Reconnect your mind and body | Hannah 03 | In Therapy with Alex Howard

[@evelinel.9827]

Loved this but one thing that Alex did not mention that is so helpful when we are emotional activated and want to be present with our feelings is conscious breathing. Heartmath breathing is very helpful (4-6 count slow inhales and an equal amount of slow exhales) along with putting our awareness on the emotions/felt sense in the body. This somatic method quiets the mind and allows the emotions to be seen and felt and after a couple minutes they start transforming on their own and gives them the attention they need. In the beginning of my practice it was really difficult for me as someone who suppressed their emotions my whole life and I used to put my hand on my heart and say things to myself like "it is ok to feel whatever you feel" and "I love you" to myself while I was going through this process to keep myself out of my head and stay in the body--and I cried every morning when I did this as I had lots of sadness and frustration from being ill and a lot of repressed emotions from the past. I did months of EFT and it was a good place for me to start this emotional work, but for me after working hard on feeling emotions in the present as much as possible and doing somatic mediation daily I haven't felt the need to use EFT for months and months. Journaling is a good theraputic tool sometimes also. For my thought patterns I have spent a ton of time doing courses, reading books, etc. on the Three Principles' understanding. I have not fully recovered yet, but I have come from barely being able to walk around my house, horrible POTS symptoms along with CFS and chronic pain, to being 70-95% recovered (depending on the day) able to walk a couple miles most days and feeling I will fully recover in the near future.

[@mirandaandrea8215]

Amazing!

[@gillianmcnaught6539]

Thank you Hannah for sharing this session, I look forward to seeing you progress along your journey. As a newly qualified hypnotherapist, this lesson on allowing ourselves to feel our emotions was really helpful. Thank you Alex for sharing your knowledge and expertise, much appreciated

[@Tam438]

trying to 'think your way to safety'...this is SO me! Finding these videos incredibly helpful, thank you 🙌

[@lisadennys6045]

“ Simple but not easy”, that’s for sure. This is so helpful and practical and something every human being needs! I’ve still got work to do, in noticing and accepting what I feel ABOUT my feelings, and letting them just be there for a bit, without trying to get in my head to solve or change anything. It’s a lifelong safety pattern that is taking practice & awareness to shift. I so appreciate the attention to detail in your work, Alex. It is really enlightening.

[@margoarnold1107]

I really enjoyed this episode, both in content and format. I like the format of the whole therapy session in one episode, rather than splitting it into two shorter videos (like previous In Therapy videos). Plus, some of the advice Alex gives is relevant and really resonates with me. And Hannah - thank you for sharing your life and struggles like this! I have some of the same emotional triggers and avoidance strategies that you do, and it's really validating and inspiring to see you doing this work and going on this journey.

[@colleenbarham6567]

This session made a lot of sense. Making space to feel your feelings, and just be with them without trying to distract is very helpful. Giving your self permission to have this experience, I feel builds emotional safety gradually helping the body and mind to feel better. For me I try and practice a body scan in the morning before getting out of the doona,this helps me connect with my emotions and where I am feeling them in my body. This practice helps me feel more grounded and actually I feel more in touch with my body which helps reduce anxiety. Thank-you for a very enjoyable session,which is very helpful.

[@FractalFrameStudios]

Great! That was a new insight on EFT, I look forward to learning more about how to use it without just suppressing emotions (in RESET)

[@spiritualitywithzoe]

Loved this episode out of all the participants i definitely relate to Hannah the most. It's so good to see how much progress she is making. I found it so useful to know that i should just let those feelings be there instead of thinking myself to safety

[@daniw.5481]

I love that you´re giving a clear priority to giving space to the emotions over using the Stop process, Alex. I have noticed for me that the heavy promotion of the Stop process as fundamental for healing (from various sources) has become a source of stress in itself for me and turned stress into the enemy. This is not to say that the stop process is bad, that´s just the effect it had for me. I feel much better since I´ve let go of that pressure to use the Stop process and the confusion about when to do what. I hope it´s okay to recommend a book here that I find really helpful in gaining a healthy perspective on stress, and giving it the power to become an opportunity for growth (both physically and mentally) rather than demonising it: The Upside of Stress: Why stress is good for you and how to get good at it by Kelly McGonigal. The key take-away point so far for me is that how stress affects your body depends heavily on what you make it mean. We´re all being told all the time that stress is bad for your health, and some forms of stress really are (like traumatic or hidden stress). But the danger here is that we become scared of stress, which MAKES stress damaging. The author used to be one of those who preached that stress is bad for you and should be avoided, until she reviewed the research and recognised that it was the BELIEF that stress is bad for your health that made it so. She points out many ways of how to approach stress to turn this around, and avoidance isn´t one of them. The ratio between cortisol and DHEA, for example, plays an exciting role in the effects cortisol has on the body, so strategies to up hormones like DHEA (through connection, for example), and feeling grateful for the fact that your stress hormones prepare your body to rise up to a challenge can alter the hormone cocktail in very beneficial ways, which is super fascinating and I´ve had many opportunities to test this over the past few weeks and have felt surprisingly good despite a super demanding house hunting situation and too much work etc. Whereas before I would have tried to "stop" the stress response and gotten anxious because I wasn´t able to, I now feel grateful for my hormonal squat team and just let the feelings be there and after a while, the stress response subsides all by itself... (I hope this rambling makes some sense rather than confuse)

[@alexnux7364]

"actually feeling the feeling" is the right answer... "we're working on doing this, just allowing the feeling to be there so rather than running with the feeling and being kind of caught" in the trap of compulsions, I could add. Why it's so difficult for OCD sufferers ...

[@alcurtis93]

I think the work you are doing here Alex is really fantastic. Thank you for sharing

[@annec8842]

Fantastic session, thank you Alex! As well, I have deep appreciation for Hannah and all that she is learning about herself in this episode - I'm learning a lot as well :) In particular, I tend to "rev up" too during certain situation in my life, particularly when my achiever kicks in. I never considered leaning into/learning to be with that experience...it always just felt like a run away train. I look forward to giving this a try!

[@Nicole-xo6qk]

Loved this and can relate so much to Hannah! Especially to the music thing :)

[@kingfisher9553]

fabulous take-away with this one.

[@nicmax444]

Wow, resonating so much with these videos!

[@НатальяВасильевнаЗолотарева]

Very interesting and useful as always!

[@melmarston616]

I found this really interesting and came across it from day 1 of the trauma conference. I am interested in how someone can feel safe opening up publicly. So much of therapy is about feeling safe because confidentiality is assured. Any ideas?

[@karenhawkins2707]

How does this relate to feeling heartbrake and loneliness?

[@nicolameredith3668]

i got anxiety emotion my body cant take an more in my life an more in my life hard i am shating my self down in my room a lot i am fuilling down lot i am helpe single some songing with my pop star