this, which is called the retract
state, you may feel a sudden drainage of energy. Energy may be drained from you.
You may shut down, or become disconnected or detached in some sense, or dissociated.
In the hypervigilant state, you may feel a sudden flood of anxiety, this flood of nervous energy,
confusion. And you also may be driven to get this resolved as soon as possible. So you're just like,
"How am I going to get out of this?" And you're looking for a way to get this resolved.
All right, so the next stage in the nervous system rebalancing cycle
is the reset or the refresh stage. Now, this is where you go to resolve
the threat response from the previous stage, which is the ring/retract stage.
The key here is to understand the state of your body, whether you have more of a tendency toward
hypervigilant, or a tendency toward shutdown. And once you know this, you can be in a better
position to determine which strategies best match your need to rebalance your nervous system.
So say for instance, you are what I call a ringer. Now, ringers are those who respond with a
hypervigilant, hyper alert, over energized system. Strategies that work best here are ones that help
to calm, to turn that heat down, to reduce that emotional charge. So to calm the body, accessing
the breath. The breath is always, probably the number one approach to getting the body calm.
Now, some people say, "I can't even get to the point of where I could breathe." And so
a lot of times, I tell people, okay, then we need to start maybe cradling our face,
like cradling a little child's face. Cradle to feel that sense of equilibrium, and that balance
coming back into you. You can pull on your ear lobes all the way around. And this opens up what
is called the eighth cranial nerve, the auditory nerve. And that is what induces equilibrium.
And so you can do things like that. So we may have to get a little bit more hands-on. We can do what
we call the heart and the hold. I've taught this technique in a video I recorded a couple of months
ago. It's called body safety, five ways to... I can't remember the exact title, but five ways
to feel safe in the body, I think is what it's called. And I teach that technique. Bringing
down that emotional charge is good for ringers. Now, if you have the tendency towards shutdown,
if you are what I call a retractor, a withdrawer, a person who isolates, disconnects, dissociates,
then one of the best ways to get in touch with your body, to re-awaken, to re-enliven the body,
is to bring the body back into the here and the now. So we're going to reorient,
or orient the body to the current time and space. One of the techniques that I like to use is called
the 3, 2, 1, come to your senses. And basically, you just start by surveying the room around you.
And you're going to get in touch with your senses. That's what come to your senses means. It means to
get in touch with the things that primarily you can see, you can hear, and that you can touch.
Three things that you can see, I usually start with three. And basically, we go through
the protocol. What are three things that you can see? Like three things I can see right now,
I can see my light in front of me, obviously. I can see my water bottle
there on my desk. I can see a book out of the hundreds of books that I read. And so then
just move on to two things that you can hear, or let's stay with three first. So we do all three.
Three things that you can see. Three things that you can hear. I can hear some background
noise. I can hear the wind blowing outside of my window there. Every once in a while, I can hear
a car pass by. And so that's three things I can hear. Three things that I can touch.
Maybe I can touch the surface of my chair. I can touch the upholstery here. I can touch my pants.
Anything else that you have around you that you can touch, you can access those. And then you move
into two. Two things that I can see. Two things that I can hear. Two things that I can touch.
One thing that I can see. One thing that I can hear. One thing that I can touch.
And over the process of that engagement, you should be able to feel the body down regulate. And
as you get calmer, just breathe into that. You can even put your hand on your chest and your belly,
and you can breathe into that, as you feel your body soften and
reorient, or just orient to the current moment. All right, so is this making sense to you?
Can you see where you are in this cycle? Let me know in the comments below. And the last
step in the nervous system rebalancing cycle is to return to the resting state.
So you found the strategies that have worked best for you, to rebalance your nervous system.
And so now, you should start to feel your body returning to a state of safety and connection.
This can feel like, say for instance, if you identify yourself as primarily a ringer, a ringer
is a person who has a tendency to respond in a more fight/flight way. And so you've implemented
the strategies to calm the body down, to turn down that heat, to reduce that emotional charge.
And so that has put you back toward a path of equilibrium, so you can remain or reconnect to
those prefrontal cortex functions, where you can stay connected to problem-solving. And asking
those questions, what does my body need now? And this can return you to that resting state.
So now, you know how to release emotions trapped in the body, using my five-step nervous system
rebalancing process. And to stay abreast of the latest tools and strategies, to help you navigate
your healing journey through the mother wound, be sure to join my FearMinimalist Success Community,
where I'll soon be releasing free training videos, recovery worksheets, and other helpful resources
to give you the tools that you need to resolve the effects of the mother wound, and build resilience.
Just be sure to click the link below to join that FearMinimalist Success Community. Also, I want
to invite you to connect with me on Instagram @fearminimalist, and Facebook @fearminimalist,
where we can carry on the conversation in more depth about healing the mother wound.
All right, that's it. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you liked this video,
hit the like button below, share with your friends, drop a comment below to let me
know what resonated with you today. Where are you in this nervous system rebalancing cycle?
Do you see yourself going through it pretty fluidly, or do you get stuck somewhere and may
need some more help navigating that whole thing? Let me know in the comments below.
Last but not least, be sure to subscribe. Hit that subscribe button, click the notification bell,
so that you will never miss a video when I upload new content every single week. And remember that
the sun is going to rise and shine bright tomorrow. The question is, are you going to
rise with it and allow your best self to shine? I hope you do, and I'll see you next time. Bye.