Resources and Exercises

Sitting down with a therapist and talking to them personally can often be helpful. We have found some useful self-help tools through the internet and other sources, all of which can help outside or between sessions. Here are a few that we have used ourselves and recommend to others.

We recommend finding a quiet area in your house, or perhaps in a library or a park to go through the exercises. Some of them will take 3 or 4 minutes, others may take up to 20 minutes.

You may wish to print yourself a copy, or copy and paste into a blank document on your computer, smartphone or tablet.

Oasis Pendulation Exercise

This exercise is about remembering your body’s natural rhythym. The term “pendulation” was coined by Peter A Levine, and this specific exercise comes from The Art of Healing Trauma blog.

Step by step:

1. Tune in to Your Body. Sit in a quiet place where you can relax. Relax your body and begin to sense the sensations in your body. You can do PATH, noticing Pressure, Air, Tension, and Heat, if you like, to tune in.

2. Tension. Pay attention to any areas where you feel TENSION.

3. Draw & Color. Fill in the TENSION on your Body Mapping Diagram – Follow the KEY, either use a pen marking xxx or use color orange.

4. Deepen Attention for 5 Breaths. Rest your attention on just ONE area that you feel TENSION. Keep your attention resting on that spot without moving it away for 5 breaths. If you have the temptation to wander your focus to other areas of tension, remember you will be coming back to the body many times in this exercise and can focus on that area the next time.

5. Bring to Mind an Oasis Spot.

Oasis Spot

Definition: An oasis spot is a location – inside the body, in the imagination, or in nature – where there is complete calm and peace. It embodies the “calm and alert” state that is natural to all living beings when they are feeling safe. There can be a lot of energy, for example life force in plants, and electric energy in clouds and weather, however it is still deeply peaceful.

Examples:

a) Place within the body like thighs, calves, feet that feel unperturbed, natural, still, serene and calm (this changes from day to day so be alert to the true sensation in the moment, for example, my feet sometimes are an Oasis Spot, sometimes are numb and outside my awareness, and sometimes are activated – tense or holding nervous or stuck energy)

b) Place in nature that you feel the calm emanating from, for example blades of grass in the lawn, moss in a forest, pine trees, a flower patch, branches of a tree, clouds. This can even be a memory of a place you have experienced.

c) Animal – a pet – sleeping cat for example, or a wild animal – rabbit munching leaves for example

d) Place within the imagination – for example a guided visualization to one’s “Safe Place”

In this exercise we will tune into an Oasis Spot in nature. Think about a place in nature familiar to you, or within your field of vision (like clouds out the window). Bring it to mind, and close your eyes.

6. Focus on Space. Now pay attention to the space in and around this Oasis Spot. For example, sense the space between the blades of grass, the space between clouds, between branches or trees. Rest your attention on this Oasis Spot especially the space for 5 breaths.

Optional: Ask yourself, what would I feel like if I was that space? to get a deeper sense of the calm alert state.

7. Pendulation. Rest your awareness back on your body and sense a place of TENSION (the same or a different one). Rest your awareness there for 5 breaths. Then rest your awareness on the Oasis Spot you have in mind. Rest it there for 5 breaths. Keep going back and forth.

Go back and forth until you feel a shift in the overall felt sense in your body.

8. Draw & Color. Now go to the second paper and color or draw in the areas that feel different now, you can use your imagination and draw any symbols and colors you like. For example if you feel more sensation in your legs now, you can draw spirals or green, whatever comes to you.

9. Repeat the above steps, this time for FEAR. You may use the same diagrams or print out two additional diagrams.

You are now finished. Congratulations for taking care of yourself and your healing!

You may do the other emotions: Absent Numb Nothing (Repressed Frozen), Angry, Sorrow, Regret, and Guilt during another session. Two emotions are usually enough for one sitting, but use your own judgment. You may do them all at one time if you feel that is best.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you the very best on your healing journey.

P.A.T.H

The PATH exercise helps us tune into our bodies and the sensations that arise. By practicing this exercise, you will can learn how to feel more relaxed and comfortable in your own body. This resource was also found on The Art of Healing Trauma blog.

During our experience of PTSD we may find that we scan the environment constantly trying to get as much information out of it as fast as possible. This is called being hypervigilant. 

We may not notice, but underneath this habit of watching our surroundings is a kind of wild, scared feeling of searching for and seeking potential danger. It doesn’t matter if we know intellectually that we are no longer in danger because this is originating from an unconscious, instinctual and animal part of ourselves. It’s like we have a wild animals’ eye attached to us that is always stuck wide open, like a sentry always at the ready even if nothing is there anymore.

Also, we may have a tendency to be dissociated, disconnected from what is going on in the here and now, absent; a space cadet, our mind off in some place other than the present.

Goal: The goal of this exercise is to begin to train ourselves to stop scanning the environment in such a hyper-alert, robotic and habitual way. We can simply be without having hypervigilance.

Also the goal is to train us to be OK with the present moment, to settle into the body again, to make it a safe place to exist again. We can learn not to be disconnected from our self /body anymore.

This is a basic, “easy” level felt sense exercise.

Instructions: Relax your body. Relax your eyes. Slow down your attempts to get information out of the environment around you. Notice the environment in a calm way. Pull your attention inside your body. 

Now, ask yourself:

P. Where do I feel pressure?

A. Which parts of my body feel the air?

T. Where is there tension?

H. Where can I feel heat? 

This exercise goes from the body’s surface (pressure and air), then into the muscles ( tension), and heat is generally deep in the centre.

After going through the steps, see if you can look at the environment from a calm place. Notice how you can be alert and perceptive, in a reasonable and calm way, while you are simultaneously noticing how your body feels inside.

Whenever you lie down or are sitting for a bit remember to do “P.A.T.H,” your PATH to learning internal awareness and developing the felt sense. 

Resiliency Building Skills to Practice for Trauma Recovery

1. Grounding

Feel your feet on the ground. Feel gravity. Feel the pressure of your body on what is supporting it. Feel the texture of objects with your fingers. Name what you touch, see, hear, smell and taste.

2. Tracking / Felt Sense

Place your attention on sensations in the body & monitor them for a bit of time.

Describe them and notice when they change. Stay with yourself even if something very uncomfortable comes up; be Velcro. Challenge yourself not to dissociate.

3. Slowing / Titration

Deliberately slow down your emotions and disturbing body sensations, like slowing down the tempo of music. Separate out and work on only a small bit of the emotions or sensations and leave the rest for later. Take one bite of pie.

4. Resourcing

Imagine a Safe Place, or recall a safe, calming, comforting experience you had in your life. Imagine you’re there and notice what you feel. Know that you can always go to this place in your imagination if you need to calm down.

5. Pendulation

Be deeply present with an area of your body feeling activation, such as terror, anger, panic, tension. Then move your attention to a place of calm in your body. Very slowly go back and forth. Build your capacity to stay with the negative. And your capacity to feel positive things again and stay with them. 

6. Contact / Self-Holding Exercises

Put your hands on the parts of your body that feel difficult sensations (tension, discomfort). Notice how the hands feel when on the body. Notice how the body feels under the hands. Notice how the space between the hands feels.

7. Community

Socialize & participate in your community. Human connection builds resilience.

8. Presence

Practice placing your awareness on any emotion or sensation coming up inside you. Say towards it, “You are welcome here.” Stay with it in a loving, compassionate way.

9. Self-Acceptance

Work on reducing “should” thoughts about yourself. Allow yourself the space and time for your body, emotions and mind to embrace and pass through the processes they need to.

10. Self-Empathy

Practice being gentle with yourself. Practice self-empathy.

Slowing Down Your Racing Thoughts

Thank you Heidi Hanson for this source.

Goal: The goal of this exercise is to help our brain remember its natural, relaxed speed of thought. This exercise tends to help simplify the thought process itself, aiding us in going from mental chaos to mental organization and helping with information processing.

The secondary gain is to slow down our overall feeling of anxiety and to settle more into our body, to discover that when we slow down our thought rhythm, it also slows down our body rhythms.

Instructions:

1. When you notice you are thinking in a crazy fast way, with racing thoughts or in a chaotic way with too many thoughts at once, pause and relax. Take a deep breath.

2. Slow your thoughts to two syllables per in-breath and 2 syllables per out-breath. Example: “I-want” on the in-breath, “to go” on the out-breath, “out-side” on the in-breath. Or: You can think “I-am” “slow-ing” “my-mind.” Or: “I-am” ”safe-now.” That is a good mantra to use for this exercise. You can think ongoing thoughts or just think one thought repeatedly like a mantra or chant.

3. Enunciate each word clearly and carefully. You may even try over-enunciating to help stay focused. Also, stretch the syllables so they fill the entire breath to the very end.

4. Focus on the words you are thinking. Be careful not to let some other stream of thought start running in the background.

5. Pay attention to how your breath is slowing, bringing the brain, the nervous system and the entire body all into a slower more peaceful tempo.

It’s like taking a turbo jet airplane that is at-the-ready for high stress flight and putting it into a small fishing boat in a secluded lake and coaxing it to fish for an entire day. In this exercise you are taking your mind fishing for an entire day, no matter if it is all set to ride the turbo jet.

Ultra Slowed Down Thinking Exercise

This exercise is particularly useful when you are feeling very stressed.

This is exactly the same as Slowed Down Thinking except you think ONE syllable per in-breath and ONE syllable per out-breath (not two).

Breathing In: “Iiiiiiiii”

Breathing Out: “Aaaaaammmmm”

Breathing In: “Sloooooooooow-”

Breathing Out “iiiiiiiinnnnnggggg”

Breathing In: “Myyyyyyyyy”

Breathing Out: “Thouuuuugggtttsss”

Note that The Slowed Down Thinking Exercise can be used at the same time as most other exercises to enhance the calming effect.

The 5 Step Self-holding Exercise is an exercise I compiled from various sources that has been really helping me a lot lately with anxiety, stress and symptoms related to PTSD.

Synonyms (alternate titles): Extended Sequence Self-Holding Exercise, 5 Step Self-Soothing Exercise, 5 Step Self-Calming Exercise

Comments:

Sometimes, when I am in a very high state of hyperarousal (fear) and mental chaos, it takes a while to calm down using just one self-holding exercise. It can take up to 15 minutes. When I do this 5 Steps exercise, because there are 5 steps it ensures I am doing it long enough for it to be effective and I almost always reach a much calmer state.

Tip: I get really good results when I do this Exercise while also doing the Exercise “Slowed Down Thinking” or “Ultra Slowed Down Thinking.” I recommend doing this exercise a few times so you can concentrate on the exercise itself and master it, then experiment with adding Slowed Down Thinking in and see what happens.

Goal: To little by little decrease our level of activation. To reach a state of “calm alert.”

Instructions:

It doesn’t matter which hand (Right or Left) goes in which position. Experiment to find out what feels right for you.

Make sure to do the Felt Sense to the best of your ability as you do this exercise. That means, feel and notice all the sensations as they pass though you, like watching a stream and noticing the colors, shapes, energy, sounds and motion.

The 5 Step Self-holding Exercise

1. HEAD SIDES Place your hands on either side of your head. Think about how you are creating edges for your thoughts. You are creating the sides of a container that contains your thoughts. Feel the sensation between your hands.
   

2. HEAD FRONT-BACK Place one hand on your forehead and one hand on the back of your head. Feel the container around of your thinking. Feel the sensation between your hands.
   

3. FOREHEAD – HEART Place one hand on your forehead and one hand on your heart. See if you can sense some sensations between your hands.
   

4. HEART – STOMACH Place one hand on your heart and one hand on your belly – it can be over or near your belly button. Feel the sensations between your hands.
   

5. SOLAR PLEXUS – BASE OF HEAD Place one hand on your solar plexus – the point above your belly and right below your rib cage – and the other hand behind the base of your head – halfway covering the base of your head and halfway onto your neck. The middle of your hand should be over the deepest indentation. 
   

By the end of this sequence, you should feel calmer than when you began, and be able to face the challenges of everyday life better than when totally hyped up.

 Congratulations! You had the willingness and put in the effort to learn to manage your own symptoms, to learn self-regulation.