Skills to Heal: Grounding
Last week I talked about how the brain and body need to connect in order to heal. I wanted to explain a little more about this.
A lot people who have been raised in western culture have been taught to rely on logic, which is most commonly thought of as being in the brain. Then when trauma occurs to the body - these people rely more and more on their logic brain and this causes them to live more and more in their heads instead of experiencing life through a body.
When we get frightened, our physical body reacts. Logic does’t exist - because our survival systems take over. This is true with most of our emotions, especially when experiencing a flashback or trigger. When our survival systems are in charge of our reactions, logic isn’t the thing that will save us. Our bodies save us.
So, the connection between the brain and the body is important to put civilized logic back in charge so our triggers and emotions don’t rule our lives.
The way to work on this brain body connection is to exercise the muscle systems that connect the brain and body. This system is the nervous system.
When people study the nervous system in school, they usually learn that the nerves are automatic and can’t be controlled, because they’re messengers between the brain and the body.
An example: The hand touches a hot pan. Messages in the fingers, go to the brain and register as pain. You say ouch and probably some bad words, while dropping the pan. But because all this happened almost instantly, your fingers aren’t permanently injured - they’re just a little bit ouch. Your heart is probably racing and you might be holding your breath.
This is a normal brain and body interaction. If you notice, it’s a lot like the fear or survival reaction. That’s because it is the same reaction.
All of this is automatic. But the piece of the fear/survival response that isn’t automatic is the reaction of your breath.
Breathing is the key to building the bridge between the nervous system and the body. The method is breathing exercises.
There are multiple different types of breathing exercises. You can search online and learn in whatever format suits your learning style best.
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