Tina 00:00:00 I recently created a Somatic Healing Toolbox. It is a PDF download and it has over 20 different practices. Somatic practices that you could do to help heal yourself, heal your nervous system, bring you out of fight or flight, and start to live in a state of calm. And so today, I decided to share as many of those practices that I could share with you in one podcast. And just to help empower you, also inspire you to either do these practices on your own or do these practices with your whoever you're getting help with, whether it's a counselor or a therapist. But I think that having a toolbox where a place where you can go to help relieve stress and anxiety when you're experiencing it in the now is really empowering. And so let's get into it. You're listening to the Soul Aligned Self-care podcast. I'm your host, Tina Stinson, and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout that shook my world. Now I'm laying it all out. The deep level self-care practices and mindset shifts that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced, and thriving.
Tina 00:01:24 Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and the soul's journey to alignment. This is where real conversations about deep level self-care happen. Let's get into it. Hey guys, welcome back to the Soul Aligned Self-care podcast. As I said today we are talking about somatic healing practices. And as I said, I created a somatic healing toolbox with over 20 different practices on the inside. And it's a digital download. And if you head over to the Soul Alliance Healthcare Insiders and you are in the VIP tier, you will get this for free this week. It'll be in there. Actually, it'll be in there no matter when you join. So if you want to grab it, it'll be coming out sometime this week. Probably by Friday for sure. And you could grab it. But one of the cool things about the insiders is it doesn't matter when you join. You have access to all of the past information that's in there. So anything else? Any other digital downloads I gave in the past or also all the meditations, affirmation and breathwork recordings in there, they're all at your fingertips once you join.
Tina 00:02:46 So with that said, today I want to get into these practices. I want to share as many as I can with you. I don't think I'll get through all 20, but I'm going to kind of go through my guide and share with you my favorites and. And then if you want to grab the toolbox, you could, purchase it with the link in the show notes. It's very inexpensive. It's $5. It's really inexpensive. Or you could go over and join the soul line self Care insiders and get it for free, along with all the other stuff that lots of juicy stuff in there. So it's pretty cool. Let's get into it. So the reason why I wanted to do this and create this is because I know that a lot of people are very attracted to somatic practices to help heal trauma, to help reduce stress and anxiety, and also to build resilience. Somatic practices are powerful tools for healing these things. And, I would like to say that when you I think when you combine this with traditional therapy, if you're in therapy is extra powerful.
Tina 00:03:56 But being able to find a therapist that does this. And then on top of it, get an appointment with something like that is nearly impossible. so that's what inspired me to do this, realizing that these things are not available to everyone. And to make it, free or very low cost for people to be able to empower them and help them take matters into their own hands when they can. I think, I don't know, that's just for me. I like doing that for myself. So I just wanted to share with you guys. But before I get started, I also want to remind you I'm not a therapist or a counselor or a doctor. So this podcast is really for educational purposes and entertainment purposes. So just keep that in mind when you're going through these practices. As I said, they could be extremely powerful when you're using them with a therapist. I like to use these practices for me to reduce stress and anxiety and also to help me build resilience, like I said, because the more you take care of yourself, if you're doing some of these practices on a daily basis, just almost as maintenance.
Tina 00:04:58 Just like you have to work out, just, you know, just like you have to eat healthy, then it helps build resilience so that when things come up in your daily life, you're better able to, like, handle them in a really calm state of mind very gracefully. And so, take the practices that you love and then leave the rest behind. As I said, I'm going to be sharing some of my favorites with you. I don't think I'll have time to share all 20 plus practices, but I'm going to share as many as I can with you. So getting started. The first one is grounding, and I think grounding can really be beneficial. One of my favorite things about grounding is that it brings you back into the present moment. It kind of brings you back from wherever you are, whether your mind is wandering or you're in like a state of anxiety, it really helps. So it helps with anxiety, disassociation, stress, feeling disconnected from your body. Okay, so the benefits are that it will help calm the calm the nervous system.
Tina 00:05:57 It increases present moment awareness, and it kind of fosters a sense of safety in your body. And the relief that you can expect from doing this is pretty immediate to like short term. Okay. So how do you do it? You could either sit, sit or stand or even lay down. I would take your shoes off if possible. And if you want to really, really make it even more powerful, do it outside and like, do it on the grass, you know, with your shoes off, because they call that earthing. It's a little different, but pretty much, it's like super powered grounding. That's what I that's what I'll call it. So you're just going to put your feet or you could sit on the ground or you could lay down. And I want you to just, like, feel into the weight of your body pressing on the surface that's supporting you. And take five deep breaths, you know, breathing in through your nose, out through your mouth, focusing on the sensation of your connection to the surface that's supporting you at the time.
Tina 00:07:00 And after you do the five deep breaths, then I want you to name five things that you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two things you could smell. And then one thing you could taste. So it's just like five, four three, two, one. And for me, this brings me into a state of calm. And it's very, very powerful. Even if I don't do the last part of that practice, the fact that, you know, the five, four, three, two, one, even just grounding, connecting to the surface that you're sitting on. Connecting to the Earth. Taking those five deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth. That alone will help ground you and bring you back into the present moment. The second one is body scanning. And so it's about like, you know, taking a few deep breaths, right, sitting down comfortably, closing down the eyes and looking to looking for the parts of your body that are experiencing tension stress.
Tina 00:07:57 Right. So this helps with just that tension stress emotional like almost anxiety a little bit. the benefits is that it helps release the stored tension and it promotes relaxation. And expected relief is very short term. It's almost immediately after you start doing it. So close your eyes down, take a few deep breaths and bring your attention to the place where you're feeling that stress, and scan the whole body and notice the sensations that you're feeling in those areas, whether it's a tightness or pain or a tingling or whatever it might be. And then when you're breathing, breathe into those areas, imagining that the breath is softening those spots and releasing the tension out of your body so you're breathing in. And then as you breathe out, you're releasing that tension. So some of you know, right now, I've been talking about it a little bit, that I am taking a breathwork certification. I already have one Breath breathwork certification, but now I am getting certified to be a facilitator and so I could do group classes and stuff like that.
Tina 00:09:05 And and I found breathwork to be so empowering and so life changing that that's why I decided to get certified. And so anything with breathwork to me is like my favorite, absolute favorite. So another one. That's why I'm going to get into. breathwork. So breathwork helps relieve anxiety, panic attacks and chronic stress. You can control a lot of things with your breath. You could energize your body. You could relax your body. You could slow your heart rate. You can control your blood pressure. There's so many things you. There's so many things you could do now. It helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system. So it helps take you out of fight or flight and help you, helps you put yourself back into rest and digest. It reduces cortisol levels and it improves oxygen flow. So this is something that you should do every day. This is one of those maintenance things, right? That will help you over time and help you build resilience. So sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Place one hand on the chest and the other on your belly.
Tina 00:10:10 Inhale deeply through your nose, allowing your belly to rise, not your chest. Now your chest is going to move a little bit, so don't feel like you've failed. If your chest moves a little bit, but focus on filling your belly without air like you were filling a balloon. And then when you exhale, exhale slowly through the mouth, feeling your belly fall. You could even pretend you're blowing out a candle to slow the breath coming out. And repeat this practice for around, you know, five minutes. You know, just slowing down the breath. You can even focus on taking an in-breath of two and outbreath of four. But whatever the breath is, you don't have to count. Just try to exhale longer than the in-breath. And this really, really helps calm the nervous system. This is one of my favorite things to do. This has helped me lower my blood pressure. This has helped me with my stress and my anxiety and it's my go to everyday practice. Next is somatic shaking.
Tina 00:11:12 Now I love this one. because it works and it's pretty instantaneous. And it's also something that you could do every day to really help build up your resilience, but also because you could just dance. Really. You don't. It doesn't necessarily have to be just shaking. So somatic shaking is exactly what you think it is. It's you shaking your body. And I always like to use the example of a deer being chased by some kind of prey, whether it's a coyote or whatever. So after the deer gets chased by the coyote and it's still alive, and it goes through that whole traumatic experience, that deer will then stand there hiding behind the bush or wherever it is, and its whole body will shake to release that trauma, to release that energy. Now, we as humans don't do this, like, naturally. Which is I find it very interesting, although sometimes we do like, if we're really terrified, we'll shake like, for example, I'm really afraid of heights, but I was climbing up Algonquin, which is a mountain in the Adirondacks.
Tina 00:12:16 It's. I think it's the second highest peak, but I'm not really sure about that. So don't come, come at me with that. But it's pretty high up there. I don't know how high it is, but it's high up there. scary for me. And so I, I had to climb around this rock that was on a cliff at one point. It was kind of cliffy. And don't get me wrong, climbing up Algonquin is really not that adventurous. But for me it is. But for most people it's pretty calm. It's a pretty easy hike. but this was terrifying to me, and I remember my knees shaking like I had no control over it. My niece were just shaking after I went around that rock and, that's what it reminded me of. So I guess maybe we do this sometimes, but probably not enough. So the benefits of shaking is it helps you release that trapped energy, and it reduces muscle tension and it calms your nervous system. And so the way you do it really is you just stand up, you know, and bend your knees slightly and just begin to like, gently shake your legs, your arms, your shoulders, your your head.
Tina 00:13:24 Just move around. And I like to tell people to do this, like listen to your favorite song when you're doing it. so 5 to 10 minutes. and you know, I like to have fun with it. And doing it every morning will really help you start. It doesn't just release the tension, but it also energizes you a little bit. So it starts your day off really, really cool. Really cool thing to do in the morning. So put on your favorite song and try it. Try it tomorrow morning. It's actually so much fun. And when you put on your favorite song, it feels less weird than if you're just standing in your living room shaking your whole body. But it's a really good practice to help relieve that tension and start your day off in a really positive state. And so then I'm going to move into the next thing, which is somatic movement. Another one of my favorites. I do yoga almost every single day. So any type of yoga or stretching. I mean, I also think one of the things I tried when I was trying different things for my stress and anxiety was Qi Gong, which I do like a lot of the practices with Qi Gong and Tai Chi because, one of the things I noticed is that the practices in in gong and tai chi and yoga and even some of the practices in energy healing are the same movements like there's they're intertwined.
Tina 00:14:54 And I found that so interesting because I was studying all of them at the same time. I was doing this little experiment and trying all these different things to see the effect that it had on my stress and my anxiety, and I noticed the connection between all of them. And I just thought that was so cool. So how could you go wrong with practices that have been around for, I don't even know how long, but a very long time. I feel like in their effective. So, find the one that, you know, you connect with, try them. You can go right on YouTube and try Gong Tai Chi Yoga for free. Just try all of them. And the energy healing, the movements and energy healing, some of them are very similar. So what are some of the benefits? Well, it helps with chronic pain, stiffness and emotional stagnation. But it also for me is can be somewhat of a release like yoga has so many different practices. You could do. I'm trying to think of think of all the different.
Tina 00:15:51 I'm like blanking, but you could do like a pretty fast moving yoga practice, but and then you can go into like yin yoga, which is really, slow moving where you stay in the poses a lot longer. So it or there's restorative yoga too, like there's so many different ways that you could do these practices. And so in the morning when I'm going to do my yoga practice, I like feel into my body and ask myself what I need for that day. Do I need a workout? Do I want to sweat? Do I want to challenge or am I exhausted mentally or physically and I just need something really, you know, chill. You know, like restorative. Now, Yin yoga isn't always chill, so it can still be challenging but very slow moving. So it really depends on what you're looking for. And Qi Gong can be very slow moving. I don't do that as much as I used to because sometimes I just need to move quicker, but I still use some of the movements on a day to day basis.
Tina 00:16:58 that I liked. You know, so I picked and choose what I liked from it, and then I use it. So the benefits, are they. I think I already went over the benefits. I'm sorry. I'm reading from my notes, so. But the expected relief is short term to long term. So with consistent practice, you can expect more and more benefits, you know. So when I first started yoga I was doing it to help with an injury that I got. And it was magical how it was a sports injury, I guess you could call it that. And it was amazing how it helped me heal and get back to my, you know, 100% very quickly. and so I always used it in that fashion. But one of the things I realized with yoga is it's it was it was very similar to me as when I did, MMA. So what I liked about MMA was that it was a really good workout, but it was also a mental practice. Like when you had to spar or something like that, you had to use your head and you had to be really fast.
Tina 00:18:03 And I liked that challenge. And, yoga is similar in some ways, but it's not always like a mental challenge. It's well, it is a mental challenge because it's almost like you get into like a difficult pose and you could stay there and breathe through it. And this is the same thing we have to do when we get when we handle difficult moments in our life. It's such a cool comparison to me. So like whenever I'm in a difficult pose, I'm always like, this is going to pass, this is going to be over. I can do this. I could breathe through it. I could do it without getting upset or excited or stressed and just breathe through it. And that's how I want to handle the things that come up in my life. And so yoga isn't just physical for me. It's very mental. And so I think over time, the the different things that you get out of any type of practice that you choose are both, mentally and physically, mentally and physically, supportive.
Tina 00:19:10 So try the different ones, see what you like. But as you can tell, one of my favorite things to do to help with my stress and my anxiety. Okay, let me find the next one that I like. Okay, so another one that I like to use for myself and with my clients. I use this in everything I do. Actually I use this is journaling. So what it really helps with is emotional processing, self-awareness, and just healing in general. And it helps you. I think this is more of like a long term thing, although sometimes you can get some instantaneous release when you're doing journaling. It could really be helpful to get something off your back to do, like a mind dump exercise. But the way that you would do it is set aside ten 15 minutes to just write freely about your physical sensations, your emotions, the things you're feeling. You can even ask yourself questions and then answer your own questions. there's so many different ways that you could do this. I share a journal prompts every Sunday, so if you're not on my email list, get on my email list.
Tina 00:20:20 Also, I share the journal prompts in my Patreon, and I believe that's one of the free features. So if you just follow me for free on Patreon, you can get a weekly journal prompt there. So I think that's one of the best ways to get started, is just to find some journal prompts and use those. I also share journal prompts on my Pinterest so you could follow me over there also. So and and the I think the biggest thing for me is it's almost like talking through things with your subconscious, right? So getting into a really relaxed state, maybe even doing it after a meditation, is a really cool way to, really dive deeper into yourself. Really. And so it's like having a conversation with yourself. And I love doing this. I do this pretty much every single day. All right. Next progressive muscle relaxation. This is something that I do sometimes after I do yoga. And when I'm like in shavasana and I'm just kind of laying there. So you sit or you lie down comfortably and you just start by tensing the different parts of your body and then releasing.
Tina 00:21:30 So it's like you tense your feet up or your toes, you release, you tense your legs up, you release your tense, your core up, your release, and just go through your whole body. And then when I'm finished doing that, I'll usually take a really deep breath in and then like, exhale through my mouth with a sigh. And it's very I can go deeper into relaxation after I do that. So that's why I do it. Like after I do a yoga class, I'm in Shavasana. I'll do the progressive muscle relaxation to just relax even into a deeper state. you could even do, at the end of it a full body scan where you, you or a full body tense up, where you just tense the whole body and then release the whole body. this really helps with, like, muscle tension. This helps with insomnia. This is something you could do before bed and it helps with stress. So that's, one of my favorites. I don't do that like, every single day, but I would say I use that one quite often.
Tina 00:22:28 sound healing is another thing that I do. This is something that has become very important in my, breathwork certification. So, any type of like toning or humming is very healing. So it helps with stress, tension. and it helps like release it like it helps with like emotional blockages. It helps release that energy from your body. And the relief is pretty immediate or short term. So you could just you could really start by just doing the, sound, the which is spelled the way we learned how to spell it was a, so it's like R and then and then and what's cool about it is you're making vibrations and vibrations are very, very healing. Also you create nitric oxide. So when you're doing this humming, be sure to breathe in through your nose because that's where you're going to be creating that nitric oxide which is very healing. It's like nature's antioxidant. And so you could just repeat that for maybe ten breaths. A lot of yoga teachers do this. And, I never really knew that this was like a healing practice for me.
Tina 00:23:47 It was just something that was annoying that some teachers did before class. But now that I know that it's actually something that helps calm and heal the body. I, I'm totally into it. Absolutely, totally into it. And it's something that we do quite often after a breathwork session. So pretty cool. I like that practice. now I think another thing that you could do that. So this isn't really a somatic healing practice, but you can create some type of a ritual so that you're adding this into your daily life in order to build resilience. And this has become I've become very intentional about this lately because we're under a lot of stress in today's world, and I'm feeling it. I could feel it in my body. I know when I'm stressed out, I have different signals. I think I talked about them last week. My eye twitches, I get certain muscles tense up, and so when I could feel this stress on a on a continuous basis. I know that it's very damaging to my health and my body, and I know that I need to really be intentional about my daily practices, my daily somatic practices.
Tina 00:24:57 And that's another reason why I wanted to share all these practices with you. So create a ritual. So in the morning, I do my breathwork. I'm just going to tell you my ritual. And now I know not everybody could do this. Like I have a lot of freedom because I, you know, I work for myself and so I create my own schedule. I do have a lot of freedom. And I do realize that this isn't something that everybody can do, but you need to find what works into your lifestyle. So if you're the type of person that has to get up at the crack of dawn, you have kids chasing you down from the first thing in the morning, then you might only be able to do a little bit of breathwork and while you're in the bathroom, possibly. I've totally been there, but anybody could take five deep breaths in the morning hiding in the bathroom. Anybody could do that. But I do a whole breathwork session in the morning, and then I tend to do I do yoga nidra, which is kind of like they call it, I think they call it oh my God, I always get this wrong.
Tina 00:25:57 I think I talked about it last week too. Deep rest while you're awake or something like that. It's almost like you're you're getting the the rest in your body that you would get if you were actually sleeping, but you're still awake. And one of the things that isn't really feasible for a lot of people with yoga nidra is that it's usually pretty time consuming, like most of the practices that you'll find anywhere YouTube meditation channels, on aura, where I create meditations or any of the other meditation apps, they're like usually around 20 minutes long. So not everybody has this time. But this is a really great practice to do before bed. This will really help you fall into sleep. I like doing this after my yoga class because I'm already laying there in Shavasana, and I just put my headphones on and do a practice. I try to find the shortest, shortest one I could do, and I do a practice. Then I don't do this every day, but I try to do it a couple of times a week.
Tina 00:26:52 And so, and then at the end of the day, I like to listen to like, energy healing music. So like Hertz music or like even some subliminal bells, I'll put that on. I'll put it on YouTube. So it's just in the house, you know, playing one of the things I noticed is when I put this music on, my dog just is out. She just sleeps. So, I'm a firm believer that it works. So when I'm having one of those days and I'm really stressed, I'll put that, I'll put that on in the background. And so these are my little rituals, you know, so I'm doing and movement is important to me to the winter. It's hard for me like right now outside I have a sheet of ice. Like, you can't even walk, on the driveway. It's like an ice skating rink. And the snow has like melted and hardened, so it's hard to walk in the snow also. So it's very difficult to get movement, that type of movement in.
Tina 00:27:52 So sometimes my daily movement is my yoga. That's like sometimes the only movement I have or lifting weights. And so adding these different practices, having like a ritual that I set up for myself, if I don't have time to do my yoga, maybe just doing like a, a take five meditation where I check in with myself, but just doing something a couple of times a day. Now, some people might say, Tina, I don't have time to do something three times a day like that. And I would say start with like three minutes, do like a three minute guided meditation in the morning, afternoon and at night and see how quickly it'll change your life. But just try something. Try to add something in every day so that you're helping to reduce stress and anxiety so that even if you just do the shaking ritual every morning, you know, put your favorite song on while your coffee is brewing and do your song. Just do that. Like do something. Add something to your life that's going to help reduce the stress and anxiety that most of us are experiencing on an everyday basis.
Tina 00:28:58 And then build, start building that resilience in your body so that you can handle the things that come up along the way. All right. What else do I want to share with you? Oh, self-compassion. Self-compassion is really important. So when you notice yourself just getting really judgy, just take a breath. And I want you to imagine that you are dealing with one of your friends, your best friend, and she's really, really stressed. And you could see it. And I want you to think of the way you would treat her or him and the advice that you would offer to them. Oh my God, as I'm recording this podcast, I'm watching a car drive down the driveway and I'm wondering if it'll end well. They're going very slow. Okay. Anyway, be super kind to yourself. So say the words to yourself that you would say to your friend. Give yourself the compassion that you would give to a good friend. So when you notice yourself just being super judgy and hard and maybe even a little negative to yourself, remember to practice self-compassion.
Tina 00:30:08 It's so important. And this alone is can be a part of your daily somatic practices. Now, I think the last thing that I want to cover today, and I know I didn't cover nearly as many as 20 items. So if you want the 20 items, you know where to get them. I'll leave the links in the show notes. But, I talked earlier about grounding to the Earth. But one of the things I want to emphasize is that being out in nature, and as I said, this is really hard for me right now. Where I live, I'm on the top of a mountain And like the foothills of the Catskills, it's freezing. It's windy, it's snowy, and there's ice everywhere right now. So this is really hard, but I am forced to go outside a couple of times a day to walk my dog. So I still get little bits of nature in there. But as soon as the weather clears, I am outside more than I'm inside. It's my favorite place to be, and I can tell you from experience that nature is healing.
Tina 00:31:10 It heals everything. And so many of us have no connection to nature anymore. We go to work. We work in these buildings that don't have windows. We leave work after the sun goes down. We go home. We're not outside every day. And so being intentional about trying to get in nature as much as possible, even if you live in a city, is so important to your health, it helps reduce stress. It improves your mood, it lowers your blood pressure. It like almost Continuously lowers your blood pressure when you walk in the woods. I think that's amazing. So being intentional about the time that you spend outdoors, and if you're an outdoor hater, which I know there's a lot of people who just don't like nature find nature in more controlled areas. You know, like, what do I mean by that? So maybe go to an arboretum where the gardens are just beautiful and there's these perfect walking paths. You know, bring the stuff that you need to protect yourself from the sun.
Tina 00:32:16 If the sun, sun is something that you don't like. Maybe go. You know, if you go to the beach, go on, like, a cruise or something like that, you know, through the water, you know, get yourself outside. Find something that works for you that you enjoy. Go to the park and do a yoga class. I don't know, that sounds heavenly to me. That might sound like a nightmare to most people, but, find what works for you, you know? Go visit a local farm and, you know, figure out where you could buy your vegetables from a local farm and visit the farm and be a part of the community that you're in. Get outside more often and connect with nature and the people around you. So I'm going to leave it at that. You know, these are some of the practices, some of my favorite practices, and there's so many more. As I said, there's over 20, that I went into. So there's sure to be a couple that you can kind of grab on to that are, you know, easy for you to add into your life.
Tina 00:33:19 And my goal here is really to empower you, you know, and inspire you. Right. So I want you to be able when you're feeling that way and you feel like you don't have any help. I want you to be able to step up for yourself and say, I know I could do these practices myself at home. They're completely free and I have some control. I have something I could do for myself to support myself, and that is my main goal with today's podcast and the creation of this little workbook that I created. So I'm going to put a link in the show notes for both the, my Patreon where you can get it for free, and also you can get it. Well, I guess it's not technically it's not free because I am asking you to join the VIP Patreon, but there is a seven day free trial right now, and the half month the first month would be 50% off, so you technically can grab it for free, and then you could also grab it on my website.
Tina 00:34:27 I'll leave a link there if you're not interested in joining me over on Patreon. So those links, both those links will be there so you could grab it if you want. and I will see you next week. I love you guys. Bye.
