Come home to the body
Jan Normanton • November 19, 2024
No matter where life takes us, the body is our truest home
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Come home to the body. No matter where life takes us, the body is our truest home.
It is so easy to get wrenched out of our bodies and into the whirlwind of our minds.
It is our minds that robs us of peace if we allow it to take over with a scattered brain from overthinking. It can launch us into anxiety and stress.
If we simply remember to drop into our bodies -
- breathe deeply into our bellies
- exhale for longer taking a few minutes to do this
- shutting down any distractions as we close our eyes and go within
We can feel instantly better, soothed, grounded; that we have agency once again, that we are captains of our own ship.
So when you start to feel lost at sea in the busyness of your mind and from all the external distractions of life, recall upon this simple practice and return home to yourself.
Whilst talking therapies have a significant role in healing in their own right, we can end up inadvertently holding up our healing process by getting invested in talking ABOUT our issues rather than dealing directly WITH our issues via the body – the place of trauma
Distraction is everywhere! If we allow ourselves to engage like a kid in a candy shop, taking it all in with gusto, we can end up frazzled and fragmented, feeling less than safe and sound within
Paying attention and tending to our body can pay dividends, engendering trust and allowing us to show up in life in a dynamic and flowing way rather than fixated rules and regulations made up by the mind to keep us safe and based on old paradigms that may no longer serve us.
It’s only through direct embodied experience where can make an informed decision about who we are and then really get to know ourselves. Relying upon the brain is only part of the picture and a skewed one at that full of external influences and second hand beliefs
There can be a disparity between what’s going on in your brain to keep us safe and what’s going on in real time in your body; learning to discern the difference as to what feels true can be surprising and helpful
Functional freeze can be a useful survival strategy when facing trauma, chronic stress and any form of overwhelm; habitualised however, it can become a sneaky way of life, resulting in a life unlived.
Understanding that healing work isn’t linear can help us be more compassionate with ourselves and our process. Consider healing more of an ongoing, ever evolving journey within, that if done consistently, will bear fruit over and over again
It takes time, energy, effort and commitment to do our inner work. Ultimately it’s worth it, if we wish to lead a conscious life and take ownership of ourselves within so that our external world reflects this and we get to live on purpose.
Try a values audit to find yourself if you experience a sense of loss of self or your way in life; this can bring you back to what matters to you and form the foundation of your future self
How to manage triggers that send us into functional freeze. We will always be triggered – that’s life. It’s how we manage the triggers in the present differently to old coping strategies that support us to do differently and to change as we wish
