Shaking: a great somatic exercise to regulate when you are in Sympathetic (The fight or flight state - Polyvagal Theory)

The more I work with the nervous system and the more I am loving this journey for myself and my clients. 

If you have worked with me before, you know that I combine a bottom up-top down approach in my practice. Somatic exercises are often part of my sessions.

I am a firm believer that you need to understand where your nervous system is at, before engaging with any somatic exercise and learn to listen and trust your body to do so. 

One of my favourite somatic exercises is Shaking. Of course, shaking cannot always be used to regulate, but I have learnt that it is a powerful exercise when we are somewhere in our Sympathetic state. 

I do this with my clients online and with myself, but for once I was able to put into practice what I know in real time with my family. 

My sister was around a few weeks ago (we live in different countries), when we experienced something pretty challenging in regards to our dad's health. 

While we navigated the emergency at the best we could, I saw her going from freeze to sympathetic in the span of 2 hours. And I knew she was in that fine line of suppressing her feelings while internally feeling them, to shutting down to being angry.

Once at home, she was restless and could not engage in conversation with the other family members. I called her and asked her to trust me with something. She did. We shaked together until our bodies had enough and then we paused. As soon as we paused, she started crying. 

I hugged her to co-regulate with her and let her body know that she was safe and she could now let go while the rest of the room gave her space to let it out. She felt better once all the tears were out and she was able to articulate everything that was not able to come out before. 

Within 30 minutes she was then back into homeostasis. 

This journey is not only my work, it's part of me. It's how I take care of myself and the people around me and I just want more people to know that it is possible to work with our bodies to gain control of our brain, behaviours and experiences.