Digesting Christmas Overwhelm

However stressful the past few weeks have been you can gently begin to welcome yourself back into the present moment. 

Start by being curious about your environment.  What is inviting your attention back to now?  

What can you see? 

What can you hear? 

Effortless seeing and effortless hearing. 

Go slow with this and notice any impact on your physiology.  Include awareness of the sensation of your body in contact with the surface of the ground or your chair.  You can also bring your hand to your heart centre to offer compassionate touch and reassurance.  Feel the warm sensation of where your hand makes contact with your body. Try soft contact and then perhaps a bit firmer contact and see what your body prefers.

Notice the quiet spaces that begin to show up in the midst of all that is happening.  Don’t grasp at it but simply allow it to come to the forefront of your experience.  It happens naturally.  It can’t be forced. 

Once you are clear about where you are now begin to welcome how you are. 

Say yes to all that is happening in thoughts, sensations and perceptions.  Welcome them here in the same simple open hearted way.  Just this.  Just this.  No judgement.  No argument with what is happening in the body right now.  Allow the body to slowly begin to digest the stress of the last few days. 

Hand on heart. 

Gentle words of reassurance.  I’ve got you.  

You can pause for a minute this way or 5 minutes or longer depending on the amount of stress and overwhelm you’re experiencing.  Don’t force anything on your physiology.  Don’t demand anything of your physiology.  Simply be and let your body open and release what it’s holding.  Your body knows the way.

I want to invite you to come back to this simple practice often throughout your day.  The habit of abandoning ourselves in stressful situations is very strong.  We shift habitual reactions and dissociation through repetition of slow and gentle responses to stress and overwhelm.  Over and over again we come back for ourselves in loving compassion. 

All of Candace’s services are Trauma, PTSD, Complex Grief, Chronic Illness and Benzo withdrawal symptom sensitive.