Empowering Yourself and Your Children -‘Taking Flight’ With Your Body
Mindbody Wellness Clarity Tip:
Empowering Yourself and Your Children – ‘Taking Flight’ With Your Body
Dear Awesome Woman,
How do you empower yourself? How do you empower children? How can we feel safe in such an ever- changing and sometimes crazy world?
Just recently I had the chance to delve into this topic with my children. We were in a taxi on the way to the airport and just by virtue of being ‘trapped’ in the car with me, I held them spellbound as my audience.
Since Mindbody awareness is a topic I hold dear to my heart, I took the opportunity to read a poem about the topic of ‘flight’ from a Somatic healing book. The poem is meant to empower children by helping them tap into their bodily resources of escape and safety.
After I read the poem, my children and I had a wonderful dialogue about how strong their bodies are and the times that they’ve used this strength to leave situations that have felt scary to them.
The poem spins a tale about a rabbit running so fast away from a coyote, therefore setting up a framework for discussing what situations a child has felt like running away from and how powerful they feel when they do.
My children shared a few stories of ‘taking flight’ by running from a scare—for one child, it was a bee who had scared them and for another it was an alarm that sounded off in a building; another one was frightened by firecrackers. We talked about how their body felt—how their heart beat so fast, how their breath came so quickly and how fast their legs carried them.
In all these cases, the children had been able to run. I could hear the confidence in their voices and the relief in their ability to escape.
My children were lucky in these situations because they had the ability to run.
There are situations, however, in which a child is frightened and not able to run. It could be that at the time of the event—whether it was getting chastised by a parent/teacher or being bullied by a ‘friend’—they were unable to leave the situation and felt ‘frozen’ in place. When a child has experienced this, it’s important to help them access their sense of power and their ability to keep themselves safe.
There are many symptoms that can show up from not doing this—one of the minor ones being anxiety. The frozen state becomes fixated in the child’s cells.
There are many somatic/mindbody techniques for helping a child to release this sense of powerlessness from their cells and feel empowered and confident. I share these with my clients so that they can do these with their children. Reach out and schedule your Free Clarity Call to learn how you too can help your child.
Also, as adults we may have experienced events in which we felt we ‘couldn’t’ leave a situation that felt overwhelming to us—perhaps we were chastised by a boss, or angrily criticized by an acquaintance. Our bodies ‘froze’ in place.
What kept us from walking away? Was it the thought “it wouldn’t be nice”? Or that “people don’t do that”?
Or do we have the very normal fear of losing a job or a friendship?
Whatever the reasons are, we often choose to stay in the presence of someone who treats us in a way that feels lousy, overwhelming and fearful. We sit and ‘handle it.’
It’s important to become aware that in all of these situations, your body has a reaction—your heart beats fast or you may feel numb. You may be overwhelmed by the mix of fear, humiliation, anger etc. and dissociate—you leave the awareness of your body. After the situation, you may walk away from the encounter, ruminating and replaying the scene again and again in your mind.
These are trauma responses and it is crucial to take an opportunity to drop into your body to ‘take flight.’ This means that instead of just replaying the scene in your mind, you notice what is coming up in your body. And then do something about it. You don’t want that trauma to stay in your cells. Schedule your Free Clarity Call to get on your healing journey.
And how about this? Next time you’re in a situation that frightens you—give yourself permission to actually ‘take flight.’
You don’t have to stay in place when you are being treated unkindly, even by a boss. You can excuse yourself and go to a restroom to give yourself space. It may be socially uncomfortable, but notice how it feels in your body. I bet it feels empowering.
You just gave your body what it wanted to do. It is your ultimate guide to accessing your powerful inner resources in keeping you safe.
You are more powerful than you know.
It’s easy to discover and ignite your body’s powerful inner resources. Schedule your free Clarity Call and I’ll show you how. As a Somatic Healer, Clarity Coach and Writer, I help empower women to break free of unhealthy relationship patterns, whether in their personal lives or in their careers. This could be specific to the toxic patterns in relationships with Borderline/Narcissists or other controlling personalities.Through learning to trust the wisdom of their bodies, emotions, souls, and intuition, women discover a clear, healthy path to empowerment, vitality and joy. I also specialize in helping women recover from trauma, grief, anxiety, and physical pain ailments. For more info, please visit MiriamRacquel.com or schedule your free Clarity Call. Looking forward to connecting with you!
Keeping ourselves safe and helping children to do the same is a programmed resource in our bodies. It’s about time that we all accessed that power.
Sending love and blessings,
Miriam Racquel (Meryl)
Somatic Healer & Clarity Coach
