Mindfulness

LEARNING THE BENEFITS OF MINDFULNESS​

To Learn how to remain in a state of relative physical relaxation and to breathe calmly, even while accessing painful and horrifying memories, is an essential tool for recovery.  This can be as simple as 10 minutes each day. Practicing mindfulness calms down the sympathetic nervous system, so that you are less likely to be thrown into fight and flight. If you cannot tolerate what you are feeling right now then opening up the past will only compound the misery and retraumatize you further. Headspace is definitely recommendable as it gives you a new 10 minute meditation each day. Also try the meditation below that is trauma recovery focused. 

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10 Minute Meditation Excercise:

  1. The first step is to allow your mind to focus on your sensations and notice how, in contrast to the timeless, ever-present experience of trauma, physical sensations are transient and respond to slight shifts in body position, changes in breathing, and shifts in thinking.
  2. Once you pay attention to your physical sensations, the next step is  to label them, as in “when I feel anxious, I feel a crushing sensation in my chest “. In response to this focus on that sensation and see how it changes when you take a deep breath out, or when your allow yourself to cry, or when you tap on the location of the sensation in your body (for example tap the nerves of your upper stomach of tap the chest just below your collarbone) 
  3. A further step is to observe the interplay between your thoughts and physical sensations. How are particular thoughts registered in your body? (do thoughts like “my mom loves me” or “I just got dumped” produce difference sensations?) becoming aware of how your body organises particular emotions or memories opens up the possibility of releasing sensations and impulses you once blocked in order to survive. 

Best Meditation Tools

  • Headspace
  • Calm
  • Free Meditations on Youtube

Getting Comfortable With Discomfort

We can tolerate a great deal of discomfort as long as we stay conscious of the fact that the body’s commotions constantly shift. One moment your chest tightens, but after you take a deep breath and exhale, that feeling softens and you may observe somthing else, perhaps a tension in your shoulder. Now you can start exploring what happens when you take a deeper breath and notice how your ribcage expands. Once you feel calmer and more curious, you can go back to that sensation in your shoulder. You should not be surprised if a memory spontaneously arises in which that shoulder was somehow involved. 

3 Key Take Aways

  • Observe where you feel the emotions in the body
  • Feel what sensations are linked to that emotion
  • See how the sensations change when you take a deep breath, move or change thought

Mindfulness is about allowing yourself to feel whatever emotions arise, accept them and not try to resist them

Trauma is stored in the body so getting comfortable with the body and its feelings is key to recovery

Much of this information is from Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s the book “The Body Keeps the Score” which we advise everybody to read. Also check out our theatre page as that may also help you get more in touch with your body.