Jake White Healing LLC

Based on our conditioning as a child we can feel that expressing emotions is weak. We feel that we have to be resilient, strong, and independent to survive and cope.

The nervous system points us in the direction of co regulation to find strength. The nervous system actually wants to be supported, loved, and nurtured by others. We find a sense of wholeness that comes from being more open, vulnerable, and expressive.

This teaches us that strength comes from being more vulnerable rather than closed off and protective. As we practice engaging with our emotions we learn to let go of past conditioning and to trust connection and support. We learn to let people in and allow love to support us.

The nervous system and healing will help to guide you toward releasing past protection and opening to more love and connection.

Secure attachment is an active and alive part of ourselves that can be nurtured in the present. We often look at attachment from the lens of our past wounds. We view our past and present as a reflection of lacking support and love.

Secure attachment is actually nurtured in our present life through our relationships. Secure attachment is the physiological response of the nervous system moving toward social engagement. Where we are using the ventral vagal branch of the parasympathetic nervous system to safely engage with others.

When we feel safe in connection with others we can bring attention to the physical response of the body. Noticing our chest open, warmth through our face, warmth in our heart, and settling in our throat. These represent the secure patterns of the autonomic nervous system.

We can reinforce these secure patterns through relationships. We can work on greeting and saying goodbye to others with warmth, we can be open to play and feel a sense of joy, we can work toward repair in relationships, and reach out to others that are in need.

Attachment is always alive and active and secure attachment is waiting for us to open up and connect. Often times self protection is a reflection of the past. Secure attachment in the present supports the nervous system to let go of restriction, numbness, and tension. As we let go of protection from the past we open to safe connection in the present.

Try to open up to these approaches to develop secure attachment and notice what you feel in the felt sense of your body.

The goal in healing the nervous system is not to become peaceful or calm. The goal is to embody the fullness of life.

I think that the nervous system points us toward an authentic experience of life. Where we no longer avoid our feelings and emotions but instead lean into them. Trauma creates a situation where we have to avoid our experience to protect ourselves. Healing is taking a risk to feel our bodies sensations to learn how to become more in touch with our authentic self.

Through connection with the nervous system we get back in touch with our natural cycles. Where we can process something difficult and then open up to more safety and connection. This helps us to embody the ups and downs of life as natural cycles of contraction and expansion.

The goal in healing is not to feel calm or at peace it’s to learn how to support a deeper sense of presence and connection with our nervous systems experience of life.

Shame is not bad or wrong it’s young. It’s a part of you that went through something difficult and did not receive the love, validation, and support necessary to process the emotions that you were experiencing at this time in your life.

If you would have received this support from your attachment figures you would have naturally arrived in more secure expressions of your nervous system. With out this connection you had to resort to shame in order to manage. You had to make yourself responsible for what happened, you had to make yourself wrong, and you had to shame the parts of you the you felt would not be accepted by others.

This is simply what a young nervous system does to cope with difficult and overwhelming situations. When you see shame as young it makes it more approachable. If shame is young then you can process the physical experience and emotions through your sensations.

You can allow your adult capacity to hold your feelings of shame. You can notice your capacity to stay with the feeling, you can notice the strength and stability of your body as you hold the sensation, and you can stop rushing to fix or change your experience and simply allow it be present.

Shame is extremely difficult to feel. It can seems so big and painful to process. It may be too big for a child to feel and experience. It is not to big for an adult that can now work on holding their feelings and processing their shame. The missing piece in shame is connection and regulation of the nervous system. It’s utilizing your adult nervous system to soothe a younger response to stress and overwhelm. Regulating through shame brings you back to stability and safety in your body and nervous system.

Healing trauma is a gradual process of learning how to feel, contain, and release stress from our autonomic nervous system. This creates new positive conditions in relation to our bodies responses in the present moment. Meaning we may feel shaking and trust our body to release, express our tears and validate our emotions, or feel our healthy aggression as a self protective response. The exciting part about these new conditions is that they replace the old ways that we managed and contained our feelings of fear and overwhelm. New conditions and permission to feel leads to peace and resolution and a step out of past instances of trauma that we managed and coped with. Our capacity to heal comes from connecting with our body and providing the space necessary for this release to occur. Through this gradual process we gain capacity to move through the self protective responses of our traumas.

When we work with the nervous system we find incremental changes in our self. We notice little changes that indicate a growth in capacity. Where we have developed more connection with our parasympathetic nervous system and this allows us to meet our bodies sympathetic response to life.

A small change toward capacity could be staying with a difficult sensation while staying present and grounded, staying with our body when we feel dysregulated, noticing changes in an emotion when we stay present with it, noticing difficult sensations lasting for a shorter period of time when we stay present for them.

In a therapeutic setting changes come from little moments that are repeated over and over again. Taking time to bring attention to a tightening of our neck, a weight in the chest, following a shaky felling in our legs, or tracking an emotion of sadness in our heart. When shared with a therapist these sensations feel less overwhelming to navigate. These little moments give us a sense of safety with our body and teach us how to attune to ourselves.

Overtime this leads to a growth in capacity where we can safely navigate our stress response. Reestablishing a safe connection with the felt sense of our body.

Eventually the mind and body have to start working together. Our mind has to be consistently reassured that it’s now safe to feel. We can reassure ourselves that it’s okay to feel the shaking, tears, weight, contraction, and overwhelm. These experiences are incredibly difficult but we can process them in the present.

Our body is designed to process these sensations. Reassurance allows the mind to work on acknowledging and accepting our feelings. We no longer have to protect ourselves through distractions, quick fixes, staying busy, or shaming our emotions. We can allow emotions to have space in our body to be processed while reminding ourselves that it is okay now.

This brings the mind and body together where we have less resistance and reactivity in our nervous system, and more presence, calm, ease, and grounding. When the mind is free from self protection it has room to plan, organize our life, and create solutions to problems. This is exactly the role that our mind is meant to play.

Consistently reassure yourself that it now safe to feel and practice intentionally settling your thoughts. Give yourself space to feel your bodily sensations and trust that your body is meant to process these feelings. You may notice that sensations of tension and stress begin to lighten and soften when they have permission to exist. Our thoughts are soothed through the felt experience of regulation in our autonomic nervous system.

In grief there is a collapse that we experience in the nervous system. This collapse is the empty space that a person or being filled in our heart and soul.

In grief it’s okay to collapse into this space. To feel the depth of our sadness, to allow our body to move toward the floor, to allow someone to support our weight during a hug, and to divert our gaze and cover our face.

In order to heal grief we have to move through this contraction. Eventually our posture will open, we will feel lighter, and our emotions will settle. We will begin to engage in the present moment and open to our present life.

Grief is a process of contracting into loss and then opening to present connection. As we grieve we honor the empty space that a loved one occupied in our heart and soul. The love for this person or being, is what pulls us through and fills this space.

I often feel that my emotions create my relationship with myself. My relationship with my emotions dictates how I will relate to my life and others.

These five simple approaches to emotional regulation help us to build this relationship with our sensations and emotions. This relationship is always a work in progress and through these five approaches we are doing our work.

As we work on these techniques they become second nature. We may notice an emotion and place a hand on it to hold and support the feeling. We may feel frustration and create more space in the body to feel our aggression. We may notice the whole chest, shoulders, and arms and feel the anger move through these parts of the body. We may slow down to create time for a feeling to be followed and tracked. Giving ourselves time and space for the emotion to be experienced.

Through these small changes we are shifting the historical relationship that was created in relation to emotions. In the past we may have had an absent parent that never nurtured us through our feelings, we may have had to grow up quick and did not have time to feel vulnerable, and we may have been told to get over it which led to a pattern of self shaming around our feelings.

These simple approaches gives us the time, acceptance, patience, understanding, and support that we need to reclaim our relationship with our feelings.

Try to apply these techniques to your own life and experience. Try to practice on a daily basis and notice what changes occur in your relationship with yourself and others. The long term outcome of emotional regulation is joy, aliveness, authenticity, peace, and self acceptance.

These are the things I try to be conscious of when I feel stressed. I used to have an extremely small container for stress. I pushed stress away and avoided my feelings, judged and shamed myself for the way I was feeling, I did not know how to be with my emotions through my body, and I would often look externally for solutions to my problems.

Now I practice growing my capacity for my stress response. Regulation actually comes from being able to have more room in our body to process emotions. I will often become conscious of this larger container that I have now when I am stressed.

I can feel my stress through my body by noticing my chest, abdomen, hips, arms, legs, and feet.

I also can work toward acceptance of my stress. I don’t have to push my stress away and I can treat it as a present experience.

I also can expand my container by noticing moments of joy and self expression. These are healthy ways that my sympathetic nervous system mobilizes to connect with my environment. This expansion helps me to feel more of my body and connects me with my life energy.

Through these examples I am helping my nervous system to no longer shut down or freeze in relation to stress. I am working on being present with my difficult feelings. This supports me to slowly feel safer in feeling connected to myself and to life. When I had a small container I avoided connection. This was necessary to keep me safe in the past. Now I can work on these somatic approaches that help grow my capacity to process stress and overwhelm.

Let us know in the comments how you develop acceptance and understanding for your stress response.

For me this program offers a space for healing and connection. We meet in a circle to explore the topics of the nervous system, self care, forgiveness, and healing and repair. We all have a forgiveness story that needs to be embodied. Forgiveness is that act of letting go of the past so we can step into something new and expansive. We can’t carry our shame, resentments, and generational patterns with us through life and expect to grow

We have to forgive in order to move forward in our life. In a group setting we will support each other toward learning how to forgive. We do this through new approaches to support our nervous system, understanding how trauma shaped our lives, and learning how to let go and forgive the ways that we coped and adapted to trauma.

The program will offer a deeper understanding of how to move forward in life through healing rather than recreation of the past. The group will support each individuals healing process through the self forgiveness program.

To learn more visit the link in my bio.

Attachment is always alive and active. Underneath our fears, insecurities, and overwhelm there is a need for connection. When an attachment need is met we begin to settle, we feel warmth in our chest, we feel lighter, and we feel more clear and present.

When we are seen and noticed by another person it brings us back to the bodily response of regulation. This regulation is what we have needed in order to repair our attachment wounds. With out secure attachment we feel exposed, shaky, burdened, and always on edge and searching.

When we can feel attachment through our sensations of the nervous system than we feel connected. We feel safe in our environment and in our body. Secure attachment in our present life, gives us a sense of belonging. The ways that we have had to struggle for connection and love begin to settle and relax. We find a sense of belonging in the present moment and with the people around us.

Secure attachment is something we have to continue to work on. Finding practices that support us to be present with our sensations. Learning how to meet our stress response through being present with our physical reaction. Learning to come back to safe and secure resources in our present life and feel the response of the body. Paying attention to the changes that happen in ourselves when we consistently validate and connect with our feelings and emotions.

This builds a new baseline of connection and support in our nervous system. Where we can become more open to people that provide secure attachment. Where we feel heard, seen, and loved by others. Through this process we heal our past attachment wounds through safety and security in our present life. All of us have an incredible capacity to heal our attachment wounds.

In moments of trauma we can’t fully be present or belong. We can’t belong in a moment where we are threatened, we can’t belong when we are being shamed, and we can’t belong in moments where we have to quickly react for survival.

In moments of trauma being present leaves us exposed to more harm and more emotional energy that we can’t process.

When we use the protective energy of fight and flight to get us to safety then the nervous system can move toward rest and digest. We begin to settle and arrive more fully in the present. We begin to feel more open and connected to our surroundings. This establishes a sense of belonging through connection with ourselves in the present moment. Trauma causes a loss of connection to this present.

When we feel disconnected it is often caused by parts of our experience still living in the past. When we work on releasing the protective response of the body by following present sensations then the nervous system can reset. It resets into a present sense of safety and belonging where we are no longer repeating the traumatic memory of the past.

Healing occurs when we let go of threat so we can fully belong to ourselves in the present. When the sensations of our body are experienced as safety rather than the constant replaying of threat and survival.

When we notice a negative belief we can work on supporting a positive connection with ourself.

Beliefs push us into our patterns of fight, flight, and freeze. We become reactive, confused, nervous, shaky, closed, and collapsed in the midst of negative beliefs.

There is a choice in these moments. Do we enroll in a negative pattern that identifies ourselves as a problem to be fixed? Do we enroll in a pattern that keeps us stuck or do we open up to a new approach?

A new approach could be relaxing our thoughts, softening our posture and settling into our body, noticing the sensation that we feel in the moment, feeling the sadness or hurt that is present in this moment, and acknowledging and letting our body process the feeling.

Through this simple approach we give ourselves a tool to work with in these moments where beliefs are present. We do not add more reactivity and stress to our nervous system. We lessen our stress through regulating the feelings that are present in this moment.

Overtime this can help us to feel more positive in ourselves, it can help us to feel safer in our body, and rebuilds a sense of trust with in ourselves. We have a tangible tool to work with when our beliefs surface and impact our life.

One of the main items that I am always looking for in a somatic experiencing session is agency. In trauma we are forced into situations where we have not control over our environment or body.

When we do not have control the nervous system moves into its sympathetic response to regain agency. When this is not possible then the nervous system moves into the freeze and fawn response. We become numb, absent, invisible, and immobile.

We cannot reclaim agency because we are unable to use our mobilized energy to protect ourselves.

When working with a recent client I noticed their agency emerge as they extended their hand out to protect themselves. We explored this hand movement and they expressed that they were pushing someone away from them. We worked with this response by standing up and pushing with both arms together. I noticed the mobilization of their nervous system as they pushed. The muscles on their shoulders became active, their heart rate increased, and there was strength to their posture. They talked about fights in their childhood home spilling into their room. We felt the strength of their body to hold their door closed in order to protect themselves. They felt their adult strength protecting their childhood self. Reclaiming agency over their space and their body.

They then settled back into the chair and their chest became softer as they breathed. We then talked about ways that they could use this protective energy to create agency in their present life. They talked about stepping away from arguments and no longer staying on the phone with angry clients at work.

This helped them to find an explicit use of their protective response rather than this energy being held in past implicit memory.

Somatic experiencing helped the client to gain present agency over their life and to utilize their protective energy to reclaim a sense of power and control. While agency was lost in the past it was reclaimed in the present.

Sometimes we attempt to preserve our attachment with a person while ignoring our authentic feelings. We may feel hurt, disregarded, or taken advantage of and then make an excuse for the person.

When this happens we suppress our gut feelings. We overlook the tension in our chest, the tightening of our shoulders, and the shakiness in our hands and legs.

These are signals in our body that tell us that we are under threat. They are signals that tell us to run or to fight in order to keep ourselves safe.

In somatic work we pay attention to these signals. Often times when a client honors there instincts they begin to feel empowered and protective. They feel as if they can be completely honest with themselves and with the person that harmed them. They can actually mobilize their energy to protect themselves from harm.

When they fawned to protect the other person they put themselves in a vulnerable positive where they had to stay connected to a person who was not providing safety and security.

Remember that it’s okay to not like someone. It’s okay to say no to someone’s behavior. We can work on honoring our gut instincts to validate ourselves and our authentic experience. This gets us back in touch with our personal power and agency over our life.

Traumatic situations create a lack of choice. I may not be able to choose to leave the environment that I am exposed to, I may not have the choice to protect myself, I may not have the capacity to soothe my own feelings and emotions, and I may not be able to fully exist in my environment.

In the absence of choice my nervous system has to react to protect me. My sympathetic nervous system takes over in relation to the environment that I have no control over. With out being able to run away or protect myself the freeze response takes over. I begin to become small, absent, invisible, and numb.

Everyday I can now support choice. I can choose to leave an environment that feels unsafe. I can set a boundary and tell someone no, I can choose to connect with my body and notice my feelings and emotions. I can choose to be around people that make me feel positive and energetic. I can choose to show up and be engaged.

When I have choice I feel a sense of control and balance. In the past when I did not have choices I felt small, frightened, hopeless, and powerless.

Try to remember these five elements of choice. Choosing your environment, relationships, self-connection, boundaries, and engagement. When you make choices in these areas of your life you are healing the part of yourself that did not have the freedom to choose.

Titration is one of the most important practices in somatic experiencing. Titration is a process of slowly moving toward a sensation or emotion.

We tend to move away from difficult sensations because they are overwhelming. We are often caught in this cycle where we want to feel connected to our body but we are also afraid of the feelings that we experience through life.

Titration gives us a practice to slowly integrate difficult sensations into our conscious awareness. We may be able to notice a burning, tension, restriction, or shaky sensation in the body. We can notice this sensation and then find a resource for ourselves. Resources such as breathing, grounding, orienting, or tapping are used to connect with our body through stress. These tools become more accessible to resource the more that we use them in our daily life.

When we find a resource then we can slowly move our attention back to our difficult sensations. Noticing little bits of the activation while slowing down enough to feel some of the tightening, restriction, or shaking in our body.

When we go toward the feeling we are not trying to change it or make the feeling go away. We are trying to create a pattern of moving toward tension to process the sensation. With ourselves or through the guidance of a practitioner or therapist we learn how to safely process overwhelming sensations.

We learn this practice of titration and how to support ourselves. We learn to turn toward ourselves for support in moments where we feel anxious or overwhelmed. We grow our capacity every time we integrate even the smallest amounts of stress into our present experience.

Ruptures are easy to spot in our life. When we feel hurt in relationship it can be so painful. Feelings of rejection, abandonment, and feeling judged are some of the most painful experiences that we can go through.

Humans are built for connection. We come into life with the need to connect and attach to our mothers and fathers. This is why rupture in relationship is so painful, connection is essential for sustaining life.

We feel the pain of rupture when we go to engage with someone and they do not reciprocate, when we are left or abandoned by someone we care about, or when we share an emotion and are not received with kindness and warmth. We feem this rupture as our head turns away, we become shaky and cold, or we feel sadness and frustration.

We don't always observe our own repair during these moments. Repair is the biological need to find connection and safety in relationship. Repair could come from our understanding that we were trying to connect with is healthy even if others can't reciprocate. Repair could be our capacity to move toward our own emotions by feeling our throat and chest where we experience our pain and suffering. Repair could come from our own awareness that our feelings are okay and belong here in the present.

Through repair we are reminding ourselves to connect. We are reminding ourselves that painful feelings need to be held and supported in order to be repaired. When we critique our feelings we cause another rejection and cause more rupture. Repair helps us to move toward our emotions in order to support our nervous system.

These are some of the ways that I create repair for myself. I would love to know in the comments what you plan to do to create repair next time you experience a rupture in relationship.

So many unexpected changes when we are working with the nervous system. We can notice these shifts and watch as our internal experience and external life begins to regulate. The most common thread is a general sense of well-being that does not just exist in our body. It's a sense of well being that spreads through our life.

I am curious what changes you notice as you have worked on regulating your nervous system. I would love to hear from you in the comments.

We have all heard that in order to heal we need to feel. Yet we do not always let the nervous system inform us in what would be healing. In a somatic session we may notice that when a client is guided toward feeling they become overwhelmed and feel trapped and panicked. As the practitioner I may think that this person is healing because they are feeling something.

Yet their nervous system is actually recreating a traumatic memory and is being pushed into the body's freeze response where they are disconnecting from processing their feelings.

If I observed the nervous system I may take a different approach. I may notice the clients resistance toward feeling and honor this need. I would observe that feeling is too much at this time. We may then move away from feeling as the client talks about their life. Talking to me may actually create a feeling of connection with me as the practitioner. Through this connection the client may feel lighter and more grounded. They may notice this feeling in their hands, arms, and through their chest.

As we then talk about a past event they may notice feeling tighter, restricted, and recall feeling sad and trapped. The client may observe these feelings while still feeling grounded and alive in their body. The aliveness from our connection may still be present for them. They may be able to feel these sensation in relation to trauma while still having a sense of connection with their body.

Honoring the clients need to move away from feeling actually gave them a sense of regulation. This regulation led to them being able to approach trauma with out being overwhelmed and consumed by the emotions, sensations, images, and postures in relation to this memory.

In the session we used the wisdom of the clients nervous system to guide the healing process. We let go of the agenda of feeling is healing in order to support the client. Overtime this will lead to a slow process of being able to feel more and more of the bodies responses to stress in order to heal from trauma.

Feeling is not always healing and we have to support the clients nervous system in order to heal.