Cultivating safety and freedom in the body as practice

Do you truly want freedom, or do you prefer comfort?

What kind of bug are you?

The other day I found two bugs in my sink. One I swept right up, took outside, and happily was reunited with greenery. The other one took quite some time to get onto the cardboard toilet paper roll. Bug2 was happy where Bug2 was. Finally I got Bug2 onto the toilet paper roll and went outside. This was a whole new level of difficult, Bug2 would NOT leave the roll! Seems silly even to think about, but Bug2 managed to stay miraculously on the roll even when I tried my last attempt to vigorously shake Bug2 off. Finally I left the roll outside overnight. When I checked in the morning, Bug2 had left the roll. I wonder how long it took for Bug2 to trust that it was safe, and perhaps even wise to venture into the unknown.

Change can be scary. It does take trust and immense courage. It might not feel liberating at first to shed a pattern that has been holding you back. And granted, there are many levels of incarceration: cultural and systemic through white supremacy, male domination and colonialism, and individual mental beliefs and patterning like not-enoughness, victim or lack mentality. Some of this is from collective and indivudal trauma-based conditioning, so it goes deeper than the conscious mind. How do we create a safe space for ourselves where we can enjoy just taking that next step out of our comfort zone, especially if it's towards greater freedom? When given the opportunity for growth, to shed just that next layer of unneeded tension and limitation, will we take it?

Try this humming practice to cultivate more safety and freedom in the body, and subscribe to the YouTube channel for periodic new practices!

Many of us don’t even realize we are living in bodies with deregulated nervous systems, perhaps masquerading as wierdo (maybe artistic?) personality types! (or “what's wrong with me?” mentality) or a simmering low-grade stress response that you have written off as “oh I'm just an anxious type.” Is there a mode that you are used to waking up with that might actually be a habituated trauma response? Unprocessed grief or shame? Maybe it's not clear now, but trying something that will calm your Vegas nerve is a good first step. Try singing or humming for five minutes and see how you feel afterwards! Come back to this practice every time you notice your habituated response come up?

This kind of approach is what we work with in our Self Care Course we will repeat periodically. Sign up for our newsletter so you know when we will begin again, to dive deeper into addressing these habituated responses, and get three free short sound meditations!