Hey! Jenny here with Somatic Therapy Partners. I’m here to teach you guys another skill today. The skill that we’re going to look at is called the body anchor. Now you may have heard of this term before or maybe even heard of this activity before. Chances are I might do it a little bit differently. I just invite you to join me and we’ll get started here in a moment.
The reason why I like to teach the skill to the clients that I work with is there’s something about being able to take a moment whether that’s when you wake up in the morning, go to bed at night, or somewhere in between, to just let your body and your mind and your attention come into the present moment with your present body. Finding something that is really solid within you to root to, to tether to. What I find with folks who use this skill is that it might not take the anxiety completely away but what it does is it allows the body to just ground: to come down from whatever spiral the body and the mind has gone to and simply land for a moment and give you a little bit more space to feel grounded, feel in your body, and feel regulated.
I’m going to go ahead and start the exercise and what I invite you to do to begin is if you’re comfortable you’re welcome to shut your eyes if you’re not comfortable and you need to have your eyes open I encourage you to either look at myself or find something that’s pleasant in your space or in mine to just kind of linger your gaze upon. We’re just going to start by noticing our breath: we’re not changing it, we’re not making it do anything it’s not doing. We’re just simply paying attention. Now what I invite you to do is do this slow rolling body scan from head to toe. I just want you to be paying attention to any part of your body that feels more anchored, that feels more rooted, steady, secure as you’re doing this scan through your body. It could be anything from your left pinky to your gut to your feet planted on the floor. Once you find that space that just feels more rooted, more tethered I encourage you to just bring your awareness and your attention to that one place. Just allow yourself to be connected with that rooted part of you. As you’re connected with that rooted part, I encourage you to notice what other parts of your body start to join that rooted feeling, join that anchored secure steady feeling. I encourage you to follow that feeling as it ideally expands throughout your body. You may notice that your mind goes elsewhere or pulls you away from that steady feeling or there might be other parts of your body that don’t feel as great or steady and you might notice your attention going there and that’s okay. When that happens it’s okay to just notice it and then come back to that anchor. I encourage you to just stay and linger with that anchored tethered space within you as long as it feels good.
If you’re just starting out it might feel a little overwhelming and so just take your time. It’s okay to just do it for 30 seconds. Every little bit of time that you do this it will get easier and easier to access. It will help your body feel more and more rooted and grounded in who you are in this present moment. Take all the time that you need. Feel free to pause this video if you need more time to just linger in this space.
I look forward to seeing you all in future videos and thank you so much for joining me today.