M6 : Lesson 5: Guided Practice – Trauma & Emotion Somatic Presencing With Music & Movement A personal favorite practice to help me drop into the body and let it move, speak, and express the energy.
This type of process helps the nervous system discharge energy and should be done when you are in a space or capacity to “feel the feels”.
See the separate audio download below for your convenience.
Please see the Module 6 Workbook for Lesson 5 materials.
Transcript
Lesson 5, guided trauma processing process. This is a somatic movement process where you’re going to come home into your body in a deep way. If you’re someone who is having a hard time being in your body safely, I recommend doing this process with someone else who you can co regulate with or who can witness you so that you can feel safer to drop into the body. If you’re someone who can do the somatic practices from module 5 pretty easily, then this is something you could do on your own. Let’s begin by orienting Finding your resources outside of you.
What do you see? Slowly. Rotate your head, and just notice your environment. Notice where you’re sitting or standing. Turning your head slowly from side to side, scanning your environment, and seeing what’s there.
Notice the world. That you’re a part of. Notice that you’re aware of this world. And then bring your orienting to inside of you. Feeling your bottom on the chair or your feet on the ground.
What does that part of you feel like that’s connected to the earth? And look for the part of you that is just connected to you. Can you find a part of you that might feel steady or strong? And if you can’t, that’s okay. We’ll keep looking.
And let’s just begin by breathing the physiological sigh three times to just come more into our body, which is 2 inhales, and then one long exhale. Just coming into the present moment, into your breath, breathing in, and again in, and exhale. And again, breathe in. And again in and exhale. One more time, breathing yourself into presence, breathing in, and in and exhale.
I’m just landing here with yourself. And then continue forward just with an equal breath of maybe 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out. As we go through this process, you might experience the desire to shake or to move your body in different ways as totally normal. Just allow your body to do what it wants to do and then just come back to following along. Let’s begin with connecting a little more deeply to ourselves.
Begin to rub your belly button. Rubbing your belly button and saying to yourself, I am here. I am here. This was your first connection made to your mother, and it’s still a place of connection where you can connect to that youngest you. I am here.
Now, moving to our collarbone and rubbing our collarbone in both sides. And stating to yourself, I am here. I am here. And moving our touch to our face with just some stroking of our face Your stroke can be light or it can be more deep pressure. And just stroking and touching your face under the eyes.
And the bridge of your nose. Just coming home. Stroking your ears. All of these stimulating your vagus nerve a little. Just exploring your face in your head, maybe rubbing your head, and just stay here for a minute.
Just rubbing your head, your face, maybe your neck. In your mind repeating I am here. I am here. And maybe began to reach back behind your back and rub your spine and your tailbone. Feeling your skeleton that’s supporting you.
Imagine your spine like a sturdy trunk of a tree. And just finding your container And imagine your energy and your breath moving up and down your spine deeply supporting you, noticing that right here, despite whatever you might be feeling, you do have support. Your spine is supporting your body. Your skin is supporting your organs. You’ve got a container that’s holding you together that’s holding everything inside of you.
You have support. Your own body. Deeply supporting you. Now place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly. And as you breathe into your heart and your belly, exhale, and say to yourself, I am here now in this moment.
And next, as you breathe in again to your heart and belly, imagine all of your light, your vital force flowing into your body as you’re calling it home, breathing into your heart and belly, collecting all of your fragmented energy, all of your parts back into your core. Coming home to yourself, letting all parts of you know I am here now. And on your next exhale, send your light energy down through your body, down into Earth and imagine connected to the core of the Earth. Imagine a line of light connecting your heart and your spine, your legs to the core of the earth. And saying to yourself, I’m connected to myself.
I’m connected to the earth. Just enjoying that connection. Feeling the great mother below you, Mother Earth, Mother Gaia, supporting you, and holding you. And on your next inhale, you’re gonna breathe up into your heart and belly and imagine all of the light from the earth coming back up into you into your own heart, collecting even more parts of you, breathing in, Bringing more of you home with each breath you take with this mindful awareness of your center. And on your next exhale, imagine your heart sending your energy up, out the top of your head, and connecting to the central Sun, to source intelligence, to God, or whatever.
That superconscious loving awareness is to you. So exhaling and connecting. To the greater loving intelligence all around you. And again saying to yourself, I’m connected to myself. I am connected to love itself.
I am connected to life. And now we begin a little movement. And again, you might shake. You might have all sorts of little movements that come. You might even have sounds that come out.
We just keep it gentle unless you’re resourced enough to really move, to be able to come back to calm. But begin with a swing. Wherever you’re sitting or standing, just swing side to side. In a nice rhythm. Much like a gentle ocean wave.
Rocking you from side to side. And just letting your body do what it wants to do and however it wants to sway. And this is just the motion a back and forth. Maybe you sway forward and backward from front to back. Maybe you then move from side to side and just swing.
And then maybe you’re doing more of a cat cow position where you maybe moved your hands and knees. Or maybe you just arch and flatten your back. And you’re just pendulating back and forth very slowly and mindfully and just letting your body know that you’re here and you’re here to feel the need for own movement in its own way. Maybe you’re just simply holding yourself because movement is too much, and that’s okay too. Just swaying or pendulating.
Keeping your breathing regular. And then maybe begin to move your neck into the red light, green light motion we learned earlier, which is the arch and curl, and your neck is slowly arching and curling, moving energy through your throat, chakra, through your neck, maybe You’re even releasing sound as you do this, and that’s okay. Arching the neck back and forth. And any sounds that come out are all welcome. You want to hear you now And this arching and flattening and arching and curling pendulum motion Now we’re gonna move it into our chest and our arms.
We’re gonna open our chest wide and open in our arms are wide, and then we’re gonna curl forward and then arch back, back and forth. Very similar to that cap cow motion or red light, green light motion. Just open and close the body, open and close. Find your own rhythm, find your own wave. And maybe you start moving into your lower belly and pelvis and you rock.
Your pelvis back and forth, and your pelvis and your hips start to arch. And curl front to back. Side to side. And again, shaking might come through and that’s totally fine and welcomed. Just let your body do what it needs to do.
This is its time to unwind. This isn’t about thinking. It’s just about slow movement and allowing And then maybe begin to move your hips in a spiral pattern, the circular pattern. Deeply releasing, letting go of attention, letting go spiraling and twirling and swirling of the hips. And again, there might be some shaking.
Just let it move through. Let all that shaking. Just come out. Let your body release and unwind while you hold presence. Continuing with moving your body in whatever way it feels like it needs to move.
Your intention of just going inward and allowing no resisting. Just being and feeling deeply connected to hearing the body through its language, which is movement and sound. These old parts of you They often don’t have words. They have movements and simple sounds. That’s how the body heals.
That’s how the body releases its trauma. And as you start to feel your body wind down from its expression, letting it know that it was just perfect. Whatever it did, however it felt slowly. Bring your movements a little smaller and slowly come into stillness again. With your hands and your heart and your belly.
Just being with yourself, your beautiful self that has experienced so much and your body has held so much and just think your body for letting it go. Thank your body for holding the best way it knew how. And letting your body know that you’ll be back again and again to feel it, to move it, to be with it. And as you complete the process, just saying to yourself, I am here. I am home.
I am connected to my loving presence. And I’m connected. To the rhythm of life itself. And so it is