Welcome to this short practice called Dosing the Field with Safety.

Transcript is below.

This is a ten minute audio practice to support a sense of embodied safety and ease.

For so many reasons, many of us are living with varying levels of chronic low grade stress. Sometimes this is interspersed with bouts of more severe and acute stress. We're often told that it would benefit us to reduce our stress and that we should also try practicing gratitude and positive thinking. Obviously there's nothing wrong with gratitude or positive thinking. They're great. The problem is that we can't always reduce our stress. And despite our best efforts, our nervous system will always pay more attention to a threat—real or perceived—than something good.

It turns out to be very hard to feel grateful, positive, or even friendly when we don't feel safe. It's also nearly impossible to slow down and allow feelings like grief, anger, or loneliness to surface and integrate when we're feeling unsafe.

For many of us, feeling completely safe might not be in reach. This practice is meant to support an experience of relative safety.

This short audio recording can help illuminate the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual shifts that can happen when we track for glimmers of safety in our environment, in our body, and in our imagination.

By practicing this idea of “tracking glimmers” we might access increased stability, openness, and even appreciative awareness as we move through the very real challenges of our life. Often, this needs to happen in tiny, incremental doses when we’re on the fly.

There are so many pathways to connecting with a felt sense of safety. They often have to do with our five senses and our sense of connection, to both ourselves and others. Safe touch, warm food, beautiful art and music, connecting with the elements or with animals. The list is endless.

This recording, with its focus on using our imagination, is a way to reinforce a new habit, intentionally.

If safety seems like a faraway concept, you might try letting go of that word for now and focusing on things like “a little warmer” or “a little more comfortable”, offering yourself tiny doses of care that promote a sense of feeling secure or well met.

Transcript

Hi, this is Annie. Welcome to this short practice called Dosing the Field with Safety

You can start by getting as comfortable as possible. Sitting or lying down might be best for this practice but do what works best for you. Press pause if you need to get set up.

I'm encouraging you to put on warm socks, grab some pillows, lie on your bed, or do whatever helps you feel a spoonful more comfortable. Add-ons would be a weighted blanket, an eye pillow or wrapping yourself up like a burrito so you feel some comforting pressure.

Start with your eyes open and I’ll guide you through a gentle orienting practice.

You can start by letting your eyes move fairly slowly as you look around the space you're in. Look up and down. You can look back behind you if you're seated. Notice the size and feel of the space.

You might check for doors, windows, or ways that you could leave if you changed your mind about being here. Finish this process of orienting to your space by noticing if there are any items or objects that are familiar, comforting, beautiful or even just interesting.

When you feel ready, you can come back to stillness, letting your head and your eyes rest comfortably and maybe letting your eyes close or be softly focused.

In your own time, begin orienting to our inner space, gradually becoming aware of your body from the inside. You might notice things like your breathing or your temperature. Pay attention to the very real, tangible sensations of being alive in this good body of yours. You can take your time here, especially if your inner space includes challenging sensations or feelings.

Gradually begin to pay particular attention to the sensations of being seated or lying down, of having support. Notice where there's actual pressure on your body from a chair or a mattress or the floor, how gravity is holding you here. Even if the earth is many stories below through layers of floorboards and concrete, it's there, holding you with a wide base of support.

You might like to stretch up and out, into any available space or you might want to melt towards the ground, rounding and softening. You might offer your body permission to move in the way it wants to, in this moment.

From this place of settling, orientating and grounding, I invite you to get curious what feels safe about your reality, right now. It might be as simple as Right now I’m warm and dry. Or, right now I have food in my belly. If it’s hard to think of something, come back to the earth beneath your body and gravity holding you close.

Perhaps take another moment to appreciate the simple truth of your aliveness, your breathing, your heartbeat and your body’s natural impulse to move and adjust.

If you're doing this practice, I assume you are relatively safe, in this moment. Starting from that place of basic, relative safety, let’s practice expanding into a deeper state of trust and wellbeing with the help of our body and our imagination.

Sometimes, it helps if we remember that this practice is voluntary. We can pause it and take a break, and you can always come back to it another time if you like.

I invite you to slowly begin imagining that you're somewhere that feels welcoming. A place where you feel some ease and belonging.

It could be exactly where you are right now. It could be somewhere you've been before or somewhere completely imaginary.

You have the power to fill in the details that suit you. This is not a passive process, you are allowed to reach for and call in the things you want and need, in this good, welcoming place.

Taking a moment to notice what it is about this place that feels good and welcoming? Taking your time, continuing to feel grounded through your body so that even in this imaginary place, you can feel your feet on or your sitting bones on the earth. You may experience this space visually and vividly, or it may be more a flow of feelings or sensations. There is no way to get this wrong.

You might notice details with all your senses, not only your eyes. Can you hear, smell, touch or even taste the details of this safe place? Is there a quality to this place that feels agreeable to you, or interesting? Sometimes it’s hard to name these things… It’s OK to simply experience

Is there something that easily comes to mind that would offer you a dose of safety, warmth or comfort? This might be person that you love or and ancestor. This might be a beloved pet. It could be a favorite tree, a comfort food or a character from a childhood story.

Taking a few moments here to rest, breathe and observe. Fleshing out the details, noticing what your poetic imagination wants to offer you right now.

We can take a moment to remember that safety will rarely feel absolute. You can explore how it feels to track for simple sensations like warmth or connection, softness or ease. There may be a yawn or a sigh, or you might feel the impulse to swallow burp or even make some sound.

You might notice a desire to wiggle or gently move.

If it feels doable, allow your natural response to move through.

Take another moment to look around or feel into this space you’ve created for yourself. Before we finish this practice, maybe there are some details you want to remember or some way you want to close your time here.

Take another few easy breaths as you digest or even bask in this experience.

Gently begin to call yourself back into the present moment by wiggling your toes and fingers or making other movements, or sounds. Softly opening your eyes and beginning to look around. If it feels good, place your hands somewhere on your body as you notice, I am here.