Return to Yourself

Hi, and welcome. I'm glad you're here. So this very short practice is designed to be a roadmap back to the wisdom and the clarity of the present moment when you feel temporarily hijacked or taken over by your emotions. So we're going to start standing. Take your feet a little bit wider apart so you could remember that there's earth underneath you. And just tune in to your feet. You might wiggle the toes, pick them up, spread them, set them down. Just beginning to turn the mind spotlight more towards the physical sensation of whatever is touching the earth. If you can take your shoes and socks off, go ahead and do it. But if you can also do this with feet or shoes on. And now, once you get a sense of like, oh yeah, I've got legs. We're going to use those legs to actually kind of shake us into hopefully a slightly different emotional state. Okay. Animals in the wild don't get stuck or frozen in their trauma because they biologically will do this sort of action unconsciously to get out of that freeze state. We can do it too, right? And to make sure our joints remember that we're allowed to move and that we're not going to be stuck here forever. That in fact, emotions don't last forever, but they are temporary and will pass. So keep breathing. We're going to do this for another maybe 10 seconds, nine, eight. Consider opening the mouth and taking a little on the exhale. That's about five, four, belly, jaw, brain, thoughts, two. And then on one, just find your stillness. Slow it down and notice whatever sensations are running through you. For me, there's a lot of tingling through the arms. It's a sense of kind of almost like glitter is coming to mind down through the legs. Notice what that might be for you. The heart rate may have gone up a little. Check out and see if that's all right for you to experience right now. And then we're just going to bring the hands somewhere on the center and your body may still continue to flow or rock. Sway gently. That's completely normal. Yeah. How is the breath in this moment? We're slowing everything down because emotions tend to spin us into the future or keep us trapped in the past and run at a pretty fast rate. So making sure this everything is slow enough to come back to now. Okay. We'll take the feet a little bit wider for the next exercise. We'll bend the knees and this exercise is really all about remembering we have internal sense of agency, not only for the physical body, but also for the psyche. So press the feet into the earth and then you're going to hug the legs towards each other and tilt the tailbone under slightly as your belly button goes back. Lots happening right now. And then the chin will go down. Okay. So that's the general action. We'll try it again four times. Let's see if we can do it with the breath. So we'll take an inhale here. Exhale, press the feet, hug the legs, tilt the tailbone and squeeze your belly as your chin drops and then release and try to release as much as is possible. And again, press the feet, hug the legs, tilt the tailbone and draw the belly back and release. One more time. Press, hug in. We'll hold here this time as you empty the breath out. See if you can hold the breath out for another four, three, two, emphasize the contraction inside and then release. And slowly come on up. Just notice what you notice. For me, my collarbones actually just widen naturally. Notice your spine. What inside is slowing down, if anything, what may have expanded, what may have actually come together to feel more upright. Yeah. And if at any time you want to just pause with this exercise or do it again, feel free to and spend a little time just noticing. But now we'll go into the next one. I'm going to suggest bringing the right hand into the armpit, the right hand so it's over kind of your heart area and bring the left hand somewhere to the outer edge of your opposite arm. Okay. And then hug in and you'll know how much sensation you need. You'll know how much pressure you need. So it might be a lot or just a little bit of a reminder like, oh yeah, I'm here. Now if this isn't working for you, shift to a different mudra, different hand position.

Somewhere that allows you to stay like I'm connected. I'm here. I'm aware. And then actually check that out. Check out if you're here by turning the head and the neck. It's called orienting. Uh-huh. And you're just going to let your eyes see what they see. They might see a color or a texture, shadow and object that's interesting. And as you notice that, pause for just a moment. See if you can feel yourself standing up, right? No. Allow the head and the neck to continue their kind of journey or exploration. From time to time just resting on an object, something that might be pleasant or interesting. And pause and notice how is the quality of your breath. You don't have to change it or fix it. One more time just doing that gentle sweep, gentle gaze around your own space. Pausing to now allow your ears to hear what they want to hear as you're aware of your external environment and your inner world. And then coming on back. Notice if anything is shifted, even if it's small. Bring the hands together and just rub the hands. And then a deep breath in. Open the mouth, maybe a little sound. I'm just bowing to yourself. May you continue to remember that emotions aren't forever, that they will shift and that right now you're okay. Thank you.