May 29, 2024 • 28 mins
Welcome to this Pause episode of I Thought I Was Over This, where we focus on the practice of getting regulated through being present and using the five senses. In this episode, Dr. Kimber warmly welcomes you into a world of mental fitness and nervous system regulation, setting the stage for the peaceful journey ahead.
5 Keys You Will Learn:
- The importance of grounding yourself in unfamiliar circumstances
- Techniques to settle and calm your nervous system
- How to use sensory awareness to create a sense of safety
- Physical movements to help you find balance and calm
- The power of breath and vocalization in soothing your mind and body
So settle in, take a deep breath, and join me as we journey towards feeling settled instead of overwhelmed.
Check out past episodes and more information here: https://www.drkimber.net/podcast-info
Please remember that this podcast is not a replacement for treatment by a healthcare or mental health professional. This content is created for education and entertainment purposes only.
Join 'A Moment of Pause' Newsletter: https://drkimber.activehosted.com/f/5
Music licensed from http://www.purple-planet.com
Connect with Dr. Kimber:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_kimber/
About My Work: https://www.drkimber.net
Fierce Gentle Community: https://www.drkimber.net/fierce-gentle
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to I Thought I Was Over This Pause.
I'm Dr.
Kimber and I am here to help youregulate your nervous system.
(00:20):
Whether you find yourself in aplace with lots of excitement,
travel, joy, or Or you findyourself in a place that you are
navigating devastating loss or atransition that maybe you didn't
(00:42):
ask for, or even a transitionthat you do welcome.
All of these things areunfamiliar to our nervous system
and our nervous system feelsreally regulated and
uncomfortable.
kind of stress-free when we areentering into circumstances that
(01:04):
are familiar to us, when we areentering into things that are
predictable.
And when we find ourselves, say,starting a new job or entering a
new relationship, these arethings that cause us to have
some stress responses We can getinto fight or flight.
(01:29):
And it doesn't necessarily meanthat it's a bad thing.
Dr.
Dan Siegel will say if you areliving a thriving life and
expanding, growing, all of thosethings, you're going to have
stress.
That's part of it.
And that is why I have createdthese episodes and Because we
(01:52):
need mental fitness.
We need the ability to navigatewhen we are going through new
seasons.
We need to be able to know howto ground ourselves.
Even this week, I have an auraring and it's like, you are not
(02:14):
sleeping well.
And my daughter is visiting fromout of town spontaneously.
And it's all good.
I'm so excited.
But for my nervous system, ithas a hard time.
It has a hard time fallingasleep.
So I find myself implementingthese practices of the deep
(02:39):
breathing and that helps mysystem settle.
So let's get started.
I invite you to find acomfortable position.
So as you settle, I want toinvite you to notice all of the
points of contact that you havewith whatever you're sitting or
(03:04):
standing or lying on.
In the seated position, noticeyour sits bones.
Notice the contact.
anywhere else on your body thatis making contact with a
(03:26):
surface.
In this way, we're just tryingto settle our body in just at
the microcosm level.
When we aren't conscious of it,our body is alert.
And when we notice the weight ofour body, It helps our system
(03:52):
know, oh, we're here to stay.
We're not getting ready to dothe next thing.
That causes me to be just alittle bit ready for that.
So every time you draw attentionto the weight of It allows you
(04:22):
to remind yourself, be here, behere.
You can imagine string pullingyour spine all the way up to the
heavens and all the way down tothe earth.
(04:51):
I invite you to play with yourchin position.
Even if you're laying down, dothis as well because see if
there is a Goldilocks just rightwhere your neck feels completely
supported and your head isdirectly above your head.
(05:22):
your neck, which is above allyour spinal cord.
I invite you to soften yourforehead, soften your jaw, and
(05:43):
take the tongue off the roof ofour mouth.
I invite you to lightly Put itbehind your top teeth.
And in this exercise, we're justreminding our jaw, which is a
place we hold a lot of emotions,just to relax.
(06:06):
It's quite natural to put ourtongue up against the roof of
our mouth.
But when we're pausing, we justsoften it.
And I invite you to soften yourhands.
Just another place we holdtension and wiggle your toes.
(06:41):
And if you're physically ableto, I invite you in this moment
to softly massage your jaw.
As I just mentioned, this is aplace we hold emotions.
So if we just softly massagethere, can alert that system to
(07:11):
let go, relax.
And I understand if you hold alot of tension there, of course,
just this mini massage isn'tgoing to permanently release it,
but we're offering right nowparts of your body support so it
can settle in.
(07:31):
If you're just coming in fromaction and activity and rocking
feels good, I invite you to rockback and forth and do this
slowly and then speed it up andif you are going front to back I
(08:10):
just remind you to make surethat you're going beyond center
that you're actually going backinstead of doing like a half
rock where you're only goingforward and then back to center.
We wanna make it a completemovement.
(08:32):
So the degree forward equals thedegree back or side to side, the
same thing.
Try to keep it even in thismoment but also not being
perfectionistic.
(08:53):
Just play with it.
And from this place of movement,or if you are still, I invite
you to notice the closest sound.
(09:21):
And now I invite you to noticethe farthest sound.
And depending on how you arelistening to this, whether with
headphones or your earsavailable to other things, I
(09:42):
invite you to notice three othersounds.
assuming this recording ispicking up some of the birds.
(10:06):
And if your eyes are open orclosed, I invite you to notice
five things.
And if they're closed, noticeare there any colors behind your
eyelids.
Are there any shapes, lines?
(10:29):
If your eyes are open, noticefive things in your space.
You can take in color, texture,And let's notice two tastes.
(10:57):
What lingering tastes do youhave?
And two smells.
And then let's notice three,points of touch, the temperature
(11:23):
of your body, noticing anyfabric or textures against your
body.
And then notice what it's likeagain to be making contact with
(11:56):
a solid surface wherever thatis.
And then I invite you to useyour head and just notice the
room going to the left all theway back behind you to the left,
(12:26):
moving to the right, and all theway back to the right.
And even if you are laying down,I just invite you to, you know,
do the movements until your earhits the floor of each, each ear
(12:49):
hitting the floor of your head.
And then look up and look down.
(13:11):
And see where your safety landsin your body.
Of course, your mind knows thatyou're safe, but our eyes and
moving our whole head is part oforientation.
And when we orient, it allows usto truly see that we in this
(13:36):
moment are safe.
Should you ever find yourselffeeling unsafe, that's one of
the first things you want to dois to look around, because as we
(13:56):
get nervous, we actually havetunnel vision and it sends a cue
to our body to be more on alert,more ready for fight or flight.
And we always actually want tohave a pause because the feeling
(14:16):
of not feeling safe can besomething from a memory We have
body sensations that enter andfeelings that enter.
And if we can find a pausethere, we can connect our
thinking center with noticingwhat is this that I'm
(14:39):
experiencing and what happenswhen I look around and look for
safety and look for connection,what happens to my system.
And so now...
If it feels comfortable and youreyes are closed, again, I
encourage you to soften youreyes.
If your eyes are open, pleasefeel free to have a soft gaze
(15:04):
and that you're not needing topick up all the details.
And you can just put your eyesat a 45 degree angle.
And let's do a breath, fivecount in, a five count out.
(15:30):
And I'm gonna do that threetimes with you.
And then I'm gonna encourage youto play with your own breath
rhythm of what is the rhythmthat actually helps you feel
that it's not a lot of effortand then it just feels kind of
just right.
So let's count five.
(15:51):
Inhale, two, three, four, five.
Exhale, two, three, four, five.
Inhale, two, three, four, five.
(16:11):
Exhale, two, three, four, five.
Inhale, two, three, four, five.
Exhale, two, three, four, five.
(16:32):
And now on your own.
you to play with it.
(16:52):
Don't let your perfectionismwonder if you're doing it right.
(17:15):
Now I want to invite you to ifit feels okay to put one hand in
your heart and play with thewhere the other hand goes if you
want to place two somewhere youcan put one on the belly right
(17:38):
below your ribs or put one onyour forehead you want to
experiment with putting a pillowjust gently over your forehead.
Sometimes that area loves alittle pressure.
(18:00):
My weighted eye mask can reallydeepen my relaxation.
So you just play around with it.
But as you're Hands make contactwith other parts of your body.
(18:20):
Let's encourage you to noticeit.
See what it feels like ifthere's warmth from your hand
meeting this other part of yourbody.
And again, soften your hand evenwhile it's there.
(18:42):
Soften your jaw.
Soften your eyes, your forehead.
And another hand movement youcan do is you take two fingers,
start at the right where youreyebrows meet, if you have a
(19:06):
unibrow right in the center, andjust take your fingers, two
fingers, and move outward andoutline your face.
You can do both at once, one ata time.
It's like you're making a heartshape, but our vagus nerve
(19:32):
controls our facial expressions.
This is a way to just bringattention to a system in our
body that allows us to feel safeand be ready for social
engagement.
(19:57):
Then I invite you to take yourhands to your shoulders and tap.
I love to do this one where Icross my right hand is tapping
on my left shoulder, my lefthand tapping on my right
(20:18):
shoulder.
And if your mind is racing inthis moment, I just invite you
to count out loud.
If your mind has settled, thenplease feel free to just enjoy
(20:39):
the rhythmic back and forth orcount in your mind.
But we use counting to capturewhen our mind is really racing.
Our mind needs something to do.
Tracking what I'm saying isn'tenough to help reorient it and
(21:01):
settle it down.
So something I learned fromAriel Swartz is this five
principles.
Check in.
And I'm not going to do all fivepoints, but I want to invite you
(21:23):
to do a couple of the points.
And the one is your mind.
If you check in with your mindright now, what do you notice?
Is there a theme?
Is your mind quieter than whenyou started?
(21:45):
Or is it speeding up?
And this isn't a time toevaluate what your mind is
doing.
It's a time to notice and toname and observe what your mind
is doing.
(22:17):
I invite you to notice theemotions that feel present, that
you're aware of.
SPEAKER_01 (22:25):
And
SPEAKER_00 (22:43):
finally, I invite you to notice your energy Are
you feeling done for the day?
Are you feeling laggy, fatigued?
Are you feeling alert,energized?
(23:05):
Check in with your whole system.
(23:36):
Now I invite you to once againnotice your breath.
And I'd love to end our timewith a voo breath.
This is from Dr.
(23:58):
Peter Levine.
And he calls it a voo breath,part because we make a V breath.
with our lips to get thevibration going.
And then as we push the air backinto our mouth, by dropping our
(24:20):
tongue, we make an ooh sound.
So as we exhale, we are firstcapturing the exhale with our
lips, by making a V sound, andthen we soften our jaw, push the
air to the back of our throat sothat it makes deep sound.
(24:46):
I love the image he uses todescribe this, which is we're
making the sound of a lighthousebringing a ship safe into shore.
And so it sounds like this.
You take a natural inhale and onthe exhale.
And we'll do two more.
(25:55):
Just let that settle.
And you can play around with thesounds coming out of your mouth.
The voo sound, you can make a shsound, an ah sound, an oo sound.
(26:24):
And really you can play aroundwith those and see what really
fits with your nervous system.
It could change on any givenday, but it can be a lovely way
of meeting, say, a racing mindand a dysregulated nervous
system and bringing it back intowhat feels like settled and good
(26:51):
enough safety.
It's been a blessing to be withyou.
I wanna remind you, you are asacred being and you matter.
And if you haven't left areview, I would love it.
It helps the algorithm and helpspeople find their way to this
(27:18):
type of regulation.
And I also want to invite you tosign up for my newsletter, which
is called A Moment of Pause.
And there I share with you myreflections.
And every month I have asuggestion for getting in touch
with a certain sense, as well aswhat to do for fun.
(27:42):
And book recommendations, poetryhas a little bit of everything
there.
newsletter at my websitedrkimber.net.
It's been a gift to have you.
(28:05):
Until next time.
Welcome to I Thought I Was Over This Pause.
I'm Dr.
Kimber and I am here to help youregulate your nervous system.
(00:20):
Whether you find yourself in aplace with lots of excitement,
travel, joy, or Or you findyourself in a place that you are
navigating devastating loss or atransition that maybe you didn't
(00:42):
ask for, or even a transitionthat you do welcome.
All of these things areunfamiliar to our nervous system
and our nervous system feelsreally regulated and
uncomfortable.
kind of stress-free when we areentering into circumstances that
(01:04):
are familiar to us, when we areentering into things that are
predictable.
And when we find ourselves, say,starting a new job or entering a
new relationship, these arethings that cause us to have
some stress responses We can getinto fight or flight.
(01:29):
And it doesn't necessarily meanthat it's a bad thing.
Dr.
Dan Siegel will say if you areliving a thriving life and
expanding, growing, all of thosethings, you're going to have
stress.
That's part of it.
And that is why I have createdthese episodes and Because we
(01:52):
need mental fitness.
We need the ability to navigatewhen we are going through new
seasons.
We need to be able to know howto ground ourselves.
Even this week, I have an auraring and it's like, you are not
(02:14):
sleeping well.
And my daughter is visiting fromout of town spontaneously.
And it's all good.
I'm so excited.
But for my nervous system, ithas a hard time.
It has a hard time fallingasleep.
So I find myself implementingthese practices of the deep
(02:39):
breathing and that helps mysystem settle.
So let's get started.
I invite you to find acomfortable position.
So as you settle, I want toinvite you to notice all of the
points of contact that you havewith whatever you're sitting or
(03:04):
standing or lying on.
In the seated position, noticeyour sits bones.
Notice the contact.
anywhere else on your body thatis making contact with a
(03:26):
surface.
In this way, we're just tryingto settle our body in just at
the microcosm level.
When we aren't conscious of it,our body is alert.
And when we notice the weight ofour body, It helps our system
(03:52):
know, oh, we're here to stay.
We're not getting ready to dothe next thing.
That causes me to be just alittle bit ready for that.
So every time you draw attentionto the weight of It allows you
(04:22):
to remind yourself, be here, behere.
You can imagine string pullingyour spine all the way up to the
heavens and all the way down tothe earth.
(04:51):
I invite you to play with yourchin position.
Even if you're laying down, dothis as well because see if
there is a Goldilocks just rightwhere your neck feels completely
supported and your head isdirectly above your head.
(05:22):
your neck, which is above allyour spinal cord.
I invite you to soften yourforehead, soften your jaw, and
(05:43):
take the tongue off the roof ofour mouth.
I invite you to lightly Put itbehind your top teeth.
And in this exercise, we're justreminding our jaw, which is a
place we hold a lot of emotions,just to relax.
(06:06):
It's quite natural to put ourtongue up against the roof of
our mouth.
But when we're pausing, we justsoften it.
And I invite you to soften yourhands.
Just another place we holdtension and wiggle your toes.
(06:41):
And if you're physically ableto, I invite you in this moment
to softly massage your jaw.
As I just mentioned, this is aplace we hold emotions.
So if we just softly massagethere, can alert that system to
(07:11):
let go, relax.
And I understand if you hold alot of tension there, of course,
just this mini massage isn'tgoing to permanently release it,
but we're offering right nowparts of your body support so it
can settle in.
(07:31):
If you're just coming in fromaction and activity and rocking
feels good, I invite you to rockback and forth and do this
slowly and then speed it up andif you are going front to back I
(08:10):
just remind you to make surethat you're going beyond center
that you're actually going backinstead of doing like a half
rock where you're only goingforward and then back to center.
We wanna make it a completemovement.
(08:32):
So the degree forward equals thedegree back or side to side, the
same thing.
Try to keep it even in thismoment but also not being
perfectionistic.
(08:53):
Just play with it.
And from this place of movement,or if you are still, I invite
you to notice the closest sound.
(09:21):
And now I invite you to noticethe farthest sound.
And depending on how you arelistening to this, whether with
headphones or your earsavailable to other things, I
(09:42):
invite you to notice three othersounds.
assuming this recording ispicking up some of the birds.
(10:06):
And if your eyes are open orclosed, I invite you to notice
five things.
And if they're closed, noticeare there any colors behind your
eyelids.
Are there any shapes, lines?
(10:29):
If your eyes are open, noticefive things in your space.
You can take in color, texture,And let's notice two tastes.
(10:57):
What lingering tastes do youhave?
And two smells.
And then let's notice three,points of touch, the temperature
(11:23):
of your body, noticing anyfabric or textures against your
body.
And then notice what it's likeagain to be making contact with
(11:56):
a solid surface wherever thatis.
And then I invite you to useyour head and just notice the
room going to the left all theway back behind you to the left,
(12:26):
moving to the right, and all theway back to the right.
And even if you are laying down,I just invite you to, you know,
do the movements until your earhits the floor of each, each ear
(12:49):
hitting the floor of your head.
And then look up and look down.
(13:11):
And see where your safety landsin your body.
Of course, your mind knows thatyou're safe, but our eyes and
moving our whole head is part oforientation.
And when we orient, it allows usto truly see that we in this
(13:36):
moment are safe.
Should you ever find yourselffeeling unsafe, that's one of
the first things you want to dois to look around, because as we
(13:56):
get nervous, we actually havetunnel vision and it sends a cue
to our body to be more on alert,more ready for fight or flight.
And we always actually want tohave a pause because the feeling
(14:16):
of not feeling safe can besomething from a memory We have
body sensations that enter andfeelings that enter.
And if we can find a pausethere, we can connect our
thinking center with noticingwhat is this that I'm
(14:39):
experiencing and what happenswhen I look around and look for
safety and look for connection,what happens to my system.
And so now...
If it feels comfortable and youreyes are closed, again, I
encourage you to soften youreyes.
If your eyes are open, pleasefeel free to have a soft gaze
(15:04):
and that you're not needing topick up all the details.
And you can just put your eyesat a 45 degree angle.
And let's do a breath, fivecount in, a five count out.
(15:30):
And I'm gonna do that threetimes with you.
And then I'm gonna encourage youto play with your own breath
rhythm of what is the rhythmthat actually helps you feel
that it's not a lot of effortand then it just feels kind of
just right.
So let's count five.
(15:51):
Inhale, two, three, four, five.
Exhale, two, three, four, five.
Inhale, two, three, four, five.
(16:11):
Exhale, two, three, four, five.
Inhale, two, three, four, five.
Exhale, two, three, four, five.
(16:32):
And now on your own.
you to play with it.
(16:52):
Don't let your perfectionismwonder if you're doing it right.
(17:15):
Now I want to invite you to ifit feels okay to put one hand in
your heart and play with thewhere the other hand goes if you
want to place two somewhere youcan put one on the belly right
(17:38):
below your ribs or put one onyour forehead you want to
experiment with putting a pillowjust gently over your forehead.
Sometimes that area loves alittle pressure.
(18:00):
My weighted eye mask can reallydeepen my relaxation.
So you just play around with it.
But as you're Hands make contactwith other parts of your body.
(18:20):
Let's encourage you to noticeit.
See what it feels like ifthere's warmth from your hand
meeting this other part of yourbody.
And again, soften your hand evenwhile it's there.
(18:42):
Soften your jaw.
Soften your eyes, your forehead.
And another hand movement youcan do is you take two fingers,
start at the right where youreyebrows meet, if you have a
(19:06):
unibrow right in the center, andjust take your fingers, two
fingers, and move outward andoutline your face.
You can do both at once, one ata time.
It's like you're making a heartshape, but our vagus nerve
(19:32):
controls our facial expressions.
This is a way to just bringattention to a system in our
body that allows us to feel safeand be ready for social
engagement.
(19:57):
Then I invite you to take yourhands to your shoulders and tap.
I love to do this one where Icross my right hand is tapping
on my left shoulder, my lefthand tapping on my right
(20:18):
shoulder.
And if your mind is racing inthis moment, I just invite you
to count out loud.
If your mind has settled, thenplease feel free to just enjoy
(20:39):
the rhythmic back and forth orcount in your mind.
But we use counting to capturewhen our mind is really racing.
Our mind needs something to do.
Tracking what I'm saying isn'tenough to help reorient it and
(21:01):
settle it down.
So something I learned fromAriel Swartz is this five
principles.
Check in.
And I'm not going to do all fivepoints, but I want to invite you
(21:23):
to do a couple of the points.
And the one is your mind.
If you check in with your mindright now, what do you notice?
Is there a theme?
Is your mind quieter than whenyou started?
(21:45):
Or is it speeding up?
And this isn't a time toevaluate what your mind is
doing.
It's a time to notice and toname and observe what your mind
is doing.
(22:17):
I invite you to notice theemotions that feel present, that
you're aware of.
SPEAKER_01 (22:25):
And
SPEAKER_00 (22:43):
finally, I invite you to notice your energy Are
you feeling done for the day?
Are you feeling laggy, fatigued?
Are you feeling alert,energized?
(23:05):
Check in with your whole system.
(23:36):
Now I invite you to once againnotice your breath.
And I'd love to end our timewith a voo breath.
This is from Dr.
(23:58):
Peter Levine.
And he calls it a voo breath,part because we make a V breath.
with our lips to get thevibration going.
And then as we push the air backinto our mouth, by dropping our
(24:20):
tongue, we make an ooh sound.
So as we exhale, we are firstcapturing the exhale with our
lips, by making a V sound, andthen we soften our jaw, push the
air to the back of our throat sothat it makes deep sound.
(24:46):
I love the image he uses todescribe this, which is we're
making the sound of a lighthousebringing a ship safe into shore.
And so it sounds like this.
You take a natural inhale and onthe exhale.
And we'll do two more.
(25:55):
Just let that settle.
And you can play around with thesounds coming out of your mouth.
The voo sound, you can make a shsound, an ah sound, an oo sound.
(26:24):
And really you can play aroundwith those and see what really
fits with your nervous system.
It could change on any givenday, but it can be a lovely way
of meeting, say, a racing mindand a dysregulated nervous
system and bringing it back intowhat feels like settled and good
(26:51):
enough safety.
It's been a blessing to be withyou.
I wanna remind you, you are asacred being and you matter.
And if you haven't left areview, I would love it.
It helps the algorithm and helpspeople find their way to this
(27:18):
type of regulation.
And I also want to invite you tosign up for my newsletter, which
is called A Moment of Pause.
And there I share with you myreflections.
And every month I have asuggestion for getting in touch
with a certain sense, as well aswhat to do for fun.
(27:42):
And book recommendations, poetryhas a little bit of everything
there.
newsletter at my websitedrkimber.net.
It's been a gift to have you.
(28:05):
Until next time.
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