Calming Our Anxious Parts
NeuroScience & Parts Work
Create a Lived Sense of Safety in your Body
Right now, reading this, you are actually safe. Let’s check. Right now, in this moment, you see nothing coming to get you. Check. You have a floor and a ceiling, and your walls are upright and plumb. Nothing is about to cave in on you. Check.
I’m serious. Literally notice that you are safe. If you hear sirens, they aren’t coming for you. Do you smell smoke? No? Then you’re safe. Do you taste poison? No? You are safe. Right now in this moment, you are safe. Let yourself know. If that leads you to the vibrations inside, good, that’s where we’re headed.
If you can establish a reality of safety through your external senses (sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching), you can turn your attention inside. Check on your sense of interoception (what it feels like inside your body). Some of us are better at noticing this than others.
If you’re thinking, huh? Whaddya mean go inside? You might need to improve your ability to interocept/notice what is happening internally. You do this by toning your vagus nerve. Reach out — I can help — or you can find ways to do that on youtube… (And some of us are too attuned to our vagus nerve and interpret its signals in overly dire ways. Yet once we know this about ourselves, we can adjust and learn how to reinterpret those signals.)
If you do feel tension coursing through your body or emanating from one place or another, you might be labelling it “anxiety” and feeling angry with it (or with yourself). You might not want to be more aware of your interoception because it puts you so starkly in touch with this anxious part. There might be several other parts of you who “hate” this anxious part and wish it would disappear!
This is the moment where my own scared parts say things like, “eff this!” They want to numb! They want to shop, read or write! We might want to sleep or stuff our faces! All real strategies to help us ignore this anxious part calling for our attention.
But what if we could start to notice it without fear, without wanting to shut it down? What if we could bring Self Energy to it? Self - if you can access it - can help reassure the anxious part. Self shows up with courage and heals in extraordinary ways. It certainly healed me and my parts.
How do you know you’ve got enough Self Energy? You’ll feel a sense of curiosity or compassion toward your anxious or helpless parts. You’ll be able to focus on your parts without fear.
If there’s fear, see if you can get it to agree to go to a safe place for a while so you can work in Self. Thank it if it is willing to go somewhere safe. (Building a beautiful, comfy safe place helps.)
If you have curiosity toward your anxious part, you can focus on why it’s there and what its job is. (Ask.) Shining the curious light of Self on any part is healing. Let it know you notice it. “I notice you, Anxious Part. I can feel you tingling up and down my back right now.” Notice how the part responds. Is it aware of you?
If you’re too anxious to do this, if thoughts or fears keep pulling you from your curious Self, do Butterfly Hugs (at 1:28 in the video) or The Pretzel (at 2:30) to help calm your system. These are what FEMA workers teach to children who have lived through earthquakes. Other forms of bilateral stimulation include walking and knitting. All calm the nervous system. Try them!
When you are calmer, you can go back to your anxious parts inside. Let them know you notice them. Like a good parent, let them know that you’ve gone through all the external senses, and you know you are safe. Let them know you’re here to take care of them. You can let them know how old you are, how capable you are, and you can even offer to move them to an even safer place.
Where would they want to be? A beautiful beach. Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. My parts like to go to a special treehouse cabin I’ve constructed in the forest guarded by fierce mama eagles and hawks. See how your parts respond to your offer of support.
If you’re struggling with this, you may have some parts that are getting in the way of your access to Self. Again, reach out to me, and I can help you with this. But the basic idea is to realize that you are not your parts. You are not your thoughts or your parts. And all of our parts can be healed and unburdened.
Sometimes (sometimes often) it’s hard to function in Self-led ways. It took me a while to find Self, to realize Self was there all along, to notice what Self feels like and to cultivate a greater ability to be Self-led. I am as human as you. (Okay, I do have some metal in my knee, but the rest of me is all-human!) If I can do it, you can too.
If you can create a lived sense of safety, then Self is easier to access. But if you are stuck searching for Self and unable to feel that lived sense of safety (because your parts have taken over and are leading you over the cliff of anxiety), know that your nervous system is designed to keep you safe. Yes, even though the panicked part of your nervous system feels terrible, you can always hit the emergency break and head into overwhelm where the panic will stop.
Please be kind to yourself if you find yourself flaring or spending the day in bed. You are only as able as your nervous system. There is no reason to yell at yourself for throwing the auto-emergency break on your anxiety.
There is no shame in freezing. Once you’ve gone into a state of overwhelm, I suggest you embrace it, call in sick and embrace all your parts. Let them know that you are keeping them safe. Start to rebuild (or build for the first time) that lived sense of safety. Not with affirmations but with actual feelings and sensory input.
See no immediate danger. Check for it. There are no monsters under your bed. (See me if there are. I have a special spray for those.) Hear no danger. Smell no danger. Taste no danger. Touch no danger. You are safe.
Dark times call for pro-active responses. We want to get ahead of our anxiety before it takes over. And if it’s too late for that, we can learn to support our Anxious Parts. These strategies above have all been tested by me, a very anxious person who has made great strides in healing my anxious parts. But you don’t have to take my word for it — see for yourself. Try talking to your parts!
artwork by Scott Sherman from ScottShermanStudio on IG
The Prompt:
Start with what is in your physical environment. Write down what you see: plumb walls, hardwood floors, stacks of books, colorful paintings, red velvet curtains. What you hear: birds nesting in the a/c unit, power-washing under the Henry Hudson bridge, trains passing. What you smell, taste, touch: mint tea, sauerkraut for breakfast, the edge of my desk against my arms, my fingers at these keys…
Whatever you notice, write it down in as much detail and as specifically as you can until you feel that lived sense of safety infuse your system. I typically get a deep spontaneous breath or a yawn. This lets me know I can move safely into whatever project I am intentionally working on.
Bring your physical environment with you. Let your Actual inform and sensationalize (in a good way, with your senses) your imaginative work. But don’t get stuck in the Actual. Go for what is True instead. The Actual may keep you rooted or grounded, but it can stop your work from becoming something transcendent that touches us all.
So imagine you are vast, like a sky. Imagine you can hold much more than you would comfortably lift (because you can when you are holding something in your mind’s eye). Allow yourself, literally give yourself permission, and you might have to take a few deeper breaths to do this, to hear what your parts are saying. And beyond that what the earth is saying. And beyond that what the universe is saying. Listen inside and out. And trust yourself to write what you hear. Even if it’s strange. Trust yourself. Develop a trusting relationship with what you are able to notice (through sight, sound, scent, taste, touch and interoceptive sensory input).
Writing is not brain surgery. Lives are not at stake in the actual writing you do, although it might feel as if lives are at stake in the stories. You remain safe at your desk or the cafe table or wherever you write. No matter what you write. It’s yours or it just randomly showed up. You’re allowed to disown it. Let it be whatever comes up. You will revise it later anyway. First let it arrive as fully as it can.
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
11/8 - 11/24 Get your tickets to Tom Block’s "Oud Player on the Tel" with Mark Quiles (he played Stu in my play Winners this past June). I’ll be there 11/9 if you want to sit with me!
12/4 - 12/29 Get your tickets to the world premiere of the beautiful land i seek (la linda tierra que busco yo) by Matt Barbot produced by Fault Line Theatre with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and Latinx Playwrights Circle. Use the discount code FLT10 to purchase any ticket at a 10% discount. It’s funny, it’s theatrical, it’s philosophical, it’s political and truly remarkable. I love this play! Go! (I’ll be there 12/5 - sit with me!)
My poem, “Leviathan,” at The Poetry Archive on youtube. Also my poem, “Tongue Pocket,” was recently published in Moss Piglet. I was also recently put on a longlist for a big deal that I’m not allowed to mention. Ssssh!
Opportunities!
Due 11/11 - 11/18 Ojai Playwrights Conference will be accepting applications for their summer festival!
Due 12/15/24 The Orchard Project is accepting submissions for:
The Orchard Project Performance Lab (link), for development of work intended to be performed in front of a live or virtual audience.
The Orchard Project Greenhouse Program (link), for collaborators generating new works and collaborations in a multitude of forms;
The Orchard Project Episodic Lab (link), for writers working on the advancement of original TV scripts;
The Orchard Project Audio Lab (link), for early development of scripts and ideas in the audio storytelling form.
Due 12/17/24 NYFA grant deadline for Playwriting/Screenwriting, Photography, Choreography and other disciplines for New York artists. For $8K, no strings attached, it’s a tough application, but worth it. Break a leg!
The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis offers the following programs to apply to:
-Core Writer Program - open to any committed professional playwright, deadline in January 2025
-Jerome Fellowship - for any early career playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in November 2024
-Many Voices Fellowship - for any early career BIPOC playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight National Residency and Commission - open to established playwrights outside of Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting - open to mid-career Minnesota-based playwrights, deadline in January 2025
-Many Voices Mentorship - open to beginning BIPOC playwrights based in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-Core Apprentice - open to playwrights in or recently graduated from undergrad and graduate programs, deadline in February 2025.
Brave Space Schedule:
11/10 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
Sunday 730pm ET All Human Brave Sharing Salon
11/11 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/12 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
11/13 Wednesday No Brave Space (again, apologies, but it will come back!)
11/14 Thursday 10am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
Thursday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/15 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/17 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
11/18 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/19 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
11/20 Wednesday NO Brave Space due to actual JURY DUTY
11/21 Thursday NO Coaching due to potential JURY DUTY
11/22 Friday 12pm ET ?Brave Space (potentially JURY DUTY)
Friday 3pm ET ?Brave Sharing Salon (potentially JURY DUTY)
11/24 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
11/25 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
11/26 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
11/27 - 12/1 Thanksgiving Holidays Wednesday - Sunday
Each week Tuesdays includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@250 words) of writing or you can bring in a craft issue/ask for help with your project.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).
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See you soon in Brave Space! <3
Beautiful