"If everything around you seems dark, look again, You might be the Light."
- Rumi
Dearest Friends,
How are you dealing with our present circumstances? I hope you found your own method of adjusting to this current state of being and feeling. Know that you are loved and cared for during these times of "social cocooning" as someone called it the other day, which I found more accepting and gentler way of recognising our present way of being.
The human race, as mammals, we thrive on physical connection. Even when we face trauma, we huddle against each other for support. We read each other's faces for support and to find a friend and familiarity. So when we are faced with isolation and not being able to socialise and see other faces, our nervous systems, that is always looking for safety, is on alert.
We all are experiencing mixture of emotions, changing between acceptance, compassion, love for humanity, to fear, anxiety, uncertainty, anger. Over the years, with different teachings and workshops, I have come across few different exercises that I will pass it on to you, so you are able to find your stillness in these challenging times.
Every morning and evening, these exercises can be done while lying in bed. You can also use these tools as and when it is needed during the day.
Part of our social nervous system is our eyes, ears, nose, facial muscles, throat, chest, and our internal organs. When we are anxious these areas gets tight and when we are in freeze mode, these areas become frozen, slow down with no facial expresion. So we are going to work on balancing these.
* Start with a big stretch.
* Lying down, interlace your fingers of both hands together and place them behind your head with the weight of your head resting on them.
* Keeping your head in place, look to the right, only moving your eyes, as far as comfortably you can, without turning your head, only the eyes.
* Take 12 deep breaths in and out until you swallow, reach a sigh or a yawn.
* Bring your eyes back to center. Then look to the left and repeat for 12 breaths until you swallow, a yawn or a sigh is achieved.
If you don't, that is fine, there will still be improvement, it might need few more days in order to achieve the desired outcome. The reason why we engage our eyes is because it is part of our social nervous system. It helps relax our neck, throat, subocciput, shoulders, heart and solar plexus area. This exercise is by Stanley Rosenberg who's a great teacher of craniosacral therapy and wrote the book Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve.
Some Acupressure point stimulation from various teachings of Tibetan and Traditional Chinese Medicine Acupressure methods and Access Bars.
* Using your index, middle and ring fingers of both hands, place them behind your ears on the bony area where the fingers sit nicely, ring finger being right behind the earlone and the others above it and hold those points for 10 minutes to slow down the busy mind.
* For balancing emotions and to quieten the mind, press gently with your index finger the point between your eyebrows. Start with very light touch and wait for the tissues to open up and allow the finger to sink in deeper gently then massage without lifting the finger off the skin and move the tissues in very slow circular motion for 5-10 minutes.
* Another point to bring your system to calm is the dimple found in the centre of your sternum, to connect with your heart energy, follow the same approach as above for 5-10 minutes.
*Place your left hand on your heart and the right hand on the left, drop your attention into your heart area and breath in and out of your heart area, increasing and opening your heart energy.
Breath in from the nose and out from the mouth.
After a minute or two, Breath in for a count of 4
Hold for a count of 4 (to balance your sympathetic system)
Breath out for a count of 4
Hold for a count of 4 (to balance your parasympathetic system)
Do not hold your breath, just drop into stillness and engage your abdomen in your breathing. Increase the count as your breathing gets deeper.
Make a conscious decision to breath in and out of your heart during the day, this grounds you, stops the busy mind and helps you embody yourself.
* In order to increase your immune system massage the Thymus gland which is found at the top of your sternum as wearing a bowtie. make both hands into fists and gently tap the top of the sternum just like Tarzan does.
* Why not give your feet and hands a massage to give your body some loving, specially with washing our hands with harsh soaps and antibacterial gels, makes our skin quite rough. Touch is therapeutic. Take longer in applying your routine moisturiser in the morning and evening.
* If we feel faint, helpless, give up, confusion, disorientation, loose digestive system, it is the FREEZE response of our parasympathetic nervous system is more active. In order to massage your internal organs where usually the freeze is felt, vibrate the low note sound "VOOOO" when exhaling until breath is finished. You can try other sounds but according to the Pshychologist Peter Levine who wrote the book Waking the Tiger, the sound Voo massages the internal organs the best.
Hopefully these exercises performed daily with some meditation time will help us face each day as it comes. If the explanations are not as clear, then please do contact me and I will be happy to have a chat to explain further.
If these tools aren't enough to settle your nervous system, I am offering Distant Healing Therapy sessions. With my knowledge of Anatomy, CranioSacral Therapy, TCM Acupressure & Manual Lymphatic Drainage, makes your experience of the session profound. Clients who have experienced distant healing sessions by me, feel every part of their body being worked on and the results of being de-stressed, relaxation, expansion, reduction of tension felt in their body is experienced. I do this on my family regularly, on my parents who live in the US, my kids, friends and clients. I used to get a phone call from my son in the mornings on my way to work, asking if I can do a treatment on him while on the train, because he woke up with an anxiety feeling in his tummy. It relaxes him every time. Other people read newspapers on the train, I did distant healing on my son :)
For the month of April, I am offering the Distant Reiki sessions for £45.00 per session or a block of 4 sessions for £160.00. If there is financial difficulty because of present circumstances please do contact me and we can discuss it further.
A deeper connection to spirit is very much needed now more than before, whether it is done by ourselves or a facilitator.
I do miss working, being in my beautiful therapy room because what I do is my passion. I too, as the rest of the world, have been on the emotional roller coaster, as soon as I was established in my happy place doing what I really love, all came to a standstill, as of course most of the globe too. So after a week of panic, anxiety and fear, I have come back to myself using all the above tools. I am using this time to my advantage, taking online studies, revise previous workshops, practice yoga, go deeper within myself, meditate, find my stillness, in order to come back even stronger for myself, my family and for you, my valued clients and friends. I have trust and faith that all will be well.
We are all connected, and times like these show us how true that is. In order to help the collective, we start with ourselves, we come into neutral, be grounded, centered, aligned, embodied and work on what is coming up for ourselves, what story is playing out in our lives right now, is it fear, anger, frustration, judgement and work on healing it as it comes up, no judgement. When we all come back to normality, I hope we bring our stillness and slowing down with us and make it our New Normal.
Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. You can contact me on the link provided below and above to book a session or for a chat, I am always available for a chat or a hello.
Sending You all Love and Reiki Healing, please stay safe.
From my heart to yours,
Séta