Tag: #neuroceptivehousekeeping

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Create 10: I am the artist who clears the decks – and creates

I can’t express strongly enough the benefit of deploying ‘neuroceptive housekeeping’ (our phrase) for tending to my {need to feel competent}.

It has not been easy. I’ve got a lot on and I was in quite a state. But I’ve been gentler with myself again. And I’ve consciously laid my focus on where I am competent – I’ve trained and/or mediated and/or coached some 300 people in the last 10 days. Wow.

And I worked out: I need help with managing my bookings, emails, diary and ‘standard operating procedures’ [Ha! B.E.D.S.]. That’s not because I’m incompetent! It’s because I’ve competently built the business. That’s to be celebrated!

Yesterday I debuted my first solo Conflict Prevention and Resolution course, to a group of 80 trainee nannies. It went really well and I felt in my element with the Rosenburg/Ury-inspired material:

Click to access Preventing-Resolving-Conflict-Norland-Arabella-Tresilian-15Jan21.pdf

I talked about what I’ve been calling Needs-Based Communication – I hope Marshall Rosenberg doesn’t mind, but ‘nonviolent communication’ is such a hard phrase for people to swallow…

The fact of the matter is that Rosenberg is basically a spiritual giant. His two key questions are utter genius:

As is his take on Feelings & Needs:

As is his script for needs-based dialogue:

I created this concept/image too:

I’m so pleased with my new training. It’s the launch of my One Jam product for the SoD. I’m feeling very blessed. All is going well. <3

And so, I wanted to try using those two NVC questions for self-support and self-care today. It’s a Saturday so I have time to tend to my needs – to do more neuroceptive housekeeping.

Excellent. Let us help! 

Question 1: What is alive in you? 

Ty for asking. Still a gnawing sense of things stacked up. Emails, birthdays coming up, 50 Whatsapps to attend to.

But also, a desire to give myself time and space for rest and relaxation / rest and digest / parasympathetic stillness… so I can mobilise my connected/social self on Monday.

Excellent. So ‘what is alive in you’ is: you have ‘things stacked up’ on your to do list, and also you want to relax… and the two pulls are causing a tension. 

What need is not being fulfilled, and how is it making you feel? 

Need: From the list above, I’ll go with ‘Celebration of life and dreams fulfilled’

Feeling: Most present to me is Reluctant… and Confused, Disappointed, Frustrated….

Question 2: What would make life more wonderful? 

I guess it’s more neuroceptive housekeeping but with a view to Celebrating life and dreams fulfilled. Maybe I need a list of Weekend To Dos to get done; and then a list of Celebratory / Relaxing To Dos… though we are a bit limited here for options in week 2 of our third national lockdown in 10 months….

It’s feeling… a little… ‘to do-ey’. No? The ‘things stacked up’ is the key. Maybe your aim is more ‘Decksfast’ than powering through to-dos? 

Clear the Decks. Yes, I have missed my ‘Clear the Decks before breakfast’ (“Decksfast/Decksfest”) in the mornings because I’ve been delivering training every morning.

Remember your idea of BEDS above. 

Thank you….

Oh I know what it is! Decksfast is reactive. And I want time not just to ‘celebrate’ but to CREATE! That’s where I get the wellbeing buzz, isn’t it? That’s what makes life more wonderful!

Create > Consume! Active > Passive! Proactive > Reactive!

Boom. 

Shall we go in? [to present moment awareness within]

Why not? 

******15minMed with Insight Timer sensing the breath in the chest****

Well, that was interesting! Clear as day, I sensed/cognized/downloaded the next step for the SoD….!:

Today’s Creative Impulse: 

  1. Schedule two events as SoD: MHFA Half Day, and SoD ConRes (as above) 
  2. Create a SoD Eventbrite page for the events – the page will serve as a temp website for the SoD
  3. Use my own slides for soc/med content via Hootsuite, with each post linking through to the eventbrite page/events, for direct sales as donations on a sliding scale. (See Healing Space Eventbrite as inspiration.) 

Man, if/as I start running my own events… and use that to attain more cases… I really will be on my way. And I have SO much content to share… And wonderfully, we’ve worked out how I can hand some of the load of bespoke training work for Bath Mind over to the new trainer I introduced.

This is the missing link. The impulse I needed to get Hootsuite going – to have something to sell, directly… Not just speculatively selling my services. But selling tickets to my events, to develop the SoD brand and rep, and get new clients, and make direct sales. <3 And while G and I are developing the website, well Eventbrite can be my temporary website! And people can pay me there! And it can direct them to AT.com if they want more!

Feeling good? Feeling celebratory? Feeling the possibility and flavour of the ‘Celebration of life and dreams fulfilled’? 

Yes! And I feel inspired to ‘clear the decks’ of ‘things stacked up’ to be able to get this creative/proactive work done! My work! As the SoD. I’m happy. And with Deborah Maddison as my inspiration, I’m in the right kind of company. <3 She holds the vibe, the frequency, of love, so clearly and lightly and firmly.

May I hold the vision of those Eventbrite sales as a marker.. And my word, hasn’t EVERYTHING I’ve done over the last year – from ASWM webinars to embracing Zoom to throwing myself into developing training to abundant client work – hasn’t it all prepared me so beautifully and perfectly for This Moment?

It has indeed. You asked for Online Work and your One Jam Offering. You were heard! You had all that in your vortex, as Abraham would say, and you sat tight, listening daily, and trusting in what was happening… and guess what? You manifested your vision. And guess what? You always will. That is how creative consciousness works in all people. The trick, sweet soul, was to simplify/streamline your Vision, so you could hold it in mind longer than 17 seconds… Just wait until the Travel vision starts coming through. Ooh, baby! 

I’m so happy about this. I’ll simplify and streamline this. I can see the email subject:

 

From: Eventbrite <noreply@event.eventbrite.com>
Date:  xx March 2021
To: a***************@gmail.com
Subject: Your payout is on the way
Reply-To: noreply@eventbrite.com

Payout issued for

 

That’s how it’ll go, I guess. No hand-splashing. Keep it gentle. This will all be fine. <3 Any advice before I clear the decks for the creative work?

Gently does it. Remember, this is ‘neuroceptive housekeeping’ you are doing when you clear the decks, so embed those safety anchors, and do nothing in a tense or driven state. Check you are in the ventral vagal parasympathetic state at all times as you clear the decks in your Decksf@st mode. Teach yourself that the reactive work is no big deal. Be matter of fact. Lean into your accomplishment feelings after and celebrate work well done. And remember to stop when you have finished clearing the decks. Because you are clearing the decks to have a clear space and canvas for your creative work. Be the artist who cleans the studio to do work in. Not the artist who simply cleans the studio, again and again. Be the artist who creates. 

Beautiful. Amen. I call on all the creative forces of the universe to help me clean my studio so I can work my canvas in a conducive space. Let me be the artist who cleans the studio to do their work in. May I be the artist who clears and creates. Two separate activities, the latter now to become the primary activity. Amen.

I am the artist who clears the decks – and creates

https://www.minnetrista.net/bobrossexperience

PS. G is also an artist who clears the decks and creates, every day. He keeps life simplified and streamlined… and thereby CAN create, every day. Amen.

 

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Create 9: I am undertaking neuroceptive housekeeping (to feel competent, safe and connected to others)

Been awake since 3am. Mainly because I managed to attain a 750 calorie deficit yesterday as part of my weight loss goal… and then of course, woke up with hunger. Eventually got up at 4.45am feeling v stressed... Have since been reading about polyvagal theory, neuroception and interoception/autism.

Strong sense I need to tend to the ‘housekeeping’ of my neuroception, to be better able to access my intuition.

….I’ve just been looking for other images… and oh man, this…

And this…

And this …

_____

Thank you. This is all so helpful. It helps me to:

  • understand why I freeze – eg I’ve been ignoring emails (or at least, letting them build up bcs I can’t face them) since I returned to work after Christmas, 10 days ago.
  • understand why my kidney beans are feeling maxxed out again and again… bcs I don’t read the messages of overwhelm and readjust… or at least, I’m so often in overwhelm that I have to override it or I’d be out of work again…
  • understand why I loop around freeze/fawn..
  • understand why there’s no way I could be anything other than self-employed, to handle the flows and dips of my polyvagal self…

Ok. So how best can I foster my neuroception of safety, especially around work?

I lay awake this morning praying for courage, clarity and strength.

But actually, I’m thinking today, I just need a sense of safety.

Ooh, watch this!: 

I might buy this book:

Shall we dialogue?

I realise, re SoD, people need polyvagal safety state of connection to be able to dialogue. Catch 22. You need to talk to feel connected. But you need to feel connected to be able to talk.

So everything is heading in the right direction. Your ‘hemisphere house’ project is coming to fruition. 

Ha! It is. Using that brain learning… I didn’t know what for. But it was to help people dialogue, heal, forgive, resolve, relate… And the SoD will do all that. Amen.

Let’s go in… I’d like to hear you again. If we can link up the ‘intuition’ work with the ‘psychological/polyvagal safety’ work, we’re going to be cooking with gas… <3

***AOTH and 15min med***

Attaining the psychological safety of polyvagal ‘connection’ and ‘co-regulation’ with others (vs fleeing, freezing or fawning) seems, for me at the moment, to be about ‘feeling organised and prepared’ about client bookings. We’ve looked at this before last year, when I focussed briefly on the idea that ‘it ain’t square to prepare’.

It’s neuro-perceptual housekeeping, indeed. Your body needs to feel weighed comfortably in place by those ‘safety anchors’ Deb Dana talks about. It is for you – and you are now warmly invited – to discern and drop your safety anchors. Put in the ‘standard operating procedures’ that allow you to feel organised and prepped. 

I remember how at school I’d freeze about homework, which ironically we called ‘prep’ – and then how great, freed, liberated and confident I’d feel when I finally pushed through and got it all done.

It’s the anxiety of perfectionism that makes you delay and postpone. You know why. 

From the trauma of being criticised and judged for my academic ‘performance’…

So you can bring real, deep self-compassion to the part of you that PDAs. And you can enjoy developing the ‘art of befriending’ your autonomic nervous system, by dotting safety ‘anchors’ around your day. (See Deb Dana) Your threat perception is about being ‘caught out’ or ‘criticised’ or ‘told off’. We understand. This is all for the healing. 

Listening to your neuroception (unconscious sense of danger) is part of developing your interoception (awareness of body’s internal messages) which is all part of learning to listen to your intuition. 

You want your intuition to be giving you inspiration and creative impulses. It will be happy to! But it will also give you danger signals… which are equally signs that you need to attend to your own human needs… 

Allow yourself to tend to your Needs first, then your scope for creativity will flourish. Respond to neuroception affirmatively – not out of fear of shame/rejection/punishment – but consciously and compassionately, in order to meet your own human needs. 

What needs can you meet today? 

I have a need to meet my needs for:

  1. Focus
  2. Order
  3. Simplicity
  4. Competence
  5. Hope/reassurance

Excellent. Want to pick one to work with? 

Competence. I need to feel competent. That will allow me to ‘celebrate’ instead of to mourn, fawn, yawn or wanna be gawn. 🙂

So, to use NVC language: 

  1. Observe: You’ve got emails piling up and you don’t know where your multiple bookings are at. You lost your flow due to the Christmas break. But also, it was too busy before the break, and you’re daunted and discouraged at the prospect of jumping in at full speed again. Your new system of ‘creative / bookings / inbox’ has frozen you because it feels like too much. But if you’re just reactive, you get nothing done on developing the business. You resent reacting. You’re ready to create. 
  2. Feelings: daunted, discouraged, stressed, dismayed, freeze/fawny, resentful of clients
  3. Need: Competence… not just in responding to clients, but in managing your business and workflow. 
  4. Request of self/others: You would like… to get on top of your workflow again. To bullet proof your workflow, with new SOPs (standard operating procedures). You’d like to simplify and streamline your ops. 

Yes!

Shall we dedicate some time to that this morning, in the spirit of experimentation? Shall we see if improving your ops workflow increases your sense of both competence and psychological safety? 

Research question: Is there a way of making Workflow a ‘safety anchor’?

I think of G sorting out his emails each morning…. But it takes me so long…

Because of fawning/freezing..?

Yes. :/

The ‘other person’ is both ok and not ok there. The common factor is that you are ‘not ok’. Can we prioritise your sense of safety and connection, over all? Can we meet your need to feel, and be, and act, and embody ‘competent’?

We can certainly work with that.

I am undertaking neuroceptive housekeeping (to feel  competent, and therefore safe and connected to others)

PS. When undertaking neuroceptive housekeeping, prepare to feel resistance – this is simply freezey dorsal vagal activity. It will shift to sympathetic state (mobilise) and then to ventral vagal parasympathetic (enjoy and connect). Getting used to the constant shifting of those states is part of the practice. You are held and loved. In moving through the states, you are doing the work of healing and befriending your ANS. Keep your eyes on your human need – to be/feel COMPETENT. That is your birth right, sweet soul. 

Ty. xxx

Very gently, proving your competence to yourself, one small step at a time. Doing what you need to do to meet your human need to feel competent. Excellent, excellent work. <3