^{A's to your Q's}

Being triggered means we have had our unresolved trauma activated and we are no longer present with what is actually happening, but rather we are reacting to the past.

This means that our survival energies are “up” (fight/flight and/or freeze) and when we are in survival mode it is much harder to access the part of the brain that remembers our practices (the neocortex) because we are being dominated by our brainstem (survival brain) and limbic centres (emotional brain).

This is why practicing and cultivating our internal and external resources via the practices when we are NOT triggered is absolutely crucial.

It’s the same as a musician rehearsing for a big show — they rehearse until the music is in their muscle memory so that when the stress and bright lights of the big performance arrive they don’t have to think about the music, they can just play.

Orienting is the single most important basic tool in this program, and for good reason.

Being simultaneously aware of both the environment and our internal response is something ALL mammals (except for us) do automatically and all the time except for when they are asleep. It’s an awareness we are supposed to have ticking away whenever we are engaged with the world. It’s a fundamental part of being alive, and yet so few of us know how to do it at all. Also for good reason.

This is because trauma and chronic stress happen in the environment. They happen in relation to people and things in our space. As a result, most of us learn very early on to either not pay attention to the environment because it’s too unsafe (resulting in things like clumsiness, being ‘accident prone’, and having a tendency to dissociate), or we pay attention to the environment in a way that is driven by hypervigilance (resulting in experiences like anxiety and chronic tension).

So can you see why slowing down and attempting to engage in a gentle, natural curiosity could bring up SO much?

Most of us have avoided doing this for our whole life because being relaxed, curious, and aware in our environment was not possible when we were kids, or for some period later in our life. So, engaging with our self and our environment in some way, especially when that support and engagement may not have existed in our early lives or which has been overwhelmed by sustained stress at some point, will invariably bring up the stress and trauma we experienced during those times.

So, we may resist doing it at all or, if we try, we may check out into daydreams or distract ourselves with racing thoughts, get angry, irritated, anxious or feel like we hate this and it’s pointless. We might feel nauseous or feel nothing at all, etc. All these experiences happen because we are stirring up those old stuck body memories and emotions, and our system is trying to protect us from feeling any of that again.

If you hate it, or just don’t see the point, or think it’s stupid (when in reality it is an absolutely crucial part of simply being alive and in connection to the world) it’s probably very important for you to do, but in smaller doses to start. A minute here, 5 minutes there.

Sometimes there may also be very specific traumas that have to do with some sector of our environment, like we don’t want to look to the left because that’s where that bicycle came from that hit us, or I don’t want to look up and to the right because that’s where my father always stood, over my right shoulder, yelling at me while I tried to do my homework. Or, maybe we ALWAYS want to pay extra close attention to those sectors to keep an eye out for bicycles and angry fathers, and we miss the rest of our environment. There can also be physical pain and tension that build up from always avoiding or habitually going towards certain areas in our field of vision.

When we manage to do a bit of orienting to the safety around us, even a little bit is often a huge change for our nervous system, and afterwards we may feel nauseous, have a headache, or feel absolutely exhausted.

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS NORMAL 🙂

The only way out is through. We need to keep doing it in whatever bits we can manage, as often as we can manage it, even if that only means one minute a day to start. Remember, this is an awareness that we are supposed to have online all the time, unless we are asleep. It is a fundamental shift in our entire way of being in the world and in relationship to our environment, and that’s why it can bring up so much.

Orientating could definitely be considered a kind of mindfulness, and there are different kinds of mindfulness practices.

Oftentimes mindfulness simply means paying attention to your internal experience as it is.

This is usually done with the eyes closed, but the problem with that for people who have unresolved trauma is that for them, the internal experience of the body is commonly either scary or numb, which can lead to people feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or dissociated and checked out.

That’s why orienting is about noticing the safety actually present in the environment, which does mean that this practice is best supported by a safe, relatively unstimulating environment at first, and later can be practiced all the time in places that may be more stimulating, like at the grocery store or on a city street.

Simultaneously, orienting is about noticing our internal experience in relationship to that safe external place. This is an opportunity to help introduce parts of the physiology that may be stuck in survival mode from past trauma to the safety actually present in the environment.

So you could say it’s a kind of internal/external mindfulness that is informed by the physiological realities of trauma.

If having the eyes open feels too overwhelming, one can close the eyes and orient to the external/internal with the other senses. We can feel our butt on the seat, our feet on the floor; we can hear the sounds around us and smell the air, and notice our internal experience in relation to those things.

Along with this, we can experiment with having our eyes in a soft gaze with the eyelids very relaxed, but still open a bit. We can also titrate the journey between our eyes closed and having our eyes more open to varying degrees, or just orient to things very close – our clothes, shoes, or the floor.

There are other practices of mindfulness that involve the breath, and generally this means simply noticing what our breath is naturally doing, as it is. Then there are other practices that are all about controlling the breath in different ways. With orientation, we want to lean towards the first one of these options.

We may find though that our breath, as it occurs naturally, in the moment, doesn’t feel ‘natural’. It may feel shallow, constricted, or gasping and deep, or fast, and that can be scary to tune into. Again, granted the environment actually is safe, these breathing experiences are often a sign of the past body memories of trauma arising.

So the idea is, if possible, to just allow the breath to be whatever way it is and notice the safety in the environment in some manner, eyes open or closed, whichever is easier.

Usually, if we can just allow the breath to do what it is doing, and keep tuning into safety in some way, the breath will eventually start to change, so then we notice that change in us, and the safety in the environment again, back and forth, or even simultaneously. If you find yourself feeling like you can’t breathe or are getting overwhelmed, definitely do whatever you need to do to settle. You can manage your breath in a familiar and calming way, or leave the practice and soothe in whatever way is best for you, and then try again when you feel up to it.

it’s important to note that for some, orienting is quite pleasant and relaxing right off the bat. Awareness deepens and so does the sense of internal safety and relaxation. And that is awesome. As we get deeper into other aspects of the work and things start to shift and surface, that could also change and you might experience a layer of activation when orienting, and that’s also awesome. It means those old wounds are rising to the surface to be healed.

Orienting is the single most important basic practice in this course, and for good reason. 

Being simultaneously aware of both the environment and our internal response is something ALL mammals (except for us) do automatically and all the time, except for when they are asleep. It’s an awareness we are supposed to have ticking away whenever we are engaged with the world. It’s a fundamental part of being alive, and yet so few of us know how to do it at all. Also for good reason.

This is because trauma and chronic stress happen in the environment. 

They happen in relation to people and things in our space. As a result, most of us learn very early on to either not pay attention to the environment because it’s too unsafe (resulting in things like clumsiness, being ‘accident prone’, and having a tendency to dissociate), or we pay attention to the environment in a way that is driven by hyper-vigilance (resulting in experiences like anxiety and chronic tension).

So, can you see why slowing down and attempting to engage in a gentle, natural curiosity could bring up SO much? 

Most of us have avoided doing this for our whole life because being relaxed, curious, and aware in our environment was not possible when we were kids and into later life. 

So engaging with our self and our environment in this way, which was often NOT supported when we were young or which was overwhelmed by sustained stress at some point, will invariably bring up the stress and trauma we experienced during those times when we lacked any support. 

So we may resist orienting at all or, if we try, we may check out into daydreams or distract ourselves with racing thoughts, get angry or irritated or anxious, feel nauseous or feel nothing at all, etc.

These experiences happen because we are stirring up those old, stuck body memories and emotions, and our system is trying to protect us from feeling all that again. 

Sometimes there may also be very specific traumas that have to do with some sector of our environment, like we don’t want to look to the left because that’s where that bicycle came from that hit us, or I don’t want to look up and to the right because that’s where my father always stood, over my right shoulder, yelling at me while I tried to do my homework. 

Or, maybe we ALWAYS want to pay extra close attention to those sectors to keep an eye out for bicycles and angry fathers, and we miss the rest of our environment. There can also be physical pain and tension that build up from always avoiding, or habitually going towards, certain areas in our field of vision.

When we manage to do a bit of orienting to the safety around us, even a little bit is often a huge change for our nervous system, and afterwards we may feel nauseous, have a headache, or feel absolutely exhausted.

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS NORMAL 🙂

The only way out is through. 

We need to keep doing it in whatever bits we can manage, as often as we can manage it, even if that only means one minute a day to start. Remember, this is an awareness that we are supposed to have online all the time, unless we are asleep. It is a fundamental shift in our entire way of being in the world and in relationship to our environment, and that’s why it can bring up so much.