Sarah 0:11
Okay, so I taught the concept of meeting and matching inside of the Mother Duck class that Luke and I taught recently, and it resonated with a lot of people, and so I wanted to go into it a little more here. Hopefully, this is like a deeper dive for people who were in that class, and maybe something new for those who weren't, and hopefully there is something for everyone. So this is a concept I learned from Carmen Spaniola, one of my amazing teachers. I recommend learning from Carmen on a lot of things, attachment and collapse, and yeah, lots of really somatic, yeah, so meeting and matching, let me tell, let me give an example of what I'm talking about first, the idea is that when someone's having a hard time or an intense nervous system situation and activation wave that we can join them in that wave to some extent, and then there's a skill in how to do that without making it scarier for them, or in a way that's like accurate inside of your own nervous system too. So, okay, here, let me think of an example I Okay, so let's say that I have a little bit of a like stress response when I'm in my pack raft and going like there's a rapid ahead that is intimidating, so it's causing some anxiety or some stress in my body. This is a true story, by the way. So, sometimes we reality test before we meet and match, so reality test is we remind people that they can do it, that it's like within their capacity, if you've got this, which, okay, which is probably accurate, and I think I'm going to do a second conversation here also about that skill, and how to time it right, because there's a timing to the skill, the strategy of reality testing, and it often goes a lot better to reality test if you meet and match first, so meet and match means that we join them in the, in the experience to some extent, like one of the skills that I develop. Welcome to my windy hike. One of the skills we practice a lot in somatic experiencing, is the skill of being able to experience activation and safety at the same time. Okay, so what that means is that this is a practice, but the idea, it's windy, yeah, the idea is that you can lean on all of the strategies we've been practicing over time and will continue to to help your body recognize that things are okay orienting, or I mean, just looking around and recognizing that to you this situation reads as okay, safe help that land enough in your body that your body is also able to register that sometimes that takes a minute and. And then from that you can maybe hold the sense of safety in your body to some extent, and also join someone in their, like, gosh, that was a big deal, it's often a higher vocal toll, and a little bit of energy. It's saying one of my teachers calls this wicked yes. It's another way to think about this skill, where it's like yes to whatever it is you're experiencing. Yes, you are accurately describing the what you're experiencing, and then if we can have our energy or R activation come in at just like a little bit lower than theirs would be sort of the most ideal dynamic, and the idea is there that they're met, but they're not passed by or like amped up by it, and yeah, also they're well seen and met, and then maybe their nervous system steps down, and then yours can step down, and you can kind of ladder yourself each other down, that's the beauty of meeting and matching, and the magic of it, because it really does work when we do it well. It takes some practice, and it also doesn't have to be perfect, you know. Let's see. Okay, I feel fairly close to complete on this one, so yeah, I hope that is a helpful strategy for you. Let me know what happens as you play with it, and good luck. I love somatics, I love, I love somatics,
Unknown Speaker 7:23
I.
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