What's the best therapy to calm me and my nervous system?
You’ve been feeling on edge lately, more than you want to admit. You find yourself searching endlessly to fix the anxiety.
You are starting to feel like this might just be your personality (yikes).
But you actually want to change it– for good. You want to learn to understand it, and see what actually works to get calmer. You really just want to feel more like yourself again.
I get it. It’s no fun to feel on high-alert all the time.
First, let’s talk about what is happening in your nervous system. Picture an alarm system, built to keep out the burglars. But this alarm hasn't gotten a software update, let alone a change of batteries. The alarm keeps sounding off, when someone in the house is walking from the bedroom to the kitchen.
That alarm is your nervous system. It keeps scanning. Seeing, hearing, and feeling the threat. But the threat is inside you…the heat racing, clenching of jaw, the tightness in your stomach.
Your nervous system thinks that something in the environment (inside or out) is not safe. It braces itself for safety…all the time. No wonder you are exhausted by lunchtime. Diet and lifestyle can add more stress and adrenaline to fuel more of the faulty alarm inside.
The most important thing is to start having a relationship with our bodies.
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is the best therapy to start teaching your body to calm its nervous system.
We do this by learning the language of the body, through sensations. In SE, we use simple and gentle ways to start putting the breaks on the nervous system, and teaching it that it’s okay to slow down just a bit.
We use movement, emotions, imagery, sound, and story, to help the body say what it’s been holding on tightly, and to release, and recover back to its normal state when threat is not present.
I love SE because you don’t need anything fancy to help teach your body safety. We go at the pace of your body, and it’s subtle. There’s a lot of pausing and noticing too. You can be doing SE practices without people really noticing. SE helps to get back to who you are and what matters most to you.
If you want to learn more about SE and how it can help you by clicking here.
