Manda Scott

What I want to do here is explore ideas and open the space for you to work with the smaller traumas, the little blips of fear that come through every day that really aren't going to knock you off balance if you work with them.

so that your system gets used to the idea that this can happen.

Thawing is a thing.

The fact that we've had a fear all of our lives doesn't mean we have to keep carrying it.

Getting used to this means we can then gradually, slowly, in moments when we're feeling very resourced, begin to work with the bigger things.

I hope that's really clear.

If you need to go back and listen to that again, please do.

And then as an adjunct to that, we have some really basic safety practices that will help you come back into balance if you feel that you are beginning to topple.

So the first is your breath.

Deep, slow, rhythmic breathing is almost impossible if we are juddered.

And conversely, if we are breathing deeply and slowly right down into our abdomens and at a rate where the in-breath is half the length of the out-breath, this in itself sends signals to the rest of our nervous system that things are okay.

So within our group, we work with five, 10, 20 breathing.

which is in for a count of five and then pause, out for a slow count of 10 and then pause, and do this 20 times, which if you are counting at roughly a second per count, means that you'll be doing it for five minutes.

Look back and repeat and see how you feel.

So please do that now and do it as often as you need to until you're feeling relaxed and resourced and resilient.

And then come back and see where we get to next.

And the next step, again, part of our basic physiology is to expand our vision.

If we have very focused, linear vision, looking straight in front in a way that can, say, read words on a screen or focus on the road ahead of you,

or focus on the saber-toothed tiger in the bushes, then our sympathetic nervous system is likely to be activated.

Conversely, if we have that wide, gentle, soft vision that is seeing through an arc of around 180 degrees, our body will take the message that we are safe.