Healing is not about 'fixing' the past; it's about integrating our experiences to find safety in the present.
- Stephen Porges
Taking time to experience ourselves ‘in our bodies’, rooted to the Earth, supported by gravity, and held by the chair or sofa below us. A sense of being ‘grounded’ lets our nervous system know that it is safe to be here now. If we have had to be constantly ‘on the move’ or ‘out’ of our bodies to survive, the process of grounding can feel unfamiliar and even scary at first. We will move at the pace of your unique nervous system.
Identifying people, places, or times when we feel relatively safe. This may be a current relationship, an ancestor, a spiritual figure, a place in nature, a pet, a particular song or memory, or a time of day or place in your home when you feel most at ease or peaceful. Resourcing involves taking time to notice what safety feels like to us. How do we know when we are feeling more safe? More peaceful? Resourcing is about becoming familiar with a felt sense of safety in the here and now and affirming that we have choice about when to call in a resource for support.
Most of us have not been encouraged to be attuned to our own bodies. Oftentimes, we have been told (directly and indirectly) not to trust our own bodies or have been given messages that our bodies only matter for what they produce, look like, or can do for others. We may have learned to ‘leave our bodies’ to survive a painful event or set of experiences. The process of coming home to our bodies is unique for each person and can begin with simple tracking practices, noticing sensation with curiosity and compassion. Over time, you will increase your ‘interoceptive’ awareness (your ability to sense what’s happening inside your body) and become more attuned to how your mind and body are responding in real time. You will learn and practice a wide variety of tools that support you to restore a sense of groundedness, safety and connection.
How we hold our body, patterns of movement, constriction, or bracing is the body’s natural way of communicating and responding to stress. Movement can be used to counter stuckness, work with impulses, and express oneself more fully. I may invite you to notice your posture or the way you are expressing yourself with your body or I may invite you to move your body in ways that help to soothe and help the nervous system return to its natural rhythm.
Whether you move and how you move will always be up to you – you can always say no. Your comfort and sense of safety always guide what we do.
Our minds move quickly, but our nervous system needs us to slow down to heal. This can feel counterintuitive and we may feel impatient with the process. This is normal. However, moving slowly, touching into difficult or painful content just a little bit at a time, allows the nervous system to build resilience and expands our ability to tolerate distress and uncomfortable sensations or emotions without leaving what Dr. Dan Siegel calls our window of tolerance – the zone where we can process experiences without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.1 Moving too quickly or too deeply into painful memories or sensations can activate a threat response in our bodies; this is why we move slowly and with care, moving at the pace of your unique nervous system.
Pendulation is the process of moving back and forth between places that feel grounded, sturdy, and safe within us and places where we feel more uncertain, wobbly, or uncomfortably activated. For example, if you report that you are feeling tightness or constriction in your chest while you are sharing a memory or story, I may invite you to notice and stay with the sensation, if it is tolerable, to see what happens next. If the feeling intensifies to the point that it no longer feels tolerable, I may draw your attention to a part of your body that feels more solid or relatively relaxed. Moving slowly back and forth in this way mirrors the natural rhythm of the nervous system. Returning to a resource or sense of grounding as you encounter difficult sensations or memories signals that you are safe enough and an all-out threat response is not needed.
As you learn to move flexibly back and forth between awareness of stress or constriction and awareness of relative calm and ease, you introduce healthy movement back into your system and begin to counter the ‘stuckness’ that is a common trauma response. Practicing this gentle back and forth restores the healthy function of your nervous system and allows you to respond more flexibly to daily stressors.
