Tension in our Bodies

Discussion Facilitator: Jocelyn Furbush. May 19, 2019.

Jocelyn shared some ideas from the book Burnout.

“One of the first thing it talks about is the importance of "completing the stress cycle," by addressing the stress that tends to live in our bodies. Even if we've already dealt with the actual causes of stress and calmed our minds, our bodies may remain convinced there is a tiger after us, because we haven't signaled to it that we're safe by having run away really fast and then experiencing a sense of relief and celebration. Exercise works, or 30 minutes of dancing it out to Beyonce or whatever your equivalent is, and so does progressively tensing and relaxing your muscles one by one.”

Jocelyn led the group in a tense and release version of the body scan exercise similar to this guided meditation on YouTube.

We went on to discuss how psychological trauma can lodge in the body, and how techniques such as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT tapping) and Trauma Release Exercise (TRE) are being explored as ways to help release that tension from the body.