Wednesday, May 6 Manuscript
Summary of what we did yesterday - we engaged with and noticed our back body - the low spine, the back - we met with our ancestors, a tunnel of ancestors, there. We tried on a containment practice - a being held by our back body, providing our back bodies more contact, more support from that tunnel, creating a warm layer that reminds us that we’re not alone - that we actually don’t have to have our own backs. We can call up and ask for what we need to feel supported in our bodies. We also did a more active practice of dealing with self-assessment, sensing our competence.
We shared with one another in small groups. We tried on language for our capabilities in these times, reconnecting with what we need to say.
I want to respond to the questions I received yesterday and then also ask if you noticed any small things or changes yesterday evening or during your day today. It could be just noticing a sensation-- nothing big or major.
So the first question I got was about the alternative practice of identifying a skill or activity which you do regularly and are good at, I received the question of “what if you’re not an expert at anything?” I don’t totally know the context for that question, but if I believe that this is true for a person, I suggest replacing the term “expert” with “habits I complete” or “ritual I complete”- and its less important what the thing is, except that it is something sturdy. So, for instance, I’d suggest trying this with “handwashing.” It’s a habit I complete - I go from soap to faucet, to rub, to rinse, to dry. I can access the sensation of what it feels like to do that well. We probably all can right now imagine the sensation of accomplishing a handwashing ritual. I’d make a guess that we take a breath or sigh without always being conscious of it, at the end of washing our hands. This alternative is particularly good if either the things weren’t accessible or if you noticed numbness or frankly if they made you irritable. If the very verbal “I am this old/experienced” practice or the back body containment - two modes of the same coin of grounding ourselves in our leadership, weren’t a good fit. If we can imagine and call up in our bodies the sensations in that last second of handwashing, at different points in our day. Or right now together, our bodies respond to that “Yes.”
Another suggested alternative I got last night was replacing the concept/idea of competence with self-compassion that might be less ego-focused. And yes, certainly that’s a good alternative. If the word competence falls flat on you naturally, we can play with adjusting the frame, adjusting the intensity of the dial. Self-compassion may be that position on the dial. I think this is a continuum about agency. For some people, we might need to get back in touch with what is self-making in order to fathom compassion or access and participate in our agency. Moving from the rapid response time to long-term, I think getting really specific with what we mean by self-compassion is important - b/c I think while we’ve been as leaders in shock, tending to people in shock (which thrives in isolation) and yet still making huge decisions - at the bedside of the dying, contemplating lay-offs, developing plans for our worship and RE calendars 2020-21. Self-compassion, which I like Kristin Neff’s definitions - extending compassion to one's self in instances of self-judgment, isolation or over-identifying with our perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering, may very well melt our frozenness.
I’m anticipating that we’re going to be encountering (internal or external) pushback if we aren’t already, to our decisions about public safety, and other things, and this may depend on how you are socialized and the identities we carry, meanwhile as other global phenomena present themselves. So, some part of the “being with” ourselves as leaders will need to connect to our agency. Some coaches I’ve been connecting with are calling this grounded optimism about our future. So, let’s keep practicing together what it means to be grounded in our agency - if embracing equanimity through self-compassion is the doorway to “being with yourself” as an embodied leader, trusting yourself, the this is the perfect entry point.
If our body initially says no, should we try the practice again later or another time in our life/day?
Maybe. If it’s a firm no, I’d say adjust the position/placement or the pressure. I’ll say more about that when we get to the second half of the practices today. Or, return to the bones that feel most accessible. Skull bones. And then if you ask your body if you’d like to try the rejected practice again, and it’s a “yes for a moment” or a “maybe”- then its OK. If one of the ways you’ve been dealing with shock is to not say No, when you need to. I’d instead, embellish the No. Make saying No to the practice the thing you practice. practices today.
Another question, For this somatic practice, should these be done daily like in the morning upon waking? If that’s part of your regular spiritual practice, yes. Though if it makes your regular spiritual practice jealous then no. Let’s not disturb what’s working for you! I often find myself best doing them at mealtimes, in the shower. In CPE, it was just before the double doors on the floor, before the first nurse’s station. Or, just before I turn my zoom on for the next meeting. Its my punctuation. So, its going to be different for everyone and time of day doesn’t really matter -- for some, this will feel useful in winding down your brain at the end of the day.
So, let’s invite ourselves in a casual way to just check back in with our depth, that lower spine (if the tunnel of ancestors or just holding in your back body feels like a yes, maybe you look behind you, wave behind you and see that they’re still there, invite them back if they). Feel the contact, the sandwich of sensation of where you’re sitting and your hand or a prop and your back body. Then, if we place a hand over our lower belly or place a grounding prop, something with some weight to it on our lap.
PRACTICE:
Conscious completion frees up stuck energy, giving you momentum for your next steps. Endings deserve our attention. Unfinished endings, are ramped up in a major way during isolation and Safer at Home life. Beginnings and endings–mini-births and mini-deaths—shape each day of our lives. Now, we’re finding some culminating events - from installations to ordinations to Youth Sundays and lock-ins to Prom, pride parades, Finding our Way Home for our religious leaders of color, precious events are ending before they begin.
Often, we “check out” entirely during goodbyes. And prior traumatic losses can leave us a little funny and wary about endings. Practicing conscious completion can help us see the endings through.. This means being present, to the best of our ability, with the sensations, thoughts and emotions that arise during endings. When we “show up” for endings, we invite others to “show up.” So, this is a somatic closure process. You’re going to need a word document or four post it notes or a sheet of paper.
This practice has four categories, we’re going to do one as a big group and one as a small group. I’d strongly encourage you do the other categories on your own, intentionally, but I also know that once you begin this closure and if it feels good, then the others may spill out. Since we’re not opening up a wound, we’re working intentionally through our body to close it.
So, I invite you to call up an ending you’d like to complete. It could be a cancellation, a job loss, a death, a conflict, a relationship ending, another loss. It can be an ending your happy about, ambivalent, pissed off.
Speak aloud or write about each of the following four categories (in whatever order works for you) as they apply to your ending:
* Resentments
* Appreciations
* Regrets
* Learnings
So, I’d invite to take up first either resentment or regret. For example, for the “Resentment” category, you can say (or write), “I resent that________” or, “One resentment I have about_____is: ______.” They may be about the internship experience itself or about the seminar.
You can do this “stream of consciousness” style by naming one resentment or regret after another without pausing. Every once in a while (maybe every 3 or 4 resentments or regrets), tune into your body sensations and hang out with them for a bit.
Write them down or describe them aloud to help you stay with:
1. what they are (are they a temperature, a texture, a sense of movement or stillness, a “mood”, an image etc.), and
2. where they are (your big toe? Deep inside your chest? Floating just above your head?).
So, we’ll take a few moments now to do 3 or 4 on your list. Take a long slow inhale and exhale. Feel your sensations again. Now, if you’re willing I’d love it if you would use the chat box function to share only the sensation (not the regret itself), what the sensation is, and where it is.
(Or, you can do it this way: express one resentment, pause, and then complete a long, slow inhale and exhale. Feel your sensations. Then move on to the next resentment. Follow it with another long, slow deep breath. Continue until you have expressed all the resentments you can access at the moment.)
(Now, switch to the next category (Appreciations, Regrets and Learnings) and follow the same process. Notice when you have “had enough” for now. Don’t push through. If you feel “done,” stop.) If there are more Resentments, Appreciations, Regrets or Learnings to be expressed, you can repeat this practice later on as much as you need.
Don’t forget to check in with your sensations!
Authentic endings help us forgive ourselves and one other. Checking in with our sensations during an ending helps us free up our somatic energy to engage, participate in what’s next. Be there for other people in their completion of endings.
Break and Small Groups - Appreciations OR Learnings
Debrief
Eyes and Jaw
Eyes
Containment:
We’re going to make a cave for our eyes. You can leave them open or let them fall closed. Place your palms on your cheekbones. And leave some space for your eyelid and lashes, creating little caves over your eyes. Try to create a steady sense of rest.
Comfort and ease are a really precise thing. What could you do in the practice to make yorself even 1% more comfortable? Put your elbows down on the table or a stack of pillows. Lay down.
Mirroring:
Allow your eyes to look up and then around the room. If it feels ok, dart around on purpose. Move your head, look up and around. Try moving your eyes as intensely as you feel makes sens; try for muscular looking around so that you feel from behind your eye. Think of a bird scoping out bugs. Look in a direction, then really look again, maybe it engages your neck a little.
What speed or intensity feels right? When you repeat this practice, can you try to match that intensity/speed each time?
Jaw
Containment:
Similarly, to how we held our eyes in caves, we are going to bring our hands to cup our jaws. Bring gentle contact. Maybe put your elbows down or lie back. Notice if your jaw wants to be more neutral or open; experiment with your teeth having a little separation or more.
If this feels like a yes, as it is, keep going with the gentle contact.
If this feels like a “maybe” or “no,” try adding a little pressure until it feels good. Sometimes we want more of a firm steady support for all our jaws are holding for us. All they need to say.
Mirroring:
There are a few options within this practice. First, try wriggling your jaw if its right to do so. Move side to side. Open and close. Be curious about the speed or intensity in which it feels right to move your jaw. (If you relax your jaw and it begins to tremble. Hang out with the trembling if it is tolerable).
Here’s where we can get creative and for some people, where you might turn your camera off if you feel silly. How about we add some sound? You can growl or gargle. Try to engage your jaw in this as much as you can in the movement or vibration. There’s a lot of good to be had in sticking your tongue out with a hiss. Try to raspberry - the vibration of your lips will naturally help activate your jaw. Make it your project to find the “Yeah, that’s it!” moment in your sensations.
As we did with the containment practice, close by say to your jaw, “You are doing such a good job of holding it together.” Notice how your body responds to your words. If a yawn comes at any time, let it fully express itself.
CLOSE
As religious professionals, one of our special duties is to “Be a commitment to something.” We’re drawn into transformation already.
We shared with one another in small groups. We tried on language for our capabilities in these times, reconnecting with what we need to say.
I want to respond to the questions I received yesterday and then also ask if you noticed any small things or changes yesterday evening or during your day today. It could be just noticing a sensation-- nothing big or major.
So the first question I got was about the alternative practice of identifying a skill or activity which you do regularly and are good at, I received the question of “what if you’re not an expert at anything?” I don’t totally know the context for that question, but if I believe that this is true for a person, I suggest replacing the term “expert” with “habits I complete” or “ritual I complete”- and its less important what the thing is, except that it is something sturdy. So, for instance, I’d suggest trying this with “handwashing.” It’s a habit I complete - I go from soap to faucet, to rub, to rinse, to dry. I can access the sensation of what it feels like to do that well. We probably all can right now imagine the sensation of accomplishing a handwashing ritual. I’d make a guess that we take a breath or sigh without always being conscious of it, at the end of washing our hands. This alternative is particularly good if either the things weren’t accessible or if you noticed numbness or frankly if they made you irritable. If the very verbal “I am this old/experienced” practice or the back body containment - two modes of the same coin of grounding ourselves in our leadership, weren’t a good fit. If we can imagine and call up in our bodies the sensations in that last second of handwashing, at different points in our day. Or right now together, our bodies respond to that “Yes.”
Another suggested alternative I got last night was replacing the concept/idea of competence with self-compassion that might be less ego-focused. And yes, certainly that’s a good alternative. If the word competence falls flat on you naturally, we can play with adjusting the frame, adjusting the intensity of the dial. Self-compassion may be that position on the dial. I think this is a continuum about agency. For some people, we might need to get back in touch with what is self-making in order to fathom compassion or access and participate in our agency. Moving from the rapid response time to long-term, I think getting really specific with what we mean by self-compassion is important - b/c I think while we’ve been as leaders in shock, tending to people in shock (which thrives in isolation) and yet still making huge decisions - at the bedside of the dying, contemplating lay-offs, developing plans for our worship and RE calendars 2020-21. Self-compassion, which I like Kristin Neff’s definitions - extending compassion to one's self in instances of self-judgment, isolation or over-identifying with our perceived inadequacy, failure, or general suffering, may very well melt our frozenness.
I’m anticipating that we’re going to be encountering (internal or external) pushback if we aren’t already, to our decisions about public safety, and other things, and this may depend on how you are socialized and the identities we carry, meanwhile as other global phenomena present themselves. So, some part of the “being with” ourselves as leaders will need to connect to our agency. Some coaches I’ve been connecting with are calling this grounded optimism about our future. So, let’s keep practicing together what it means to be grounded in our agency - if embracing equanimity through self-compassion is the doorway to “being with yourself” as an embodied leader, trusting yourself, the this is the perfect entry point.
If our body initially says no, should we try the practice again later or another time in our life/day?
Maybe. If it’s a firm no, I’d say adjust the position/placement or the pressure. I’ll say more about that when we get to the second half of the practices today. Or, return to the bones that feel most accessible. Skull bones. And then if you ask your body if you’d like to try the rejected practice again, and it’s a “yes for a moment” or a “maybe”- then its OK. If one of the ways you’ve been dealing with shock is to not say No, when you need to. I’d instead, embellish the No. Make saying No to the practice the thing you practice. practices today.
Another question, For this somatic practice, should these be done daily like in the morning upon waking? If that’s part of your regular spiritual practice, yes. Though if it makes your regular spiritual practice jealous then no. Let’s not disturb what’s working for you! I often find myself best doing them at mealtimes, in the shower. In CPE, it was just before the double doors on the floor, before the first nurse’s station. Or, just before I turn my zoom on for the next meeting. Its my punctuation. So, its going to be different for everyone and time of day doesn’t really matter -- for some, this will feel useful in winding down your brain at the end of the day.
So, let’s invite ourselves in a casual way to just check back in with our depth, that lower spine (if the tunnel of ancestors or just holding in your back body feels like a yes, maybe you look behind you, wave behind you and see that they’re still there, invite them back if they). Feel the contact, the sandwich of sensation of where you’re sitting and your hand or a prop and your back body. Then, if we place a hand over our lower belly or place a grounding prop, something with some weight to it on our lap.
PRACTICE:
Conscious completion frees up stuck energy, giving you momentum for your next steps. Endings deserve our attention. Unfinished endings, are ramped up in a major way during isolation and Safer at Home life. Beginnings and endings–mini-births and mini-deaths—shape each day of our lives. Now, we’re finding some culminating events - from installations to ordinations to Youth Sundays and lock-ins to Prom, pride parades, Finding our Way Home for our religious leaders of color, precious events are ending before they begin.
Often, we “check out” entirely during goodbyes. And prior traumatic losses can leave us a little funny and wary about endings. Practicing conscious completion can help us see the endings through.. This means being present, to the best of our ability, with the sensations, thoughts and emotions that arise during endings. When we “show up” for endings, we invite others to “show up.” So, this is a somatic closure process. You’re going to need a word document or four post it notes or a sheet of paper.
This practice has four categories, we’re going to do one as a big group and one as a small group. I’d strongly encourage you do the other categories on your own, intentionally, but I also know that once you begin this closure and if it feels good, then the others may spill out. Since we’re not opening up a wound, we’re working intentionally through our body to close it.
So, I invite you to call up an ending you’d like to complete. It could be a cancellation, a job loss, a death, a conflict, a relationship ending, another loss. It can be an ending your happy about, ambivalent, pissed off.
Speak aloud or write about each of the following four categories (in whatever order works for you) as they apply to your ending:
* Resentments
* Appreciations
* Regrets
* Learnings
So, I’d invite to take up first either resentment or regret. For example, for the “Resentment” category, you can say (or write), “I resent that________” or, “One resentment I have about_____is: ______.” They may be about the internship experience itself or about the seminar.
You can do this “stream of consciousness” style by naming one resentment or regret after another without pausing. Every once in a while (maybe every 3 or 4 resentments or regrets), tune into your body sensations and hang out with them for a bit.
Write them down or describe them aloud to help you stay with:
1. what they are (are they a temperature, a texture, a sense of movement or stillness, a “mood”, an image etc.), and
2. where they are (your big toe? Deep inside your chest? Floating just above your head?).
So, we’ll take a few moments now to do 3 or 4 on your list. Take a long slow inhale and exhale. Feel your sensations again. Now, if you’re willing I’d love it if you would use the chat box function to share only the sensation (not the regret itself), what the sensation is, and where it is.
(Or, you can do it this way: express one resentment, pause, and then complete a long, slow inhale and exhale. Feel your sensations. Then move on to the next resentment. Follow it with another long, slow deep breath. Continue until you have expressed all the resentments you can access at the moment.)
(Now, switch to the next category (Appreciations, Regrets and Learnings) and follow the same process. Notice when you have “had enough” for now. Don’t push through. If you feel “done,” stop.) If there are more Resentments, Appreciations, Regrets or Learnings to be expressed, you can repeat this practice later on as much as you need.
Don’t forget to check in with your sensations!
Authentic endings help us forgive ourselves and one other. Checking in with our sensations during an ending helps us free up our somatic energy to engage, participate in what’s next. Be there for other people in their completion of endings.
Break and Small Groups - Appreciations OR Learnings
Debrief
Eyes and Jaw
Eyes
Containment:
We’re going to make a cave for our eyes. You can leave them open or let them fall closed. Place your palms on your cheekbones. And leave some space for your eyelid and lashes, creating little caves over your eyes. Try to create a steady sense of rest.
Comfort and ease are a really precise thing. What could you do in the practice to make yorself even 1% more comfortable? Put your elbows down on the table or a stack of pillows. Lay down.
Mirroring:
Allow your eyes to look up and then around the room. If it feels ok, dart around on purpose. Move your head, look up and around. Try moving your eyes as intensely as you feel makes sens; try for muscular looking around so that you feel from behind your eye. Think of a bird scoping out bugs. Look in a direction, then really look again, maybe it engages your neck a little.
What speed or intensity feels right? When you repeat this practice, can you try to match that intensity/speed each time?
Jaw
Containment:
Similarly, to how we held our eyes in caves, we are going to bring our hands to cup our jaws. Bring gentle contact. Maybe put your elbows down or lie back. Notice if your jaw wants to be more neutral or open; experiment with your teeth having a little separation or more.
If this feels like a yes, as it is, keep going with the gentle contact.
If this feels like a “maybe” or “no,” try adding a little pressure until it feels good. Sometimes we want more of a firm steady support for all our jaws are holding for us. All they need to say.
Mirroring:
There are a few options within this practice. First, try wriggling your jaw if its right to do so. Move side to side. Open and close. Be curious about the speed or intensity in which it feels right to move your jaw. (If you relax your jaw and it begins to tremble. Hang out with the trembling if it is tolerable).
Here’s where we can get creative and for some people, where you might turn your camera off if you feel silly. How about we add some sound? You can growl or gargle. Try to engage your jaw in this as much as you can in the movement or vibration. There’s a lot of good to be had in sticking your tongue out with a hiss. Try to raspberry - the vibration of your lips will naturally help activate your jaw. Make it your project to find the “Yeah, that’s it!” moment in your sensations.
As we did with the containment practice, close by say to your jaw, “You are doing such a good job of holding it together.” Notice how your body responds to your words. If a yawn comes at any time, let it fully express itself.
CLOSE
As religious professionals, one of our special duties is to “Be a commitment to something.” We’re drawn into transformation already.
Manuscript for Tuesday, May 5
I am grateful to the Central East region and your retreat planners for collectively contacting me about sharing somatic practices with you at this retreat. I want to lay out a bit of what’s going to happen today and tomorrow during the time with me but #1 want to say if you need to follow along with what I’m saying you can go to www.copingincommunity.com and the links to this manuscript are there. I may ad-lib here and there, but the general scope is there.
PLAN FOR OUR TIME
There will be more talking today than tomorrow and even then we’ll be practicing as we go. So, you’re invited to be more focused on your body in the physical space around you, your experience of yourself outside of this Zoom window and outside of your computer. We’re spending a lot of time presenting our shoulders upwards to the world; we’re doing more looking at others and being looked at than perhaps ever before. If you want to turn down your brightness on your screen, darken your room, gather some of those somatic props from the handout you received, now is the time to do that. You’re welcome to adjust your environment during this time as much as you need to. There’s no need to stare at the green dot. Basically, I’m hoping to un-zoom this session as much as possible. So, in working with an individual, beginning somatic practice, I’d begin with identifying a commitment, a goal. But for this group session, I am going to share with you one group goal that well, I’ve conceived, based on my conversation with some of the planners and some of you from a Zoom call we had a few weeks ago. I realize that the landscape of our spirits is deeper and broader than we might have words for, especially right now. Somatic work is not so much about language. Though language is a powerful tool to help us feel connected and to allow our experiences to be named. So, you’re welcome to adjust the dial of what I’m saying and teaching, to modify it to make sense for you. My somatic practice over the last nine years has evolved and changed as my practice deepened, but also as stuff just comes up in life and ministry. The practices I am sharing here are modifiable enough that I hope you’ll use this time to experiment in noticing yourself. We know about ah-ha! moments, but this is a really good for “huh…” and “meh” moments and “Oh really” moments.
I shared with you a few brief intro videos on the “theory work” in somatic practices on my website. You’re welcome to return to those -- the intellectual side, based in our neurobiology among other disciplines can be helpful in calming our nervous systems down, building trust. If you choose to share these practices with whom you do ministry, expect them to want the bibliography. You’re welcome to send them to my site or any of the sources therein. I am an ethicist and medical sociologist by training, so you’ll probably notice my entrypoint here is through questions like, “how are people harmed and how can we stop it?” and “what do people practice and how does it work for them?” I trust you will each have your own way in, and welcome that.
SCHEDULE
Today, I’m going to share with you a longer flow practice, focused on grounding in our competence for the long-term changes in our world. Then, tomorrow I am going to share a few shorter practices, those will be more amenable to sharing with your congregation or in your ministries or with your neighbors. Tomorrow, we will focus on conscious completion of losses, endings, cancellations and also, deaths. And we’ll end with some practices focused on practical, embodied healing to cope with too much time on Zoom.
Many of these practices are sort of a “choose your own adventure”. I invite you to experiment with the props you have with you or want to grab from your space as we go.
If you have questions about the content I’m sharing, you can chat them to the hosts, if that’s OK and then I’ll try to answer them tomorrow at the beginning of our second session. Tomorrow, I’ll also say a little bit more about my training and ways to explore this further with me or with others. If the questions you have are about the instructions for what we’re about to do, please do put them in the chat to everyone and we’ll clarify and get that figured out.
So, two paragraphs of introduction/theory, here we go:
INTRO/THEORY
Embodied somatic practices support our bodies in making good choices even under stress; that is, making decisions and taking actions that reflect what we value, rather than acting from our conditioned strategies to survive. Trauma, like a pandemic, is contraction, a folding or gripping of the body as it narrows in on what will keep us alive. This focus makes complete sense. But as the threats repeat, our body can “become stuck in contraction.” Through trauma and our bodies’ natural responses, our survival through it, we can begin to experience that our dignity, our safety and our connection become disrupted and at odds with one another. Our dignity, our sense of self-worth, our feelings of internal poise, or validation of our essence, our light. Our Safety - our real security or risk, as well as our felt (also real!) sense of internal wellness and calm, a level of anxiety that we can cope with, notion of control over the situation. Our Connection - to ourselves, one another and the world, the ways we know ourselves to affect change, to be interdependent, members of a community or a tribe. Safety, dignity, connection - these can be at odds with one another when we’re contracted or we might feel numbed out to one or more of them.
For religious professionals, if we can’t validate these three things - dignity, safety, connection - we might start to feel detached from our sense of competence. In addition to being more exhausted, more emotionally disrupted, sleep disrupted, overstimulated by Zoom. We know in our heads and can tell ourselves the rational, logical and real story that our ministry, or at least our call, purpose is beautiful, true, and strong. And we may also be feeling unprepared, bowled over, under-informed, criticized, overwhelmed, like there’s an explosion in our house and at the same time, its also feeling too small and empty. All this while our human bodies are propelling through what everyone who is not in the helping professions is going through as solo individuals, families, or communities. These might come through gripping, tightness in our throats or chests, dissociation, constipation diarrhea, the list goes on. Sounding a little familiar?
Maybe there’s something else you notice that’s true, too. We won’t do a big body scan today, but if you just imagine your body like your computer starting up, drawing a series of LED lights up from your toes to the top of your skull (bee-do-do-do). Maybe there’s a spot where the fan belt churns a little, the picture jars or lags, drawing your attention to some soreness or gripping or tension.
I do want to say something else before we get started: If you’re hearing my voice and thinking “you know this is just a little too woo-woo for me,” I’m offering you a special greeting. I am from Boston, Massachusetts; I am a New Englander, I am an Enneagram 3 if you’re familiar with that lingo. I’ve been there, baby. Yes, I am now fully a Southern California woman, but for me, the only way into embodied practice was to embrace my skepticism, try things on without the requirement to commit, and let my body decide whether something was a Yes or a No or a Hell No. So, a special invitation for you to try things on, and let yourself be disorganized with your attention to whether this or that embodied practice, is for you or not. I will not be offended.
Our bodies, our somatic shape, change on “Yes.” Our body’s “No” response to a particular practice is intelligent; its important information and trying things on with our bodies, can help us gather that intelligence. So, even if you say “No” to each of these practices, to me, that is not “resistance.” It is really wise to listen to our bodies when they say No.
For embodied practices to take root, they have to be chosen, consented to, before they are repeated. Feeling safe, which is itself really complex, partly depends upon recognizing our choices.
So, on the other hand, how do we know if our bodies really like a practice? You might be the kind of person who needs some evidence if something is working, if the medicine is kicking in, so to speak, so ---How do we know “it’s working”? When our body likes a practice, signs of unwinding appear: yawning, sighing, deep breaths, tears, giggling, burping, unprompted stretching, etc.
To further check out if we like a practice, we can play with the practice. I’ll be showing you a couple of those ways; I promise if you can let yourself privately, look half as silly as I do, you’re probably getting some playfulness out of this.
BEGINNING TO PRACTICE
So, I’ll ask you to turn your cameras off now, which will likely be the most comfortable. You can also, depending on how clear my voice is and how you learn best, turn down the brightness on your screen or look off to the side.
So, now that I have said all that -- I’m going to invite you to bring your attention to a part of the body. Now, if you feel drawn toward an adjacent area, or a different way of having contact. For instance, if a gentle massage or slow movement feels better; if I say lower belly, but it feels right to hold your hand just below your rib cage, all of that is fine. There are many spiritual, medicinal and healing traditions that have frameworks for body parts or meridians or bands of the body. Those may speak to you, inspire you and lead you out of habit. Different practitioners of somatics have connections to other things, other lineages, and some of us do not.
I want to bring our attention to our back bodies, from our shoulders and upper spine, down to our lower spine and our butt. When I first started working with these practices 9 years ago, I was working with a big dragon tail that extended from my lower spine, and would sweep from side to side behind me, protecting my back body. Today, I want to invite you to bring to your imagination not a dragon tail, but instead, our ancestors - our human society ancestors, those whose faces we know intimately, those who we don’t know or connect ourselves to personally but we know lived - lived human lives - through extended times of separation, isolation, people who lived through internment, lived through periods of fascism, the early days of other global pandemics, grandmothers who had remedies that soothed when treatments were unavailable, people who lived for long periods of time with dire risk, with anticipatory grief, with massive losses of life, people who developed pragmatic skill, embodied wisdom, and took action in the most bizarre, confusing or catastrophic times. Place a hand as it is comfortable to do so, at your back. If that’s not comfortable you could place a pillow, a sandbag, rolled up blanket or use something sturdy or a pen (without poking or drawing on yourself) to make contact with the back of your lower spine. Holding or gently moving your hand in that place. Let yourself draw or imagine a circle. Imagine that circle extending backward into a tunnel, a tunnel of ancestors, sitting or standing one in front of each other leading up to your back. Let yourself have an intentional slow breath, breathing from your middle body to the back of your ribs and making contact with your spine. We can get more specific with the people in this tunnel of ancestors, clergy or leaders or elders who lived through these global threats and were practical experts at things. Maybe a few are people we know by name.
When I do this practice on my own, I’m often thinking of the hands of people who cared for my brother who had hemophilia and HIV in the early 1980s; people who knew the terror and confusion of unknown risk factors and diseases science didn’t yet understand, but daily touched people’s lives and bodies, ancestors who used their skills and wisdom to protect themselves, but still while compassionately caring for others.
However clear or blurry your image of this lineage behind you is - imagine with me that these ancestors are propping us up, gently but securely holding up our lower spines.
Lean back into those hands; let yourself feel the contact of your back body against the couch or chair behind you. If youre standing you might put a blanket over your shoulders, like a cape draping down to your lower back. You can also imagine it. Imagine that extra layer of back-up, that energetic layer of people having your back, who know your age, your years of experience, your training, your intelligence. They know you have a lot of skills that we all need right now. We are held up by our knowledge and training and skills and have this powerful layer of ancestors, kindly and sturdily, holding our backs, keeping us going forward. You can if it feels right, extend this tunnel back with your hands. Turn toward your back body, extend your hand backward along the tunnel, and return to your lower spine or return the pillow to your back, the blanket touching your spine.
You could also extend the contact up to the back of your skull or down to the back of your calves and the back of your heels. Wrap your blanket from behind you, around your hips down to your legs.
Get curious here. Try to negotiate the best way for you to feel the positive support of these ancestors - the best way to feel held up (Get to the point where you can say “Yeah, that’s right.”). Feel the sensations alive with that contact, with that layer behind you. Observe whether there is a temperature or a color, a movement or an image, a vibration. Stay with that sensation for a moment.
LOWER BELLY OR HIPS
So now you have a couple options - Really get precise with where in your body feels most reliable. we’ll move our contact to our lower belly or our hip bones. I’d like to invite you to return your hands to your lower belly, or you could have one in front and one in back and just be with the depth, the intricate darkness in the space of organs between your hands, a lineage moving from behind us to our own history.
Now, you can also try out the hipbones-- I’d like to find your hip bones. It is okay if you are seated and you need to kind of search for them- at least I do - your camera is off.
Our bones are our organizing structure; they give us our particular sacred shape. They hold us up or in place. If we are gripping something or holding tension, our bones continue to exist just as they do when we relax. There’s constancy here.
Now, holding these points of contact -- I’d like you to fill in the following sentence to yourself and your mics are off, so if you’re willing, I’m inviting you to say it out loud.
“I’m THIS many years old. I am this experienced. I know a lot of stuff.” And you can modify it as you see fit. Once you have your sentence created, I invite you to fill that sentence with as much volume, sass, passion, playfulness, compassion, as feels right. Experiment with how it sounds to you, and get to the rendition that feels right, is a “that’s it!” for you.
Go ahead. When you’ve gotten to one that feels pretty good, if you can use your thumbs up emoji on the participants panel.
Then, we’ll repeat it at the same intensity and speed, volume, and gently observe our sensations again.
“I’m THIS many years old, I am this experienced. I know a lot of stuff.” Feel the sensations alive with the contact with your lower belly or your hipbones, with that ancestor tunnel or layer behind you. Is there is a temperature? A color? A movement? Or an image? A vibration. Maybe you feel numbness or silence. Numbness is a valid sensation too. Stay with that sensation for a moment.
A note here - It might be tempting to give what you observe its own backstory, a plot line. I must feel like this because of X, Y, or Z and I am not here to verify or dismiss that story, but I’m asking you to give yourself permission to hold it gently, to respond “that may or may not be useful to me.” Some people, myself included, are sometimes visited in these times by an external reviewer, someone who has an assessment of us. If this happens to you, I invite you to acknowledge it - without jumping to accept it - and similarly, respond (and aloud if it feels right): “that may or may not be useful to me.” And return to your sensation. If you find yourself yawning, let that yawn come and fully express itself. It’s a good indicator and supports your nervous system unwinding a bit. It is also contagious --so if you let it out fully, you’re helping your colleagues.
So, back to our sensations and gentle attention at our hips or belly. Take an intentional breath into your hips or your belly, and when you’re ready, say the sentence once again. Try to match the intensity of the version that felt best to you. Go ahead.
Notice if the placement of your hands feels like a yes, a no or a maybe.
Between the first noticing and your current sensation has there been some change or movement? Do you feel like you want to swing your hips a bit, wiggling, or your belly is relaxing over your hips or forward, do you notice a change in your mood, any slack somewhere in your body?
PRACTICE GROUP INSTRUCTIONS
So in a few moments, you will be assigned into the breakout groups, but you will first be able to take a break and practice again on your own.
Some of you have opted to be in breakout rooms based on an affinity. Some have not. In either case, thank you. Our retreat planners have organized these groups using Zoom’s features. You will take a 20-minute break here to go to the rest room, get a snack, and briefly repeat the practices on your own.
Right now, I am going to give the instructions for the practice groups.
First, there’s a couple of things that somatics is not - it is not necessarily about what has happened to us, and it is not necessarily about figuring out why we are the way we are. Though, its important to download and process with others, and certainly, those things might come forward today. I encourage to consider those things gently. And in your sharing and naming, try to stay with the sensations that emerge. If you have trouble getting in touch with the sensations (temperature, vibration, stillness, numbness, etc), slow down and repeat the parts of the practices that felt like a yes or maybe, and send yourself a little affirmation for trying this. When the first sensation arrives, you can draw a circle around it of “yes!” Draw a “yes!” as much as you want.
So, when you return from the break and solo time, you will be assigned a breakout room. You can shut everything off, but you should make sure to keep a timer or your volume on loud enough so know when to come back. If you would like to be in an affinity group, but did not pick one when you registered you can stay in the main room and be assigned (I think).
There, you will have 20 minutes to introduce yourselves to your group members, (practice again?) and reflect with your group members on a few specific questions. The point of these groups is to be witnessed by our colleagues and get the experience of being believed, listened to. If we are going to regulate our feelings of safety, then it’s good to have the opportunity to witness and mirror someone else’s response to a practice. The agenda for your practice group is available at the website in the chat box:
http://www.copingincommunity.com/practice-groups.html
Introduce yourself with your name and geographic location before you begin. Invite the next person to speak in the group. It’s okay to pass it to another person and return to the question later, or say, “I’m not sure.” Read the brief guidelines for practice groups allowed.
Each group member should get an opportunity to share. Please refrain from commenting on one another’s shares or giving any advice. Follow your own covenant and ground rules you were offered. Responses should be affirming and supportive.
Share: Is what we are doing so far a “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe” for your body? How do you know? How/where is your body telling you it’s a yes or no?
Try to feel and identify the sensations:Turn your cameras off. Do the practices again (only the ones that were a “yes” or “maybe”) for about a minute. Make any adjustments to the practice. Turn your camera on when you’re done and ready to return to the group.
Share: Which parts of the practices did you like best? Do you have a strong preference?
When you’re sharing, its important to turn your camera on, so you can be present to the person sharing. But then you can turn it back off when we practice. If there is time left, you could take 1-2 minutes to repeat the practice you like bet, before the last question.
Share: Notice any small impacts: are you a little more relaxed? Is there some softness? A new slackness somewhere in your body? A change in mood?
So we’ll start the break now, and its 3:00, so you will have a break and time to solo practice until 3:20. Then, we’ll go into our small groups for another 20 minutes. And return to debrief together from 3:40-4pm.
POST-GROUP SHARING:
Name what suited you best. What sensations came up. Small impacts.
Alternative to the tunnel of ancestors or declaration: Reflect on a thing that you do relatively often and you learned how to do. Something simple, granular. Making great espresso. Steeping tea. Sewing a curtain. Play cards. Imagine it, maybe even mimic the motions of what you do to make this happen. How does it feel to do this? To be trained and experted in this? Let yourself really feel that. First notice your mood. What is it like?
Then, we notice your sensations. Where in your body are you drawn? Do you notice a vibration?
PLAN FOR OUR TIME
There will be more talking today than tomorrow and even then we’ll be practicing as we go. So, you’re invited to be more focused on your body in the physical space around you, your experience of yourself outside of this Zoom window and outside of your computer. We’re spending a lot of time presenting our shoulders upwards to the world; we’re doing more looking at others and being looked at than perhaps ever before. If you want to turn down your brightness on your screen, darken your room, gather some of those somatic props from the handout you received, now is the time to do that. You’re welcome to adjust your environment during this time as much as you need to. There’s no need to stare at the green dot. Basically, I’m hoping to un-zoom this session as much as possible. So, in working with an individual, beginning somatic practice, I’d begin with identifying a commitment, a goal. But for this group session, I am going to share with you one group goal that well, I’ve conceived, based on my conversation with some of the planners and some of you from a Zoom call we had a few weeks ago. I realize that the landscape of our spirits is deeper and broader than we might have words for, especially right now. Somatic work is not so much about language. Though language is a powerful tool to help us feel connected and to allow our experiences to be named. So, you’re welcome to adjust the dial of what I’m saying and teaching, to modify it to make sense for you. My somatic practice over the last nine years has evolved and changed as my practice deepened, but also as stuff just comes up in life and ministry. The practices I am sharing here are modifiable enough that I hope you’ll use this time to experiment in noticing yourself. We know about ah-ha! moments, but this is a really good for “huh…” and “meh” moments and “Oh really” moments.
I shared with you a few brief intro videos on the “theory work” in somatic practices on my website. You’re welcome to return to those -- the intellectual side, based in our neurobiology among other disciplines can be helpful in calming our nervous systems down, building trust. If you choose to share these practices with whom you do ministry, expect them to want the bibliography. You’re welcome to send them to my site or any of the sources therein. I am an ethicist and medical sociologist by training, so you’ll probably notice my entrypoint here is through questions like, “how are people harmed and how can we stop it?” and “what do people practice and how does it work for them?” I trust you will each have your own way in, and welcome that.
SCHEDULE
Today, I’m going to share with you a longer flow practice, focused on grounding in our competence for the long-term changes in our world. Then, tomorrow I am going to share a few shorter practices, those will be more amenable to sharing with your congregation or in your ministries or with your neighbors. Tomorrow, we will focus on conscious completion of losses, endings, cancellations and also, deaths. And we’ll end with some practices focused on practical, embodied healing to cope with too much time on Zoom.
Many of these practices are sort of a “choose your own adventure”. I invite you to experiment with the props you have with you or want to grab from your space as we go.
If you have questions about the content I’m sharing, you can chat them to the hosts, if that’s OK and then I’ll try to answer them tomorrow at the beginning of our second session. Tomorrow, I’ll also say a little bit more about my training and ways to explore this further with me or with others. If the questions you have are about the instructions for what we’re about to do, please do put them in the chat to everyone and we’ll clarify and get that figured out.
So, two paragraphs of introduction/theory, here we go:
INTRO/THEORY
Embodied somatic practices support our bodies in making good choices even under stress; that is, making decisions and taking actions that reflect what we value, rather than acting from our conditioned strategies to survive. Trauma, like a pandemic, is contraction, a folding or gripping of the body as it narrows in on what will keep us alive. This focus makes complete sense. But as the threats repeat, our body can “become stuck in contraction.” Through trauma and our bodies’ natural responses, our survival through it, we can begin to experience that our dignity, our safety and our connection become disrupted and at odds with one another. Our dignity, our sense of self-worth, our feelings of internal poise, or validation of our essence, our light. Our Safety - our real security or risk, as well as our felt (also real!) sense of internal wellness and calm, a level of anxiety that we can cope with, notion of control over the situation. Our Connection - to ourselves, one another and the world, the ways we know ourselves to affect change, to be interdependent, members of a community or a tribe. Safety, dignity, connection - these can be at odds with one another when we’re contracted or we might feel numbed out to one or more of them.
For religious professionals, if we can’t validate these three things - dignity, safety, connection - we might start to feel detached from our sense of competence. In addition to being more exhausted, more emotionally disrupted, sleep disrupted, overstimulated by Zoom. We know in our heads and can tell ourselves the rational, logical and real story that our ministry, or at least our call, purpose is beautiful, true, and strong. And we may also be feeling unprepared, bowled over, under-informed, criticized, overwhelmed, like there’s an explosion in our house and at the same time, its also feeling too small and empty. All this while our human bodies are propelling through what everyone who is not in the helping professions is going through as solo individuals, families, or communities. These might come through gripping, tightness in our throats or chests, dissociation, constipation diarrhea, the list goes on. Sounding a little familiar?
Maybe there’s something else you notice that’s true, too. We won’t do a big body scan today, but if you just imagine your body like your computer starting up, drawing a series of LED lights up from your toes to the top of your skull (bee-do-do-do). Maybe there’s a spot where the fan belt churns a little, the picture jars or lags, drawing your attention to some soreness or gripping or tension.
I do want to say something else before we get started: If you’re hearing my voice and thinking “you know this is just a little too woo-woo for me,” I’m offering you a special greeting. I am from Boston, Massachusetts; I am a New Englander, I am an Enneagram 3 if you’re familiar with that lingo. I’ve been there, baby. Yes, I am now fully a Southern California woman, but for me, the only way into embodied practice was to embrace my skepticism, try things on without the requirement to commit, and let my body decide whether something was a Yes or a No or a Hell No. So, a special invitation for you to try things on, and let yourself be disorganized with your attention to whether this or that embodied practice, is for you or not. I will not be offended.
Our bodies, our somatic shape, change on “Yes.” Our body’s “No” response to a particular practice is intelligent; its important information and trying things on with our bodies, can help us gather that intelligence. So, even if you say “No” to each of these practices, to me, that is not “resistance.” It is really wise to listen to our bodies when they say No.
For embodied practices to take root, they have to be chosen, consented to, before they are repeated. Feeling safe, which is itself really complex, partly depends upon recognizing our choices.
So, on the other hand, how do we know if our bodies really like a practice? You might be the kind of person who needs some evidence if something is working, if the medicine is kicking in, so to speak, so ---How do we know “it’s working”? When our body likes a practice, signs of unwinding appear: yawning, sighing, deep breaths, tears, giggling, burping, unprompted stretching, etc.
To further check out if we like a practice, we can play with the practice. I’ll be showing you a couple of those ways; I promise if you can let yourself privately, look half as silly as I do, you’re probably getting some playfulness out of this.
BEGINNING TO PRACTICE
So, I’ll ask you to turn your cameras off now, which will likely be the most comfortable. You can also, depending on how clear my voice is and how you learn best, turn down the brightness on your screen or look off to the side.
So, now that I have said all that -- I’m going to invite you to bring your attention to a part of the body. Now, if you feel drawn toward an adjacent area, or a different way of having contact. For instance, if a gentle massage or slow movement feels better; if I say lower belly, but it feels right to hold your hand just below your rib cage, all of that is fine. There are many spiritual, medicinal and healing traditions that have frameworks for body parts or meridians or bands of the body. Those may speak to you, inspire you and lead you out of habit. Different practitioners of somatics have connections to other things, other lineages, and some of us do not.
I want to bring our attention to our back bodies, from our shoulders and upper spine, down to our lower spine and our butt. When I first started working with these practices 9 years ago, I was working with a big dragon tail that extended from my lower spine, and would sweep from side to side behind me, protecting my back body. Today, I want to invite you to bring to your imagination not a dragon tail, but instead, our ancestors - our human society ancestors, those whose faces we know intimately, those who we don’t know or connect ourselves to personally but we know lived - lived human lives - through extended times of separation, isolation, people who lived through internment, lived through periods of fascism, the early days of other global pandemics, grandmothers who had remedies that soothed when treatments were unavailable, people who lived for long periods of time with dire risk, with anticipatory grief, with massive losses of life, people who developed pragmatic skill, embodied wisdom, and took action in the most bizarre, confusing or catastrophic times. Place a hand as it is comfortable to do so, at your back. If that’s not comfortable you could place a pillow, a sandbag, rolled up blanket or use something sturdy or a pen (without poking or drawing on yourself) to make contact with the back of your lower spine. Holding or gently moving your hand in that place. Let yourself draw or imagine a circle. Imagine that circle extending backward into a tunnel, a tunnel of ancestors, sitting or standing one in front of each other leading up to your back. Let yourself have an intentional slow breath, breathing from your middle body to the back of your ribs and making contact with your spine. We can get more specific with the people in this tunnel of ancestors, clergy or leaders or elders who lived through these global threats and were practical experts at things. Maybe a few are people we know by name.
When I do this practice on my own, I’m often thinking of the hands of people who cared for my brother who had hemophilia and HIV in the early 1980s; people who knew the terror and confusion of unknown risk factors and diseases science didn’t yet understand, but daily touched people’s lives and bodies, ancestors who used their skills and wisdom to protect themselves, but still while compassionately caring for others.
However clear or blurry your image of this lineage behind you is - imagine with me that these ancestors are propping us up, gently but securely holding up our lower spines.
Lean back into those hands; let yourself feel the contact of your back body against the couch or chair behind you. If youre standing you might put a blanket over your shoulders, like a cape draping down to your lower back. You can also imagine it. Imagine that extra layer of back-up, that energetic layer of people having your back, who know your age, your years of experience, your training, your intelligence. They know you have a lot of skills that we all need right now. We are held up by our knowledge and training and skills and have this powerful layer of ancestors, kindly and sturdily, holding our backs, keeping us going forward. You can if it feels right, extend this tunnel back with your hands. Turn toward your back body, extend your hand backward along the tunnel, and return to your lower spine or return the pillow to your back, the blanket touching your spine.
You could also extend the contact up to the back of your skull or down to the back of your calves and the back of your heels. Wrap your blanket from behind you, around your hips down to your legs.
Get curious here. Try to negotiate the best way for you to feel the positive support of these ancestors - the best way to feel held up (Get to the point where you can say “Yeah, that’s right.”). Feel the sensations alive with that contact, with that layer behind you. Observe whether there is a temperature or a color, a movement or an image, a vibration. Stay with that sensation for a moment.
LOWER BELLY OR HIPS
So now you have a couple options - Really get precise with where in your body feels most reliable. we’ll move our contact to our lower belly or our hip bones. I’d like to invite you to return your hands to your lower belly, or you could have one in front and one in back and just be with the depth, the intricate darkness in the space of organs between your hands, a lineage moving from behind us to our own history.
Now, you can also try out the hipbones-- I’d like to find your hip bones. It is okay if you are seated and you need to kind of search for them- at least I do - your camera is off.
Our bones are our organizing structure; they give us our particular sacred shape. They hold us up or in place. If we are gripping something or holding tension, our bones continue to exist just as they do when we relax. There’s constancy here.
Now, holding these points of contact -- I’d like you to fill in the following sentence to yourself and your mics are off, so if you’re willing, I’m inviting you to say it out loud.
“I’m THIS many years old. I am this experienced. I know a lot of stuff.” And you can modify it as you see fit. Once you have your sentence created, I invite you to fill that sentence with as much volume, sass, passion, playfulness, compassion, as feels right. Experiment with how it sounds to you, and get to the rendition that feels right, is a “that’s it!” for you.
Go ahead. When you’ve gotten to one that feels pretty good, if you can use your thumbs up emoji on the participants panel.
Then, we’ll repeat it at the same intensity and speed, volume, and gently observe our sensations again.
“I’m THIS many years old, I am this experienced. I know a lot of stuff.” Feel the sensations alive with the contact with your lower belly or your hipbones, with that ancestor tunnel or layer behind you. Is there is a temperature? A color? A movement? Or an image? A vibration. Maybe you feel numbness or silence. Numbness is a valid sensation too. Stay with that sensation for a moment.
A note here - It might be tempting to give what you observe its own backstory, a plot line. I must feel like this because of X, Y, or Z and I am not here to verify or dismiss that story, but I’m asking you to give yourself permission to hold it gently, to respond “that may or may not be useful to me.” Some people, myself included, are sometimes visited in these times by an external reviewer, someone who has an assessment of us. If this happens to you, I invite you to acknowledge it - without jumping to accept it - and similarly, respond (and aloud if it feels right): “that may or may not be useful to me.” And return to your sensation. If you find yourself yawning, let that yawn come and fully express itself. It’s a good indicator and supports your nervous system unwinding a bit. It is also contagious --so if you let it out fully, you’re helping your colleagues.
So, back to our sensations and gentle attention at our hips or belly. Take an intentional breath into your hips or your belly, and when you’re ready, say the sentence once again. Try to match the intensity of the version that felt best to you. Go ahead.
Notice if the placement of your hands feels like a yes, a no or a maybe.
Between the first noticing and your current sensation has there been some change or movement? Do you feel like you want to swing your hips a bit, wiggling, or your belly is relaxing over your hips or forward, do you notice a change in your mood, any slack somewhere in your body?
PRACTICE GROUP INSTRUCTIONS
So in a few moments, you will be assigned into the breakout groups, but you will first be able to take a break and practice again on your own.
Some of you have opted to be in breakout rooms based on an affinity. Some have not. In either case, thank you. Our retreat planners have organized these groups using Zoom’s features. You will take a 20-minute break here to go to the rest room, get a snack, and briefly repeat the practices on your own.
Right now, I am going to give the instructions for the practice groups.
First, there’s a couple of things that somatics is not - it is not necessarily about what has happened to us, and it is not necessarily about figuring out why we are the way we are. Though, its important to download and process with others, and certainly, those things might come forward today. I encourage to consider those things gently. And in your sharing and naming, try to stay with the sensations that emerge. If you have trouble getting in touch with the sensations (temperature, vibration, stillness, numbness, etc), slow down and repeat the parts of the practices that felt like a yes or maybe, and send yourself a little affirmation for trying this. When the first sensation arrives, you can draw a circle around it of “yes!” Draw a “yes!” as much as you want.
So, when you return from the break and solo time, you will be assigned a breakout room. You can shut everything off, but you should make sure to keep a timer or your volume on loud enough so know when to come back. If you would like to be in an affinity group, but did not pick one when you registered you can stay in the main room and be assigned (I think).
There, you will have 20 minutes to introduce yourselves to your group members, (practice again?) and reflect with your group members on a few specific questions. The point of these groups is to be witnessed by our colleagues and get the experience of being believed, listened to. If we are going to regulate our feelings of safety, then it’s good to have the opportunity to witness and mirror someone else’s response to a practice. The agenda for your practice group is available at the website in the chat box:
http://www.copingincommunity.com/practice-groups.html
Introduce yourself with your name and geographic location before you begin. Invite the next person to speak in the group. It’s okay to pass it to another person and return to the question later, or say, “I’m not sure.” Read the brief guidelines for practice groups allowed.
Each group member should get an opportunity to share. Please refrain from commenting on one another’s shares or giving any advice. Follow your own covenant and ground rules you were offered. Responses should be affirming and supportive.
Share: Is what we are doing so far a “Yes,” “No,” or “Maybe” for your body? How do you know? How/where is your body telling you it’s a yes or no?
Try to feel and identify the sensations:Turn your cameras off. Do the practices again (only the ones that were a “yes” or “maybe”) for about a minute. Make any adjustments to the practice. Turn your camera on when you’re done and ready to return to the group.
- Sensations can be something like a temperature, movement, numbness, blankness, stillness, contact, pressure, texture, emptiness, fullness...
- Your sensations might also include an image - like a sponge floating or a wave in the ocean.
- You might identify a sensation nearby where the practice was focused - those are welcome, too! (ex - you feel warmth at the back of your head, you notice a pressure in your neck)
Share: Which parts of the practices did you like best? Do you have a strong preference?
When you’re sharing, its important to turn your camera on, so you can be present to the person sharing. But then you can turn it back off when we practice. If there is time left, you could take 1-2 minutes to repeat the practice you like bet, before the last question.
Share: Notice any small impacts: are you a little more relaxed? Is there some softness? A new slackness somewhere in your body? A change in mood?
So we’ll start the break now, and its 3:00, so you will have a break and time to solo practice until 3:20. Then, we’ll go into our small groups for another 20 minutes. And return to debrief together from 3:40-4pm.
POST-GROUP SHARING:
Name what suited you best. What sensations came up. Small impacts.
Alternative to the tunnel of ancestors or declaration: Reflect on a thing that you do relatively often and you learned how to do. Something simple, granular. Making great espresso. Steeping tea. Sewing a curtain. Play cards. Imagine it, maybe even mimic the motions of what you do to make this happen. How does it feel to do this? To be trained and experted in this? Let yourself really feel that. First notice your mood. What is it like?
Then, we notice your sensations. Where in your body are you drawn? Do you notice a vibration?
