There are conscious somatic cues that you can apply when in a triggered experience, to support the body and brain in returning to homeostasis so it can recover from a heightened episode:

1. BREATHE

Intentional breathwork pattern interrupts your mind from spiralling/snowballing off into unfavourable thoughts. Breathing deep breaths helps to re-regulate the nervous system and draws it into a parasympathetic state of groundedness and calmness. Catching yourself and breathing through it stops you moving into high emotionality which usually spirals into reactive behaviour. Calming the NS through the breath helps in switching off your innate survival mechanisms. This means you can respond from an unemotionally charged space when you’re not in a sympathetic state (fight-fight-freeze) and your executive, logical, cognitive mind is switched on

2. ENGAGE

Engage with your body. Take notes of what your body is expressing in the trigger eg sensations, posture, phonation, pulsating, heart rate, heaviness, dizziness, tingling, twitching, speed of breath, body temp etc. The reason being, it’s through sensory storage and messaging that our body communicates. The body holds keys that can help us to identify, access and resolve past painful experiences that are imprinted on us in our tissue memory. Triggers activate these neurobiological traces of past memories and traumas so they provide valuable information to us

3. IDENTIFY

Identify what contributed to the change in homeostasis so that you’ve awareness around what showed up. Usually it’s external stimuli that reminds us of something in the past that activates a shadow, layer, childhood program and limiting belief. Identify at what point in time and what part of the body began experiencing disturbances. This will give information about where energy is stuck and imprinted

4. REPLAY

Replay the situation from calm to stressed state. Identify people, conversations, objects or behaviors that appeared which activated the stress responses. As you recall, tune in to body sensations and notice any shifts in energies, sensations of tingling, tensing, warming, numbing or cooling in your chest, arms, legs, face or overall body temp change