Welcome back to Unit 2 of the Somatic series!

This series is where I’m using somatic psych theory to help people learn and map out their autonomic nervous system (ANS), develop a healthier relationship with themselves, and eventually build stronger communities.

Unit 2 focuses on explaining and demonstrating how to use 3 somatic exercises (Grounding, Body Scanning, and the Notice and Name Exercise) to learn and map out your specific nervous system.

The 1st part covered Grounding: what it is, how it works, how to use it in practical situations, and a demonstration of the 54321 grounding technique.

Last chapter focused on the Body Scan: what it is, why it’s an important somatic skill to learn, some practical applications, modifications for chronic pain, etc., and a demonstration on how to body scan.

This chapter, the last chapter of Unit 2, is going to put everything together to give you the basics of how to learn and map out how your personal autonomic nervous system works.

Video versions: Part 1 here and Part 2 here!

Let’s close out Unit 2 with the Notice and Name exercise!

Bring it Back Full Circle: Why Learning and Mapping Your Nervous System is So Important

Like I said in Chapter 8, understanding your own autonomic nervous system is an important part of developing a stronger relationship with yourself and addressing your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. The Notice and Name exercise is 1 way to practice building your active awareness of your body’s neuroception. Remember that word from Chapter 3? Neuroception is your autonomic nervous system’s ability to sense the world around you and determine if you are safe or in danger. Usually, this process tends to happen without us being fully aware of it. Taking the time to learn your own ANS helps you grow in your understanding of yourself and helps you recognize how each part/state of your ANS affects how you see yourself, the people in your life, and the world around you.

One way to see how this plays out in your life, as a little experiment, is to finish the following sentences when you notice are feeling different emotions:

• “I am…”
• “The people around me are…”
• “The world is…”

What do your answers look like when you are tired after a long day? Or when you are frustrated by something? When you are really angry? When you are in the middle of your morning commute? When you are hungry? When you are really sad? When you are relaxing at home? When you are out in nature or generally in awe of something? When are you vibing with someone and enjoying your time together?

Learning and naming your physical sensations (and where they are in your body) starts to change how you see your body and how you respond to your body’s reactions. It becomes easier to separate how you feel in a particular moment from any, usually harsh, judgments you might carry about yourself as a person. You start to build a growing understanding of yourself and your body. And this helps you feel more in control over time because you know what’s happening, why it’s happening, how to catch triggers earlier and earlier, and what you need to do to regulate yourself/how to ask for help.

Another important part of this is learning NOT to see dorsal vagal shutdown (depression, dissociation, emotional disconnection, and related substance use for example) as a moral failing, who you will always be deep down, or as a place you are forever trapped in. When you are shutdown, it affects how your body feels, your sense of time, how you see yourself, the people in your life, and the world. Life can feel hopeless. You can feel totally alone in the middle of a community. Once you know what is going on, and you have more of a somatic understanding, you can recognize the signs and know what your body is asking for and what you need to be supported out of that shutdown state.

Also, the practice of noticing changes in your body and attending to your body’s concerns is healing. It’s literally strengthening your vagus nerve and its capacity to handle stress, emotions, intense situations, etc. This is 1 of the lesser known versions of “relationships are healing”. Rebuilding your 2-way relationship with your body is healing. Your body communicating and you answering is healing. Your body calling out for help and your community answering your body’s call is also healing.

Another cool (to me) part of this noticing and naming work is that it involves learning how to choose the right kind of support you need based on what your body is communicating to you. Taking time to learn how to recognize where you are on the map and which parts of your ANS are active is literally the key to understanding what your body is asking for. See this as a call and response between you and your body. It’s about recognizing and building awareness of patterns so you can figure out what’s going on and change behaviors as needed. Taking note of the patterns in your body’s physical sensations (“I know I’m shutting down when…”) and figuring out what your body needs. You can ground yourself, body scan, and use this information to make connections about how your relationship to your body, substances, sleep, food, etc. is affected in each ANS state. For example, how does your appetite change when you are depressed, anxious, focused, excited, happy, chilling, in pain, etc? Again, seeing the patterns in your body’s reactions, your emotions, your thoughts, and your behaviors helps you change them. That’s a major key to changing things like people-pleasing behaviors, relationships to things and people, communication styles/patterns, and attachment styles, which are some of the most common things people ask for support with.

My Version of the “Notice and Name” Exercise

This isn’t how I was trained, but this is how I do it (I’ve found that laying it out like this has been easier for my clients to understand and use as a tool).

The 5 Steps:

1. Get present. Ground yourself into the present moment.
2. Body Scan. What physical sensations do you notice? Where do you feel them? And then based on this information you get from the body scan…
3. Notice where you are on the autonomic map
4. Name it. What ANS state or states are active for you right now? (Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, shutdown, play mode, chilling, and otherwise regulated)
5. Final Questions: What is there to learn from your nervous system in this moment? (aka “What is my body trying to tell me?” and “What does my body need from me right now?”)

This is Easier Said Than Done So Be Nice!

This lowkey sounds easy, but it’s actually really hard. Especially when many of us are in survival mode and have been in survival mode for so long. And while we are grateful that our bodies are/have been trying to protect us, we also know that being in low power mode for too long prevents us from being present enough to connect with our bodies and get our needs met. Reconnecting after months or years of being disconnected can take time. Many of us have trauma histories and/or are living with chronic pain, which affects our tolerance for feeling our actual feelings and makes the idea of being in our bodies totally (and understandably) unappealing. Like so many people have said to me, “Why the f*** would I want to be in my body right now? That hurts!” Feeling anything can feel really scary and even feel like *thee DANGER* itself. In many ways, this noticing work requires us to start rethinking how we have been socialized under systemic oppression, our regular habits, the coping skills we’ve learned over the course of our lives, our relationships with ourselves and others, etc.

So please have grace for yourself and learn how to go at the pace your body is setting, not the pace you move at for school, work, etc. Take your time.

Thanks for reading. This is the end of Unit 2! The next part in this series will start Unit 3, which will cover trauma, glimmers, and regulating your nervous system.