Grounding and Somatic Exercise Session 🌱 🌸

This is a post to gauge interest! 💡

Would anyone here be interested in attending a discussion that focuses solely on guiding participants through grounding and somatic exercises to relieve tension? (This was brought up during a Sunday Open Discussion)

This session will include sensory grounding exercises, pressure-based breathing exercises, and other maneuvers to directly activate the vagus nerve and physiologically calm down a sympathetic nervous response (fight-or-flight). Guests will be walked through each exercise as we do/learn them together.

Proposed 1-hour session with 5 components:

1. Welcome and Introductions (5 mins)
2. What are physical grounding exercises? What are somatic exercises? Why are we focusing on body-focused grounding? Mind-Body connection (15 mins)
3. 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding (15 mins)
4. Exercises to stimulate Vagus Nerve (Deep Breathing with Pressure, Pressure Points) (15 mins)
5. Debriefing, Q/A (10 mins)

The goal of this session is to help guests feel safe in their own bodies and learn how to quickly calm down trauma responses when they occur.

Often, it can be difficult to think one's way through a racing mind and a body that is activated. With trauma, thoughts can tend to spiral. Additionally, those with C-PTSD and anxiety disorders can often be living in a state of constant activation, without knowing the cause or how to proceed. In these situations, trying out somatic exercises may be useful!

Please let me know in the comments if you are interested in this session and feel free to list any other exercises you would like to see! 🌸 🌱

Longer Explanation:

• Complex, developmental, and relational trauma (C-PTSD) can alter the nervous system to remain in a constant state of being prepared for danger. Trauma survivors may exist feeling on-edge, hypervigilant, or hyperaroused (activated) for some or most of the time. They may also feel the complete opposite — numb, disconnected, or shut-down (hypoaroused). Some may feel a combination of the two.
• Since the occurrence of trauma changes neurological pathways in response to situations, it alters one's ability to feel steady, stable, and safe in one's own body. The nervous system has a harder time regulating itself long after the traumatic events of the past. We might find ourselves living in a constant state of activation, struggling to ever feel regulated or calm!
• Thus, before we can tackle changing neural pathways and heal from trauma, it's important to first feel safe in one's own body. This is where somatic and vagus nerve-centered exercises may come into play.