Some experiences are too much for a single nervous system to hold.

Now more than ever, we need to support each other and our systems through our innate ability to co-regulate and release extra nervous system reactivity. Developing these skills builds our resiliency to meet and metabolize our experiences, protecting us against the cumulative effects of stress. 

Starting in September we'll be coming together for COLLECTIVE GROUND - 25 minute virtual sessions where we can practice Somatic Experiencing skills of orienting, grounding, vocal toning, movement and visualizations to help settle and ground our collective and individual nervous systems.  For more information email kathy@kathycherry.com  

I’ve been feeling a lot lately... how about you? Are you doing all the things? Connecting with friends? Eating healthy, getting enough exercise and sleep? Taking time jut to be with what needs you attention? All these things help us down regulate with leaves more space in the system for your inner resiliency to shine through.

Permanence in an illusion- and that said- we can create and get caught in some pretty deep ruts. What about your life right now needs a shake up or a breath of fresh air? What are 2-3 actionable items you can do in the day ahead to feel more alive?

Connect to your breath. Let the thoughts go. Maintain the felt sense of here. Be right here.

Based on what I’ve been hearing from folks— I’m getting the sense that I’m not alone in this dance right now. ;-)

For me this really is a practice of noticing the dissonance- taking some time and care with that. Getting curious about the changing nature of it- not struggling to make it different. Feeling when things shift or if something, maybe a deeper breath or a different thought, causes a shift.

Sometimes I’ll just ask “what’s needed” and let my body respond. At some point, whether it’s resolved or not, I’ll do something different, find some kind of actionable thing… this can easily become navel gazing which is an imbalance in the attention. How can we stand close without falling in?

What future are you writing for your self right now? Is it the one you want?

Than Geoff always emphasized this idea of creating the conditions for meditation, insight, ease. It’s something that has stuck with me- it’s so easy to fall into the wanting.

If i want the blissy and spacious states- when the do start to arise, then my tendency is to chase them or try to make them bigger. It reinforces the pattern of wanting and not wanting in the mind. When I come at it from this attitude of creating conditions it shifts the effort.

The states can arise and expand because I”m clearing the way for them. They exist naturally in the heart and mind. From this place- it’s easier to touch into the “just being” aspect of practice.

I’m still riding the wake of this weekend’s Somatic Experiencing training- and this one is really resonating for me. We think we’re figuring things out and making decisions based on logic and choice.

What I’m seeing more and more is the underlying influence (sometimes subtle sometimes not so) and direction that comes through the body and the nervous system.

It’s good to remember that this biological system that I call “Kathy” wants to “right” itself. It’s designed to navigate back towards balance. Then we can look at all the ways we get in the way of that process

This baby is a bit of a mic drop. Read it a few times and see if you can rest into it before drawing lines to your own specific details.

Always good to reflect on how difficulty can make us stronger when we meet it with the right attitude.

Deceleration was an elusive learning for me for many years. It was becoming more in touch with my felt sense that helped me do it. I started to see that, when I wasn’t “doing” there would be this horrible sucking sensation like I was being pulled backwards or downward into some morass of stuckness. Who wouldn’t rev up the engine to get away from that right?

When I started to have the capability to be with and be curious about those sensations- realize that they weren’t lasting, weren’t “me”, I was better able to ride that wave. Little by little I could find that sense of resting in the moment. I could hang out a bit longer before I’d feel that impulse to do something.