This is the question your hypothalamus is asking your nervous system every moment.
Feeling safe physically and emotionally is essential to our well-being. Depending on our sense of safety, our brain and body will decide if it is time to switch off the relaxation response and turn on the stress response. When the stress response is turned on too often, knowingly or unknowing, from our perception of urgency, pressure or fear it can affect our hormonal equilibrium decreasing our capacity for clear thinking and learning. Over time this can impact our vitality and mental health.
Safety and trust are the reverse of stress and anxiety. Until safety and trust are firmly established, relaxation is not possible in body or mind.
The first healing phase in Aerial Yoga Therapeutics is creating stability and safety. In this phase one learns to become attentive to sensation and breath. These are the building blocks for learning that emotions have a somatic origin and can be regulated through the physical body. As one is empowered with the ability to self-regulate emotion, it becomes accessible to calm the vortex of catastrophising thoughts. When this cycle is interrupted, one ceases to activate the psychological triggers of the stress response allowing parasympathetic functioning to be optimised and a new possibility for healing arises.
You may like to reflect for yourself on these questions:
How many days of the week do you feel driven by a sense of urgency or pressure?
What do you need to feel physically to feel safe?
What do you need to feel emotionally to feel safe?
What do you need to think in order to feel safe?
Try this Aerial Hammock Exercise for Creating Calm
In Aerial Yoga Therapeutics to activate the parasympathetic nervous system we can practice becoming breath aware in a seated posture called ‘saddle’. Here the pelvic floor muscles are gently lengthened by the position of the legs. Notice first that you can fully complete your exhalation, like squeezing out water from a sponge - every last drop of air can be released. Then, when the sense to inhale is felt, relax the pelvic floor and lower abdomen and invite the inhalation to enter the lungs by itself naturally, like witnessing a sponge absorb water, there is no need to force the water into the sponge it will draw it in.
