"In first chakra work, however, the energetic statement made by the body is more important than the emotion itself. Keeping the person in touch with bodily sensations rather than focusing on the emotions helps provide containment for difficult, traumatic material."
Conversation
"The person can focus on what her body is doing without getting lost in the feelings, which are more characteristic of the second chakra. This is done through constant reference to and mirroring of the physical processes that are experienced during the session."
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(i used to do this a lot with rationalists specifically, very interesting to see it framed as specifically a root chakra thing. have since wandered back and forth between bodily sensation stuff and feelings stuff and belief stuff, nice to get more of a map of the territory here)
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"I find it useful to have clients draw their own body" noooooo this sounds way too scary to do 😰
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hey nice, "body dialog," we're on more familiar territory now. this is like somatic IFS basically right? the sentence structure "i am my [body part] and i..." specifically is not something i have tried, seems like it could be fun
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"affirm the physical": touch, massage, exercise, exaggerate physical responses, new physical responses. "It is not as easy to retreat energetically when the feet are planted firmly on the floor. To support the new structure, she must instead confront, say no, get angry..."
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"work on the feet": interesting bits here. "Doing psychological work while standing increases the body’s energy, allows greater assertiveness, overcomes passivity, and supports independence. The mere act of standing is an assertion of autonomy." have not tried this!
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"grounding exercise": "bend and straighten his knees several times slowly, inhaling while bending and exhaling while straightening and pushing them into the floor... If this exercise is done correctly, a mild trembling in the legs will begin."
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"regressive techniques": rebirthing, moving legs while lying down, reaching forward with hands while suckling with lips (i saw someone do this spontaneously once!). appreciate the warning at the end about boundaries and transference and countertransference
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"It is my belief that if a person’s ground is not somewhat intact, all other work is less effective. If the ground is intact, subsequent work proceeds in a more coherent fashion and strengthens the ground." hmhmhmhmhm
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anyway that's it for the root chakra chapter i don't wanna just post the entire book on twitter so i'll probably leave it here unless the 2nd or 3rd chakra chapters *really* fuck me up, check this book out! "eastern body, western mind" by anodea judith