While our practices usually focus on heart-centered healing practices, it’s also very important to bring the physical and physiological body into the healing process. The body holds the subconscious patterning which controls 97% of our beliefs, thoughts, habits and behavior patterns. The patterning we take on which forms the subconscious is purposed in keeping us as safe and as close to love and connection as we can get on this 3D material planet earth journey. It’s about survival and it tends to cover over the reality of the spirit, the original knowing of safety, love and connection.
To return us to the original knowing of love, connection and safety, we need to release the patterning from the physical body and reset the nervous system from fight, flight or freeze state to its rest and digest state. Learn the combinations of sound, breath and movement to release stress and tension from the body, mobilize places that traditionally get frozen with trauma, stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest system, and release oxytocin, the feel-good love hormone.
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Sound, Breath And Movement To Release Stress And Heal Trauma
The Community for Conscious Living is a community dedicated to personal transformation for universal harmony. Healing the planet by making inspired changes in ourselves and our daily lives to create a sustainable environment and a peaceful world. We’re going to do a practice using sound breath and some movement to relieve stress and heal trauma, the stuff that gets locked in the body that keeps us from living happy, fulfilling lives. This practice is a little bit different from what we usually do in our prayer and healing circle. It is and then it isn’t.
It’s a little different, but then maybe not so much because we focus on heart-centered healing usually, but it’s very much from embodiment, from the place of being in the body and feeling from the body and experiencing from the body with the body, that connection through the heart center to that conscious experience of your oneness with source, your connection with love, that place that we go to where we can access that experience of that original knowing that you came from, that connection with unconditional love, with divine light, and with eternal compassion. That’s our usual prayer and healing circle practice, and we’re going to start with that. Then we’re going to add in some practices. We’re going to do it in the style of what’s called a continuum class.
Continuum is a practice that involves movement, breath, and sound. To me, it’s a healing modality. Some consider it at a dance, believe it or not. For me, it’s a healing modality and it’s using breath, sound, and movement that can be even micro-movement to release the things that get bound up and held in the body, the energies, if you will, and also the stress and the trauma. I’ve been working a lot lately with the group for the While We Were Silent Project, which you’ve probably heard about. While We Were Silent is the interview series with experts in healing the trauma of sexual abuse. We’ve been focused a lot on healing trauma. Trauma gets held in the body.
In our prayer and healing circle, we did an overview of the heart-centered meditation practice, heart-centered healing, and what that is about. We talked about the fundamentals of that being the healing through the heart. The bottom line of that is how can you use the mind to heal a broken heart. You’ve got to go through the heart to find your true healing. The mind does not have the power to heal you. Your mind merely establishes the pathways that you’re going to travel in order to find your true self and your connection with your source, which is where your true healing comes from.
This is not out of line with that by any means. Your mind or what we call the mind, you have the conscious mind, which is your conscious thoughts and beliefs and your subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is held in the body. The belief patterns your thought processes and your memories of everything that you’ve experienced in your life are held in your body and not in your head so much. We’re going to use this practice, this combination of breath and sound and movement, to release the stress and the tension that we hold in the body, to mobilize those places that traditionally get frozen with trauma. When you experience a trauma, there is a shock to the body. With that shock, you go into that fight, flight, or freeze, and trauma gets frozen in the body.
Parts of your body will get frozen and locked up. You notice places that are chronically tight and tense. Sometimes your breath is shallow, your diaphragm can’t move. Your face gets frozen, your neck gets tight. All of these things happen when you experience trauma and go into that freeze state. We’re going to be using this combination of breath, sound and movement to mobilize the places that traditionally get frozen with trauma. We’re going to also use practices to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system which is your autonomic nervous system. You’ve got the sympathetic which is that fight, flight or freeze, and the parasympathetic which is called rest and digest. It’s the opposite of that.
We’re going to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system and stimulate the release of oxytocin which is a feel good love hormone. You’re going to love this practice and I know you’re going to want to save it and use it over and over again because this is going to be very healing for the body. When the body gets frozen and holds a lot of tension and stress, it’s hard to allow that vibration of love and compassion and light to flow freely through the physical tissues. That’s when we focus our heart-centered healing and our heart center meditation on, bringing in those vibrations of unconditional love and eternal compassion and divine light into the body and letting it flow into every cell of the body.
This is going to help us to release those places that get frozen so that that love and compassion can flow into even more places in your body and spiritually nourish your body. This is going to help us. A lot of times, the questions that come up after the heart-centered meditation are going to help us to get out of our heads and into our bodies and hopefully notice how the body responds to the experience of the heart-centered meditation and get the body releasing some of the places where it gets stuck.
Let’s go ahead and come into our prayer and healing circle. In the name of the one most merciful ever compassionate, let us come into our circle. Imagine us all coming together, sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, elbow to elbow. We’re sitting together in one circle. Let’s take a full and gentle breath together, breathing in the same air, connected through all of our elements. As you exhale, let this heart center, the funnel of energy that extends from the front of your chest, come to face forward into our circle where all of our hearts can meet at the hub of our circle like spokes on a wheel, meeting together at the hub, connected at the hub. From our hearts, let’s call on that source of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, the compassion that is timeless, that exists beyond this realm of space and time. It is a pure state of being and it is a soup we swim in, calling on that vibration, that essence of divine light, of unconditional love, of eternal compassion.
Imagine this pillar of this pure light streaming into the center of our circle, streaming into that place where our hearts meet as one. Imagine this pillar of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, getting larger and brighter, filling all of the space in the center of our circle. Begin to focus on your breath, as you are breathing in this vibration, this air that is infused with this vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, breathe this in through your heart center, letting it fill all of your chest space, filling your lungs, surrounding and permeating into your heart, filling all of you your air and your blood, your fluids with this vibration of divine light, of unconditional love, of eternal compassion. As you exhale, relax, release, let all of your chest space, your heart space become soft. Begin to release the tension you hold there. Again, inhaling and exhaling at your own pace. As you inhale, inhale in this vibration, divine light, unconditional love, and eternal compassion.
As you exhale, relax, release, and soften. Allow your outbreath to carry away with any of the clutter that may be existing in your heart space, any of the things that are hanging out there from the week that you don’t need anymore. Let them be washed away by this outbreath with your exhale, return into that pillar of that pure divine light to be purified, to be transmuted. Inhaling, draw in this essence of divine light, unconditional love, and eternal compassion, breathing this in through your heart space, letting it fill all of your chest space, infusing in here oxygen and into your fluids, into your blood. As you exhale, relax, release and soften and allow this vibration, this spiritual nourishment that is nourishing oxygen in your blood to be delivered to all of the cells throughout your body, delivering this nourishment to every cell, divine light, unconditional love, and eternal compassion.
Every cell of your body carries consciousness. Every cell of your body stores information about your journey. It stores information, pictures, memories, beliefs, sometimes like movies of your experiences while you’ve been integrated into physicality, into your physical body, and traveling this earth. All of your experiences, the memories of them, the pictures and images of them get imprinted into your cellular consciousness. Associated with those images, that imprinting, are the emotions and feelings, your nervous system patterning that are associated with those experiences that remind you of your body’s responses to those experiences. All of that is imprinted into your cellular tissues.
The knowledge of the emotions that were triggered through those experiences, also associated with that is an instruction set of how the mind determines that it’s going to cope, defend, and keep you safe. Whenever something happens in your life that will trigger that memory again, you will have an automatic patterning associated with that that says, “Here’s how we’re going to keep you safe. Here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s how we’re going to cope. Here’s how we’re going to defend ourselves. Here’s what we’re going to do to survive.” All of that is stored in your body that makes up your subconscious patterning.
97% of what you do and how you react in situations in this life, what you believe and your thought processes, comes from the subconscious patterning which is contained in the body. This is all stored in your cellular tissues. Within that is also stored the origin of your knowing, your original knowing of your connection with source, your trust and safety. Resting in that connection with source is your knowledge of unconditional love, divine light, the eternal existence of compassion, the soup you swim in. All of that is held in your cellular knowing also. While you’re infused into this body integrated into this physical space, this physical body, this other information is held in your cells also. This is about your survival here.
[Tweet “Releasing yourself from that freeze state can free up these old memories.”]A lot of the things, the patterning that you hold, are from old memories and old traumas. These things get stuck in the body quite often, especially when there’s been trauma. That shock that you experienced from trauma, you go into that fight, flight or freeze, and often the trauma puts you into the freeze state. Places where when you’ve experienced trauma and your body locks up, that place can remain frozen until you enact some intervention to release yourself from that freeze state.
Releasing yourself from that freeze state can free up these old memories. When you free up these old memories, that can help you to release those places that are stuck, places that you may recognize where you hold chronic tension, places that can get stuck, your diaphragm. The upper diaphragm between your lungs and your abdominal cavity can get stuck to where you’re not breathing fully and you might hold a lot of tension in your belly. Another place that chronically holds tension is your face, all the muscles of your face.
When you think about when you’re shocked, look at the emoticons. The emoticons on your phone or on Facebook are in that frozen face state. That extends all the way into your neck muscles, your shoulders get tight. All of these can get tight when you’re stressed, and also if you’ve experienced trauma, these places can get frozen in your physical body. We’re going to work with a breath that’s going to help to release these places, the diaphragm, the belly, the neck, the face, the jaw and the shoulders.
In doing this, we’re going to stimulate the nervous system, that rest and digest system, and release oxytocin, that feel good love hormone. As we are moving into this, I want to remind you also as you’re breathing, continue to breathe in for now this breath, this vibration of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, and let that be circulating throughout your body.
I’m going to read something that has come into our Q&A. It says, “Faith in ourselves in the first step toward faith in others. Breathing in peace and confidence, expelling out fear and negativity.” Thank you for sharing that. We’re going to do this style of a continuum movement class. In addition to twenty years of Sufism, I’ve studied Continuum Movement with Donnalea Van Vleet Goelz who’s taken over for Emilie Conrad on the Continuum Movement since Emilie’s passing.
It also uses some Sufi teaching then to one from the art of feminine presence as well with Rachel Jane Grover. It was about a download that I woke up this morning. I was trying to do what I thought I was going to do here. It was insistent that this was what was going to come through. Let’s go ahead with the practice again, the way that a continuum movement class is laid out basically.
The first thing we do is to take a baseline and that is checking in with your body. How is your body? What do you feel? What do you notice? Do a little scan, dropping your consciousness into the center core of your physical space. Let your consciousness float into your body and notice what you notice about your body. This is called taking a baseline. If you’re driving in your car, you can do a little bit of this. Be careful when we get into the breath. Use your judgment and your wisdom so you don’t overdo or hyperventilate or anything like that while you’re driving. We’re mostly going to have fun with this.
Remember, as we’re doing this movement, one of the keys to stimulating that parasympathetic nervous system is having fun with it, letting yourself be playful in your body. There are times where I’m going to actually remind you to smile, to put a smile on your face. Feeling good can put a smile on your face and putting a smile on your face can also help you to feel good inside. We’re going to work with that also.
The first step is that baseline. Then we’re going to do in what continuum is called a hoo breath. We’re going to play with this also. When you see someone impersonating a monkey, if you will, but we’re going to do it with a breath. It’s called a hoo breath. As you’re doing this hoo breath, think of the facial expressions of a monkey and let your face get into it. Let your face move, moving all the muscles of your face, moving your mouth, moving your head, moving your jaw, and moving your neck. Let it be playful. Nature is our best spiritual teacher and our best teacher when it comes to healing. Let yourself, let your body, let your face, let your head and your neck be playful like you would if you were playing with a monkey. We’re going to use the movement and the facial expressions of the monkey but more breathy. We’ll do it slower starting out.
You can imagine as you’re hearing these sounds that my mouth is moving in different ways to form the hee, the haw, the hoo, the ho, so that you know you’re getting these lots of movement in your face. Your jaw, the muscles around your forehead, your eyes, and in your neck, all of those muscles are getting lots of movement as you’re playing around with this breath. You can do this on the floor, you can do it lying down, you can do it on all fours, or you can do it standing.
If you can for this one, have something near you that you can push against, either the floor or the wall, that’s going to help us to get this physical stretch in the body. If you’re in the car and do it on the steering wheel, be careful, be conscious if you’re driving. Pay attention to the road first. As we do this breath, let your yourself stretch a bit. If you’re on the floor or against a wall, let yourself feel a little bit of resistance as if you’re doing a push up, pushing against a wall, pushing against the floor. Let your body not be rigid but move however it wants to move.
That’s one of the things about continuum. Continuum is all about the fluidity of your body. Your body’s 70% water. It’s about tapping into that fluidity in the body and letting the fluidity have its natural movement, and letting the physical movement of the body be inspired by tapping into that fluidity, the movement of the fluids, and letting your body, it can be micro movements or macro movements, be moved from that stimulus within you. This one is an inner and outer combined because you can let your body move however it wants to move. Give it some resistance.
Whether you’re pushing against the floor or a wall or the steering wheel or your chair, let yourself feel a little bit of stretch and resistance as your body moves and let it feel good. We’re going to do that first and then we’ll do a sound. We’re going to do three parts of this. We’re going to do that hoo breath with that movement, and then we’ll come into what’s called open attention and do another check in on the baseline, what you’re feeling in the body. We’re going to do a sound and then we’ll do a grunt to release the pelvic floor, then we’ll come back and do that again.
You ready? I’m going to talk you through this, walk you through this. Remember you are still held in this circle, in this container with this pillar of light, this unconditional love, eternal compassion, and divine light streaming into the center, permeating into the air that we breathe. This is still present, forming the container of our circle. As you’re ready, begin with this hoo breath and that monkey movement and getting your facial emotions into it as you move with this breath. I’ll do it.
You can listen to me doing it. You do it at your pace. It doesn’t have to be fast, it doesn’t have to be slow. Do it at what feels comfortable for you and do it at a pace where you can actually have the movement come all the way from your belly. Let’s start with it and then I’ll remind you to drop it down into your belly and let your diaphragm get the movement also. Starting with this breath first, take your baseline. Let’s check in with your body. How’s it doing? When you’re ready, start with your breath.
Continue with that breath at your pace. I’m going to talk you through a few things that you’re doing that breath. See if you can drop it down into your belly so that your belly is moving in and out with the breath and it’s exercising your diaphragm. Your diaphragm is moving, so you might need to slow it down for that. You might even pulse your belly so that as you pulse, you contract your abdominal muscles. It’s forcing the breath out from your diaphragm so that as you tense your muscles in your belly, it’s forcing the air out.
Your diaphragm is moving in order to force the air out of your lungs. Notice, as you’re doing this, if there’s any place that’s feeling like they don’t necessarily want to move. Let your physical body move and let it have its motion, whatever movement it wants to do. Have it stretching, wherever that movement wants to come from, whether it’s your belly, your hips, your feet, your legs.
Let your legs get a nice stretch through this too. If you can do this on all fours, it’s great. Let your legs move and stretch and your arms move and stretch how they want to. Let your body be cat-like, monkey-like. Let the animals that we adore from nature be the inspiration to free up the constriction in the body and allow fluidity of movement into your body. Let that guide you. There’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. Let yourself be with it. Have that movement open up your hips, open up your hamstrings and your calves. Have a nice stretch and let your shoulders and your arms circle and your neck. Be playful and move about your jaw and all the muscles in your face. We’ll do this.
Bring that now into a settled place, letting your body come to rest. Again, do another check in. Notice what’s changed from that original baseline. When you check into your physical body, how you are you doing? How’s it feeling? What are you noticing? Within the space and a full and gentle breath, we’re going to add in a sound. From this place, let yourself take a big inhale all the way into your belly. We’re going to exhale with an ah sound followed by la.
In Sufi practice, this is the name ah-la, which means the one. It simply means the one, the only, that unity, that source of unconditional love, eternal compassion, divine light. As we take this all the way into the belly, we’re going to exhale with the ah. As we do this, we’re going to smile. Put a smile on your face and breathe as far down into your belly and your pelvic space as you can, and then we’ll exhale while smiling with that ah.
Your main nerve of your parasympathetic nervous system, that rest and digest, is called the vagus nerve. It’s the longest nerve in the body, the wandering nerve that moves through all, from your brain all the way through all of your digestive organs and all of the organs in your abdominal cavity. We’re going to take this breath, this ah sound, all the way down there. We’re going to let this vibration stimulate this vagus nerve, and stimulate parasympathetic nervous system response and the release of oxytocin. At the same time, this is the sacred sound in Sufism that means the one, the unity, the source, the oneness with all that is the source of unconditional love, divine light, and eternal compassion.
Again, smiling, because that also puts you in that feel good, rest and digest oxytocin space. Breathe down into your belly as close as you can into your lower diaphragm, your pelvic floor, pelvic girdle, a big smile and ah. Inhaling again, ah. Inhaling again, ah-la, ah-la. Check in with your body. Come to a place of rest. Notice what’s moving in your body, what wants to move in your body. Let’s do that little check in compared to your baseline. Where are you?
The third thing we’re going to do is a release of the pelvic floor. Those muscles in the pelvic floor, that base chakra, is all about safety and survival. This can get tight, especially if you’ve experienced trauma in your life or even holding stress, the butt muscles, the pelvic floor muscles can get tight. What we’re going to do here is we’re going to do a pulse-pulse-pulse release with the pelvic floor muscles. It’s going to go squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, release, pulse, pulse, pulse release.
We’ll do that with again with inhale, inhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, inhale, inhale, exhale, pulse, pulse, pulse, release, pulse, pulse, pulse, release. With your pelvic floor muscles, checking in if you’ve got any tension there. We’ll pulse, pulse, pulse release, pulse, pulse, pulse and let yourself with that release, letting that tension go from your pelvic floor. We’ll do that a few more times. Pulse, pulse, pulse, release, pulse, pulse, pulse release. Let your hips, let yourself circle around in your hips and your pelvic floor, let your conscious body, your energy body drop into that space.
Let’s stretch out your toes and your feet, and let that energy drop all the way down through your legs and into your feet, releasing that tension in the pelvic floor, letting your energy drop down through your legs, through your knees, through your shins, your ankles, all the way into your feet, into the soles of your feet and all the way out through the tips of your toes. Check in with your body again. We’re going to circle back through this exercise. We’re going to do the hoo breath. Then we’re going to follow with the ah-la sound while smiling. Then we’re going to do that pelvic floor release. We’ll go through this one more time without as much explanation to move through a little faster. Here we go with that hoo breath.
Remember to move your face, let your head and your neck, your shoulders. If you’re in a chair, you can push against the chair on the floor. Push against the floor. Let your body have a catlike movement, the monkey like movement, whatever’s going to feel good in your body. Let your breath move all the way into your belly so your abdominal muscles are pulsing and exercising your diaphragm. You’re scrunching up your face muscles and your neck muscles and getting that movement all the way through your facial muscles, your neck muscles, and your jaw, and in your diaphragm and your belly, all these places that chronically get locked with trauma. Let your shoulders and your arms move. Let yourself be like a monkey, like a cat, whatever your favorite nature animal might be and do this breath at your own pace.
There’s no right rhythm, whatever’s right for you, feeling that breath down in your belly if you can. Put in your belly pulse and as your belly pulses, exercise your diaphragm and see if you can let your hips loosen up, your hip joints, loosen up your muscles and your glutes going around your hip joints. Let all that loosen up and exercising this space and bringing in this breath. All the while, this breath is infused with this essence of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, reminding us of the origin, the truth of the soup we swim in, the ocean we live in, and waking up your body that is 70% water, if not more, to its connection with the ocean, the ocean of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion, and with all of the water that moves and circulates throughout all of our material plane here, our earth plane.
When you’re ready, bring this to a check in state. Relax your body. Notice what’s moving. Let your body continue with its movement, however it wants to move. There are things that still are trying to release and move from your body move with that. We’re going to move into the ah sound. Here we’re going to take a big breath all the way down into the belly, the low belly of pelvic floor, as low as you can go, and with a big smile on your face, put a big smile and release within.
That sound that comes at the end, the significance of that, other than the Sufi significance I had already mentioned, in Chinese medicine, going around the core of your body, you have a conception vessel up the front and your governing vessel around the back. They meet at one end above your mouth and the other one below your mouth. When you touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth, you’re making that connection there. Also, if you notice when you touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth, it allows your jaw, a place where we hold a lot of chronic tension, to drop and release. It can carry that release all the way through your neck and all the way down your spine.
[Tweet “When you touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth, it allows your jaw, a place where we hold a lot of chronic tension, to drop and release.”]One more time, deep breath into the belly and releasing with a big smile and ah-la. This is stimulating that vagus nerve and the release of oxytocin. Take that check in. That’s in continuum. It’s called open attention. You come to a place of being open and noticing what’s moving in your body, what’s shifting in your body, what’s releasing in your body. Thank it for releasing. Thank your body for its incredible beauty and wisdom. Then we’ll do a few pulses of that pelvic floor and that’s squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, release, pulse, pulse, pulse, release, pulse, pulse, pulse, release, pulse, pulse, pulse, release. This is from the muscles of your pelvic floor, feeling that tension you hold in your pelvic floor and your glutes and your hips and pulse, pulse, pulse release, and releasing with the inhale. As you do, let your conscious body settle into your physical space.
Again, coming to sit into your physical seat, let your energy move all the way through your pelvic floor, through your hips, through your legs, your knees, your shins and calves, through your ankles, through your feet, all the way into the floor and out through the tips of your toes, connecting you deep into the earth. Imagine your physical body a few feet beneath the earth’s surface and feel your energy moving all the way through the layers of the earth and all the way into the core, the center of the earth, another place where this magnetic pull of the earth connects us all as one brings us all together on this planet keeps us here.
Feel it, grounding you, holding you to the Earth. Let’s breathe again, noticing the response in your physical body and your energy body. Notice how your heart feels like a full and gentle breath, breathing in this essence of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. Put a big smile on your face. For whatever you have experienced, received or released, let yourself feel and express to your source gratitude for whatever it is that you’ve been given through this process.
If you have a prayer and intention you’d like to ask for yourself, do that now from where you are, turning your heart, turning your senses, turning everything to be face to face with your source. If it helps, you can focus on facing directly to the center of our circle to this pillar of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion. Being face to face, heart to heart, ask for what your heart aims. Make your prayer, your intention for the week, and breathe in this essence of divine light, unconditional love and eternal compassion right into your heart space, breathing in through your heart center.
Trust in this essence this wisdom of the divine, to bring to your heart whatever your heart is asking for. Let your heart be filled with gratitude and with love. When you’re ready, put your feet on the ground. Feel your connection to Earth, stretch out your hands and your fingertips. Hopefully you’re even more present in your body than you were when we started. Let yourself, if you’re ready, open your eyes and connect with your space around you. We’re going to bring this part of the call to a close.r
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