Plunge into Calm

Happy Tuesday! Here is what is inspiring me this week...

Breathe.

“Our survival as a species is dependent on our ability to trust, cooperate and co-regulate with others.”

– Stephen Porges, creator of the Polyvagal Theory

Co-regulation is the process of synchronizing our emotional and physiological states with others to create a sense of safety and connection.

We unintentionally co-regulate with each other all day long through behaviors like physical touch, body language, facial expression and tone of voice. Emotions are truly contagious, and if you're not mindful of it, you can easily spread an anxious mood to your co-workers or catch the grumpy bug from your three-year-old.

We can also engage in behaviors to intentionally facilitate co-regulation with others who need it. Conscious breathing is a great way to do this. Try these tips to calm your kiddos (or any family member) next time they are having a tough moment.

Try it: While hugging your child, do a few physiological sighs or audible exhales. You don't need to ask them to participate unless they want to. With older kids, invite them to sit back-to-back with you and breathe naturally together. I love this technique because sitting back-to-back is less vulnerable than facing each other or hugging, and if you're still enough, you can feel the movement of the other person's breath through your back, which helps with synchronization.

Join me tonight (8/6) at 8:30 PM CST on Zoom for a 15-minute practice. Register ahead of time and get the zoom link here.

Move.

The best way to cure a bad mood? Move. I was tired and honestly in a funk today (just ask my husband). Then this afternoon, I went out to the gym to practice my handstand drills and voilà—I feel like myself again. This shouldn't be surprising to me, considering I've consistently exercised for over two decades and preach this message constantly, but somehow the magnitude of the shift surprises me every time.

Try it: Don't let a bad mood keep you from being active. In fact, if you find yourself in a funk, make it the reason to move.

Be Human.

"It's like the lazy bad angel on your shoulder that is actually the really good angel."

- Jeff Warren

Jeff, one of the most down-to-earth meditation teachers I follow, often refers to meditation as the "deep do nothing." If meditation is as simple as "doing nothing," why are people (like me) so enthusiastic about it? Jeff hits the nail on the head with his explanation, so I'll refrain from paraphrasing.

"Body still, mind awake. Seated meditation is one of the lowest common denominators of experience. Minimal external distractions and interactions, no special movements to remember or particularly complex tasks to engage in. Even if there's lots of thinking and internal processes involved, the magic of meditation is that it unfolds in an environment of comparative simplicity.

And, there are some significant things about this kind of simple environment. For one, we're more likely to notice our background state: stable or distractible, clear or muddy, open or contracted, friendly or emotionally agitated. Wherever we are on the mind-body roller-coaster, we can suddenly see it. We hadn't noticed before, in our busyness. We thought life was just like that. But now we realize, actually, life isn't like that. We're like that.

Meditation in stillness is an excellent place to notice our baseline, and to calibrate. To tweak the mind-body controls. We can make small adjustments in attention, we can dial up our clarity, and dial down our reactivity. We can settle, and let go, and breathe.

The many subtle adjustments we learn to perform in the simple medium of a sitting meditation become ones we can also learn to perform out in the world. But we may never sense the possibilities until we take the time to look and learn."

🙏Thank you, Jeff, for such a brilliantly clear and powerful explanation.

Try it: Take a few minutes each day to simply do nothing. It doesn't have to be long - even 5 minutes a day is great.