Today I’ve been thinking about some questions some clients were asking me, such as; how do you stay in relationship with someone, when they are not being relational with you? When they push back at you or make you wrong. When they are judging you or shaming you? How do you stay in relationship when that is your experience? Well, that takes a lot of practice! To stay self-connected first, especially when other people are labeling you or judging you, or making you wrong, our automatic habit for most of us, is to defend ourselves. We take it personally, especially when it’s about us. That makes sense. Yet, when we take it personally, we’ve actually left the relationship ourselves.
So, how is it possible to keep our heart open, curious and warm? For me, that requires that I stay in relationship with myself first. That I recognize when I feel shocked and I feel what that’s like in my body. Maybe there’s a stunned sensation on my face, maybe there’s a tightening across my forehead. Maybe my belly clenches of my heart starts to pound.
I can know that I’m being activated in my sympathetic nervous system with “fight” reflex, if my arms start to tingle. Or maybe I feel like running away really fast if my legs get a lot of energy going. That’s letting me know what’s happening in my body, how my system is responding in the moment to my environment.
So, the first thing I want to encourage anyone to do, is to stay self-connected first. Because unless we are self-connected, we are not going to see all of the options that are available to us in the moment.
When I have an activation of my sympathetic nervous system, or if I have my parasympathetic dorsal activation, if I go into immobilization, then my body has already determined that it’s not only not safe, but that there is nothing that I can do. So my body is doing it’s best to protect me from having pain by numbing me out.
In order to stay present, I need to breathe first off. To slow down and take a moment to drop into my heart and take a breath, to help me stay right here, right now. And to notice the sensations that I’m experiencing, whatever they may be. Allowing those sensations to link me into the feelings, the emotional state that has been called up in the moment by my body. Then, recognize what it is that I value. What is it that I’m needing, in this moment?
The intention that I hold, that supports me the most, is for heart-connection, with anybody that I’m meeting or communicating with, or wherever I am in my day. And that first starts with me, am I heart-connected with myself? Or am I caught up in my thoughts? When I’m caught up in my thoughts then I’m not really present or relational myself.
So, when I notice that it seems like someone is pushing back at me, I want to notice what I’m telling myself. Then breathe into that and invite myself to come back into relationship, and then notice what it’s like to be in relationship with this other being.
If that’s something you resonate with, I would invite you to give it a practice! Notice what it’s like, and if you practice this every day, you’ll start to notice that you have more and more access to your own capacity to stay engaged in relationship with others. I hope this is a supportive tip I can hand off to you.
Thanks for being with me on this journey. Healing You
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*Are you ready to step into the light and out of the shadows, to experience the power of somatic empathy and warm community?
You can start my free course called “The Healing You Journey” here:
www.HealingYouSanctuary.com
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[The Healing You Method - Episode 32]
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