Yes. One thing I do a lot is extend my outbreaths - so I'll just sit and focus on my breathing, full in breath, squeeze all the air out on our breath, and let the breaths get slower.
Then maybe I'll do a brain scrub thing where you count, but not if I'm not feeling up to it.
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That's most of what I do. Just trying to chill out my nervous system and develop focus. I've got a visualisation I do sometimes to poke around my brain but it's not my main priority.
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Prana is supposed to be pretty good for any anxiety, trauma-type issues. I don't do enough breathing exercises myself. Been working on that recently.
Do you do any work around sensations in the body when you're doing this?
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I often focus on breathing sensations. I also do body scan sometimes, but I'm a physical therapy person with really sensitive body awareness anyway so it isn't relaxing for me as it seems to be for many.
Usually I use it to try to let go my urge to Fix The Problem Immediately
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It, hah, isn't relaxing at all and requires a lot of concentration to not just stand up and fix a weirdly sitting hip or whatever.
Wbat might be a good idea is that thing where you focus on the physical sensations of strong feelings.
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I think I might be shying away from meditation while upset because I think the emotions will distract my focus - and they will, but I've done the "find the feeling in the body and sit with that" thing before and... Well not enjoyed it per se, but you get the idea.
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That is not entirely what I am thinking of. Just sitting with a feeling and not doing anything is very Vipassana, renunciate stuff. Not my line.
The problem is freezing, anxiety. The desired outcome is healthy bodily *responses*. The means is acceptance and sometimes action.
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So the idea becomes that if you have something like a fear response, you don't go "oh there's fear! ... oh, more fear ... Huh, fear!"
If anything, that's retraumatizing when the feeling is strong. Dissociation exists for good reason...
Instead...
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... you strengthen yourself *first*, so your prana routine is great for that. Lots of breath control. Good stuff.
*Then*, you don't just feel. You fully experience. What does the body stuff come from? Where does it go? What does it want?
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The strengthening aspect is super important. I ignored it for a while when my practice lapsed, and went completely batshit bananas for a while.
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When your breathing practice is strong enough to just chill out, you enter the body work. You let those sensations just be, but you listen.
Then you evaluate how to respond. It's OK to get really emotional here. You want to *unblock* stuff. Best practiced in temporary seclusion!
If it bleeds into everyday stuff, that's fine. But the correct work then is to focus on the breathing work.
With time, you'll feel ready to feel stuff out in real time. That takes a bit of courage, but it's sooo rewarding!
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This is all cutting work, and a bit risky to just about anyone if not done in conjunction w/therapy.
Basically everyone has some level of embodied trauma. This cuts into that.
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Ah, I think this is the trick I'm missing. Because yes, I'm not looking for detachment - and you're right, from experience that does feel like it errs dangerously close to a freeze response, which I reallt don't want to reinforce after spending this much effort unlearning it.
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Fortunately I have the background here in body work/trauma/neurological stuff here - just finished The Body Keeps The Score which was amazing but wasn't my first intro to this idea.
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