Did you know that while your brain visualizes something, say, a sunset, being on the beach, wandering in the woods, sitting in a peaceful garden, that you are actually having that experience?
In Trauma recovery, we use this to create a practice called "Calm Place."
Calm Place helps us learn self-regulation, which is the ability to put aside unruly emotions, intrusive thoughts, and anger.
Like everything you do, this takes time and practice before it can be effective.
Mastering this technique helps you control your unruly emotions and thoughts. It helps your calm your sympathetic nervous system.
Calm Place is where you go when you need a reprieve. It's where you go when life feels overwhelming. It's the one place you can step into and not have to explain yourself, not have to lock the door, not have to run.
What is your Calm Place? I have two I use regularly.
Once is lying on my back in the family apple orchard watching the clouds as they float by, smelling the apples ripe on the tree, hearing them drop here and there, and feeling the grass beneath my body.
The other is paddling down the river by my childhood home, hearing the silence and seeing the fall colors in the trees as I sit in the canoe and dip my paddle in quietly.
