Thais Gibson

And at the time, I was reading these case studies on these individuals, and the researchers were taking individuals and putting them in fMRI scanners.

And they were getting them in these fMRI scanners to recall triggering experiences where they felt upset.

And then they were watching their brain activity.

And what they found is that participants' brain activity, when they would feel triggered, would drain out of the neocortex regions, like the prefrontal cortex region of the brain, and into the reptilian brain.

And all this activity would come there.

And we've all seen people when they're triggered, they become kind of the reptilian animalistic version of themselves.

And so all of a sudden people would be sitting there in this sort of panicked state.

And what they would find is that people would start being dysregulated, like they would be in sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight.

They would see their heart rate increase or their hair on the back of their neck often stand up.

And then what they had participants do is.

is they had them practice just witnessing their emotions in their body and labeling the sensations, which is a form of somatic processing.

And they had them say, okay, in this experience, instead of being so stuck in the story in their mind, they had them go, oh, I feel anger and anger feels like heat across my chest and down my arms, or I feel anxiety and that feels like butterflies in my stomach and a ball in my throat and a clenching in my jaw.

And when they actually had people go through this,

They found that all this brain activity came back online in the neocortex regions of the brain.

And it was so interesting because Eckhart Tolle has this thing, oh, the pain body, witness your emotion or, you know, be in witnessing consciousness.

And it's so beautiful to see people practice that because in real time when they are triggered.

before they're doing a lot of wound rewiring and meeting their needs, a really powerful practice is to do that form of somatic processing work, which is, yes, do things to train your nervous system through breath work or meditation daily.

All of those things are amazing.

But in those moments throughout the day where you feel those emotions arise, practicing, witnessing the sensations, being with the sensations.

noticing what those sensations feel like in your body it actually takes the emotional charge down quite strongly and it gives people the opportunity to feel re-regulated and back to more of their conscious mind self again and so you know we get people to practice that on a regular basis and it's powerful for emotional regulation but my favorite part of it