Author: Nancy Napier

One of the things that most of us find challenging is to manage uncertainty. It’s a natural response to be uncomfortable with not knowing what’s going to happen next or where we are headed, individually and collectively. For some people, finding conspiracy theories offers an experience of “knowing what’s going on” that calms the discomfort most of us feel around uncertainly. For others, anxiety becomes a constant companion and they have difficulty truly soothing themselves. For yet others, becoming numb and shutting down is their natural response to constant and mounting uncertainty.

Also, I want to affirm that having a response to uncertainty is certainly normal and not necessarily something that needs the kind of process I’ll describe below, so please be gentle with yourself when circumstances elicit discomfort and anxiety about the future.

As I’ve been thinking about how we can expand our capacity to be uncomfortable and find some degree of equanimity, I found myself thinking about a concept I have taught for many years—a process of uncoupling trauma-based associations, called over-couplings in the Somatic Experiencing® world. Let me define these terms as I did when teaching SE.

Trauma over-couplings are associations that become “glued together” during times of overwhelm or distress. These are individual elements of experience or learnings that actually don’t belong together. One common trauma-based, attachment-oriented over-coupling is: If I do what I want, they (whoever “they” might be) won’t love me. Those two things don’t really belong together and especially so in adult life. Another common trauma-based over-coupling is: Unless I know what’s going on, I won’t be safe. The problem with trauma-based over-couplings is that they predict something that may not, or probably won’t, happen. They often arise from childhood experiences where we were not only ill equipped to have options available to us but when we also weren’t mature enough to understand what was happening. 

I’d like to offer one way to deal with these trauma-based over-couplings. I called it “therapeutic dissociation” in my book, Getting Through the Day, but it’s actually a form of uncoupling adult awareness and options from those arising from earlier overwhelming experience.

Read More “812th Week: Managing Uncertainty”

I had a conversation recently with a friend who was agitated and highly distressed about the current political situation in the U.S. As I listened to them, I found myself wondering if they were aware of the qualities they were radiating into themselves and into the environment around them because of the intensity of their agitation. This got me to thinking about the power and importance of cultivating an awareness of the frequencies with which we resonate from moment to moment.

One of the practices I follow as best I can is to notice the tone and quality of my internal state and how that translates into what energy and qualities I radiate into myself and my environment. This doesn’t mean ignoring distress. If I feel grief and need to actively allow it to process and move through me, or if I feel outrage and need to act on behalf of what I want to support, that’s important too and can happen without generating additional activation. 

Read More “811th Week: Tracking Frequencies, Avoiding “Adding Logs to the Fire””

As we collectively continue to be met with powerful challenges of loss, grief, change, and concerns about the future, having practices available that allow us to ground ourselves, re-center ourselves, and orient to a more heart-centered perception and awareness is more important than ever. One of the practices that I have found comforting during difficult times is to remember that I am part of a much larger context of connection and to orient my awareness toward ways of experiencing that sense of connection.

For this week’s practice, I’d like to share one of the approaches that helps me feel more grounded during times of distress and uncertainty. It relates to something I say all the time, which is, “We’re not in this alone.” As much as we may feel disconnected at times, from an energy perspective, and from the perspective of collective consciousness, it’s impossible for us to be truly alone, impossible not to be connected to our larger collective presence, comprised of each of us and of all our earth-kin.

Read More “810th Week: Cultivating A Sense of Connection”

Going through old files from my office, I came across an article from 1972 which described a process created by Yvonne Martine and taught to me by my mother and grandmother when I was a young person. It’s about a process of “breathing color” to create healing, physical and emotional vitality, and other outcomes. When I reread the article, I decided to begin to use the process more regularly as a form of “energy hygiene” for personal use, as well as a form of subtle activism for collective healing. 

Reading the article reminded me that various colors relate to healing and nourishing different aspects of the body and psyche. My limited understanding of working with color is that each color represents a particular frequency and I know from my experience that shifting frequencies/qualities can shift a mood, a physical symptom, the quality in a room, and more. My first recent experience with breathing pink, which is the most fundamental of Yvonne’s color breathing exercises, arose recently when I woke up two mornings in a row feeling discouraged and in a funk over our collective situation. It’s very unusual for me to go into a funk, so I was glad to have a practice I could engage  that might make a difference. After two days of breathing pink, I awoke on the third day and was back to my usual self. I could only imagine that breathing pink shifted the frequency with which I was resonating and allowed me to return to my more normal way of being.

My experience is that this particular color—rosy pink, specifically—naturally stimulates and orients itself to our heart intelligence and perceptions. As I’ve explored the heart’s perception and intelligence over recent years, it’s become clear to me that the heart sees and interprets experience quite differently than does the head brain. I sense that rosy pink supports cultivating the heart’s perspective and I feel that’s one of the most important things any of us can do at this time. The more I have spent time breathing and imagining rosy pink, the more at ease I have become, even in the presence of challenges. The effect is tangible and noticeable and I can’t shake the feeling that it has to do with having an even more open heart as a result of resonating with the frequency of the rosy pink.

Read More “809th Week: Energy Hygiene and Subtle Activism”