Grounding is a great way to start your yoga practice. It can increase calming sensations and help us tune into your body. Here is an audio of me explaining how I incorporate grounding in my practice.
Tag: yoga
Daily Resilience: Beyond Survival
Have you ever felt so overwhelmed by stress that you find yourself just reacting?
Have you ever found yourself reacting impulsively when something reminds you of a past trauma?
These are possible situations where our body is in a survival zone. When we are feeling overwhelmed by stress, experience a trauma, or our body detects a danger our brain signals our body to release stress hormones to get to safety. The danger could be emotional, mental, or physical and our body is working to get to safety through enacting a survival response. This is a good system our body has when we are in danger and needing to get to safety. But when we stay in these zones for long periods of time it can have impacts on our brain and body. It impacts how our brain perceives safety and may cause our body to be in a survival zone when we are actually safe. This can impact our decision making, our ability to accomplish our goals, our relationships, and the way we perceive safety within ourselves. We will briefly look at the four survival zones and then discuss how to move beyond our survival modes when we are safe.
Survival Zone
The survival zones are fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. For most of us we probably experience a mixture of these survival reactions in our lifetime. There is not a linear answer when looking into our own stress and survival responses.
Fight
- Emotionally reactive
- Physically and verbally acting out in aggression
- Being stuck in this survival zone can cause the body to release excess stress hormones
Freeze
- Feelings of numbness and disconnection
- Not being able to physically or verbally respond
- Being stuck in this survival mode may result in it being more difficult to work through the stress
Flight
- Emotional reactivity
- Physical or mental reaction to get away
- Being stuck in this survival zone can cause the body to release excess stress hormones
Fawn
- Seeking safety by pleasing the people around you
- Satisfying others at the expense of your own needs to feel safe
- Being stuck in this survival mode for long periods of time may cause excess stress hormones when interacting with others we are trying to please.
- In this survival response our safety is linked to appeasing other people which could impact how we experience safety within ourselves.
Beyond Survival
Working through our stress and trauma involves a variety of steps and looks different for all of us. Here are some possible considerations when working through our own survival responses, stress, and building resilience.
- Working to increase calm in our mind and body on a regular bases. We can do this by practicing resilience skills like grounding, focusing on things we love, and shifting our attention when we are getting overwhelmed.
- Consider talking to a mental health professional. This can be a really helpful option to work through past and present issues that are impacting your stress levels.
- Practicing yoga. I am a big fan of yoga specifically for increasing calm in our mind and body. Practicing yoga gives us a safe space to tune into our body and to release stress and tension through slow movements. This can be a great thing to add into your life to release some of the stressful energy and to incorporate into your daily calming techniques.
Daily Resilience: Yoga
Yoga & Resilience
I have loved practicing yoga and it has been a huge part of my journey of learning how to build internal resilience. For me yoga has a similar effect as grounding exercises. I wanted to share specifically how this has worked for me and maybe some of these ideas will be helpful to add into your routines. Talk to your doctor or a local yoga instructor for how these practices could look for you and be beneficial for your health and well-being.
Yoga & Resilience
Yoga is such a great way to tune into your body and strengthen. I have gone to yoga classes but it was really during the beginning of the pandemic that my love for yoga sparked. I was home and had time to create a routine for myself. I knew the goals I wanted to accomplish and looked up exercises and poses for those goals. I had no idea that it was also helping me in a mental and emotional way as well. There are a few key ways that yoga has contributed to my resilience:
- Breath-work: deep breathing and coordinated breathing with yoga poses is a core concept in yoga. Deep breathing is actually a quick way to access our parasympathetic nervous system. This part of the nervous system is also called the “rest and digest” system and is what facilities how we experience calm and relaxation. This in it self allows me to be in my resilient zone and to really practice calmness and release stress in my body.
- Tuning into the body: I go through a lot of my day often without tuning into the body and just busy living life. When practicing yoga you are kind of forced to tune into how your body is reacting and feeling during the poses. This tuning in is something that I’ve learned to carry with me throughout other activities as well. When I am having a stressful or busy day, I will often take a few minutes to just do some deep breathing and yoga poses to tune in and calm. This is a great way to build resilience.
- Learning to Reset and Pause: something about yoga that has been huge for me is that it calls you to be present. One of my favorite things about going to yoga class was that the instructor would begin by saying take a deep breath in and breath out all the stresses of the day. When practicing yoga you can let go of all the other things going on around you and allow your mind to just be present in the yoga practice.
Life In Bloom 05.30.22
Hello!!
Wanted to check in with you today to update you about my life and Blooming Resilient!!
So thankful for all the people who have supported me on the journey of starting this blog and who respond to or view the content I create. I am so thankful for you!! This has been the best month for views and likes in the last 6 months!!! 🤩🤩 thank you for all of your support!! Love being on this journey with you!
I will be starting to put more handmade items for sale on the Blooming Resilient Shop! So look out for that! I am also planning to start sending a regular email newsletter so head to the home page and subscribe!!
Evening Yoga
I have been doing an evening yoga series before bed. It has been so helpful to calm my mind and body. The book I’ve been using has short routines for different times of the day. I’ve been doing some of the ‘Restore’ section poses in the evening.
These are my favorite evening poses:
Easy Sitting Pose
Legs up the Wall
Reclining Butterfly
Extended Child’s Pose
Time of Decluttering
I recently went to a workshop by Lori Firsdon, who has a business inspiring people to take control of their clutter and life.
I love her way of decluttering and it has been so inspiring. I’ve been decluttering in my home and at work. The part of her philosophy that was so helpful to me was defining the purpose for each room. If there are things in the room that don’t fit the purpose then you can decide to get rid of it, donate it, sell it, or move it to the right room. She also recommends decluttering from top to bottom and left to right. She had so many helpful tips and information that has helped me declutter and try to use my space more effectively. Here is her website if you want more information:
Breathing In Hope Breathing out Anxiety
Lately, I have been really focusing on taking out things in my life that are causing extra stress, chaos, or anxiety in my life. Choosing things in my life that brings peace, fits my purpose, and is complimentary to the life I want to have. A few simple ways I am doing this is spending time with people who are like minded, journaling more, saying ‘no’, going to therapy, and doing things I enjoy no matter how small.
Will check in again soon! 💛
– Daejanna
Yoga Practice
Yoga is one of the forms of exercise that I enjoy the most. It is strangely invigorating and calming all at the same time. It helps strengthen and stretch our muscles. It is also a great way to build inner physical and mental resilience!
My Yoga Journey
I first started looking into yoga after going to Pilates class at the Kroc, in Dayton. I have since then enjoyed doing various yoga workouts at home, at the gym, and with others. During the pandemic I researched a yoga workout that would work well for me and began doing it as a part of my home workout routine. After that I started going to yoga at the YMCA and learned even more poses and exercises that have been beneficial for my body. I am not an expert, but merely an enthusiast that has seen the many benefits of doing yoga practice. It has improved my flexibility, increased my strength, provides a sense of calm and relaxation and allows me to focus better. There are times when I am tired and can hardly focus at work, so I take a brief break to do a short yoga pose flow and it allows me to refocus my mind.
When I first started doing my routine at home I took it very slowly. I first focused on how to do each pose and having the correct alignment. Once I had the poses down I was then able to focus on the flow of transitioning from one pose to the next. I grew more in my comfortability and understanding of yoga while taking classes at the YMCA. I appreciated that the yoga instructors always encouraged participants to listen to their bodies and to do moves and poses in a way that fits their own body. I love that it does not have to look like the person next to you and can still have great benefits for your body. The slow and intentional pace of yoga allows your body to adapt and change.
Below is an illustration that I licensed from Adobe Stock that has one of my favorite yoga flows. I do grow tired of downward dog after a while, but I love the feeling of this flow of movement.
Thank you for reading about my yoga journey! I would love to know how yoga has impacted you! Comment below!
Blooming Resilient 