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Show Notes

In this short, supportive practice episode, I guide you through one of the most foundational nervous system tools we use again and again in this work: orienting through the senses to resource the body. This is a practice you can return to anytime you want to slow down, come back into your body, and gently support regulation — whether you’re walking, sitting, or even moving through your day.

We explore how shifting attention to the senses can help the nervous system settle, gather scattered energy, and bring you more fully into the present moment. There’s no right outcome here — settling, increased sensation, neutrality, or simply noticing more are all welcome and useful experiences.

This practice is an invitation to let the body lead, notice what feels neutral or pleasant, and choose whether to rest in a sense of wellbeing or carry that resourced presence into whatever comes next.

Timestamps

00:00 — Welcome & setting up this standalone practice
01:45 — Gentle movement, comfort & listening to the body
02:45 — Using the senses to orient to your environment
04:00 — Slowing attention so the body can take things in
05:30 — Noticing signs of settling or increased sensation
06:45 — Gathering yourself into the present moment
08:00 — Finding something neutral or pleasant to rest attention on
09:45 — Letting the body receive pleasure or ease
11:00 — Resting in wellbeing or transitioning back into action
12:30 — Closing & invitation to return to this practice anytime

Submit your questions for the Q&A [here]

Photos and links from this episode: www.mindandmountain.co/podcast 

Transcript: 

Sarah 0:05
Hi there, and welcome to co regulation conversations. We are taking a holiday break at mind and mountain for these two weeks over the Christmas and New Year's holidays. And so for the podcast, what I wanted to do in advance of that break is record a couple practices for you. So this week I have a one of the just foundational practices that we've been talking about and practicing inside of this podcast all along, but I just wanted to set it up here as a separate practice for you to explore, use whenever you feel like you have a little bit of time to come back into your body and orient and resource yourself, so you could do This practice kind of any way you want in, if you are walking, if you are seated, if you are even if you're driving. I think there's a way to do this practice. Of course you'll want to be like keeping some attention on what you need to prioritize. But with whatever senses you have available. What we're going to do with this practice is just slow down enough to be able to come into your body a little bit maybe, you know, see if there's like, any wiggles that want to happen, or anything that your body wants to do to feel a little bit more comfortable

Sarah 1:47
just giving that a little bit of time and noticing the impact, if you've made any shifts.

Sarah 2:02
Yeah, and you know, as we move through this practice, we'll be having a lens, both on the body and on the space that we find ourselves in with this, oh, this idea of wanting to catch any of the signals that we might come across of any kind of down regulation or settling that might happen in the nervous system. It doesn't have to, and we don't want to like work to make it happen, but we do want to see what happens when we adjust the way we're using our attention and help our attention land in things, in places that might facilitate that down regulation experience. So just thinking about the senses, the five senses that you have see if there is one of those that feels the easiest to access right now, or it might be multiple ones, and we're going to use that sense to notice the space that you find yourself in right now. So often that is using our eyes to look around the space, and particularly with the eyes, we need to Raine ourselves in a little bit and see if what it's like to do it at a little bit of a slower pace than Maybe we would normally do.

Sarah 3:42
So just having a look around, or having a listen, or even maybe using the sense of touch,

Sarah 3:55
and doing this at a slow enough pace that the attention can land a little bit in each of the things that you notice, and pause there for a long enough time for the body to also notice it.

Sarah 4:22
You don't have to intellectually know what that means. We just need to know that the body's going to need a little bit more time to actually take in what it is that the senses are picking up.

Sarah 4:55
As you do this seeing if there's any thing that happens for. Or your body or your nervous system, any sense of like slowing down or deactivation deeper breath, if you happen to notice anything like that, will be wanting to just be in the enjoyment of that experience. Bringing a little conscious awareness to the experience that the body is able to have as it deactivates.

Sarah 5:37
And that may not be exactly what's happening for you, and it's absolutely fine if you're having a different experience. We were really just dropping in a pebble into the pond and then seeing what the impact is. So sometimes, as we move into these practices and slow ourselves down, what we notice is that there is maybe more energy in the body or more charge than we had realized. And we're maybe, instead of moving from activation into settling, instead, maybe we're moving from a bit of disembodiment into a bit of like less numbness. And so you just might be noticing more, and that would be an okay thing to be experiencing now as well. Of course, like any whatever you're experiencing is is absolutely fine here. What comes up in you is the information that's important. So

Sarah 6:39
we're going to transition here in a moment, but before we do, I'm curious if there's a sense at all about a collecting of yourself as you're using your senses to find yourself in time and space and in the room that you're in, or in the place that you find yourself right now, if there's a sense at all of for the gathering of the parts of you that were forward in you know, whatever might be happening in the future or behind in whatever has happened in the past, if there's a way that you can kind of feel those timelines condensing a little bit more as you arrive, just even a little bit more here in the present moment, and if you have a sense for that, notice what's happening that clues you into the fact that You're maybe feeling a little bit more present right now.

Sarah 7:50
Yeah, and then the next part of this is to look, especially now with, again, with the senses. So could be your eyes, could be your sense of touch, or something you're hearing, or maybe there's a smell or even a taste that you come across. But let's look for something in the experience that your body is having that is something that's nice, something that's pleasant. If pleasant is too much to access today, we can go for neutral, anywhere on that like pleasant to neutral side of the continuum. Let it be whatever your body finds it's sometimes it's really random. Your eyes just catch a little something or other in your space, and they they want to look at that and and then we can just let that happen and notice what it's like to let the body lead tell you what it likes right now and then to receive the impacts of letting that attention land where it wants to land, especially if it's on something that's like somehow landing as a pleasurable experience inside the body. We don't have to understand why that is or make sense of it in the mind. We can just let the experience have this quality of like something nice is happening that makes that experience something that my body is wanting right now i

Sarah 9:58
It's letting your energy settled. Down a little bit into your feet, into your hips and pelvis,

Sarah 10:17
and then we're noticing anything that's pleasurable about the experience that you're having right now, the sensory aspect of it, and the impact somatically, if there's like a warmth in the chest or a relaxation of anything in the body, just Taking note of that while it happens, and being with the pleasurable experience. And you might want to stay with this practice and stretch it out. If you have a little bit more time to spend here, from this resourced place, you might find yourself able to rest in a state of well being, which is a really beautiful thing to be able to access inside of your nervous system, experience and practice what it means to just be here, landing in a state of well being with the acknowledgement that, like not everything has to be just right in order to feel a little bit of something that has that quality of okayness or safe enough, you might also find yourself feeling oriented and resourced and ready to go engage with whatever it is you have to do next from this place, and able to play with what it's like to carry presence and a resourced body and nervous system with you into whatever it is you're doing next. So you've got some options you can play with the resting in the state of well being route here, or the moving into action and engagement with the world. Either one of these options is a great place to go from here, or maybe you'll find a different direction you want to take this. Okay, it's been great practicing with you. I hope that you take this practice into your day in a way that supports you have a great time, and I'll see you next time you.