Transcription
[Music] One of the biggest difficulties with living with generalized anxiety is how diffuse and profuse the experience of anxiety can be. It's very different from our traditional anxiety experience where there might be one, two, three, even up to ten acute factors that generate and then result in the ongoing experience of anxiety.
With generalized anxiety, it's just there and it's ever present. So it requires and requests some tweaks in terms of how we're going to participate in the havening work. And one of our favorite ways to shift the opportunities of self-healing is through creating a slight adjustment in our CPR for the amygdala protocol.
We know the CPR for the amygdala protocol is all about creating personal resilience for our amygdala. And it works through incorporating that soothing havening touch, palm-havening, arm-havening, the havening hug as we like to call it, face-havening, and engaging our brain in distractions, cognitive games that give our brain a different job and thus disrupt the ruminating or trauma-informed loop that is causing our brain or our body to feel distressed.
With generalized anxiety, it can feel like our entire system is riddled with distress and disturbance. So we like to use the SNAP CPR for the amygdala protocol. It's a slight, slight, slight tweak that invites the awareness that our entire system is carrying the energy and that's okay. We're simply going to snap Amy, the amygdala, out of her survival-based focus so that we can lean into thrive.
So SNAP stands where you're going to sense, you're going to notice, you're going to apply, and then you will preoccupy. So let's walk through each of those steps. First is sensing. Now, when we live with generalized anxiety, it can feel ever-present and that's okay. Part of the recovery process is noticing the experience in our brain and our body and turning attentional awareness to the discomfort. And I know that that might be hard to do. It's hard to lean even further into feeling uncomfortable. And it's critical. That is why we're going to snap the system out of it once we sense into it.
So sense into what is happening in your mind and body right now. And then as you're noticing the distress or the disturbance, notice if there's a particular energy somewhere calling your attention, a particular thought or an emotion that's saying, "I'm really, really important." And if you can find one, great. Turn your spotlight to it. If not, just a general noticing of the larger system. And use a scale of zero to ten. And where would you rank yourself on that scale? Now, zero to ten, ten is like, ah, freak out. Zero is neutral. We also know that sometimes we feel shut down, numb, or disconnected. So it might feel as though it's a zero to negative ten. Regardless, it's zero to ten, either level of the energy sphere.
And once you have that ranking in your mind, then you are going to apply that havening touch and preoccupy your brain. So the preoccupy process could be as simple as counting your breath, breathing in for different iterations, such as breathing in for three, out for five, and through four, out for six, so on and so forth. Our brain and our body love oxygen, so those breath counts are a wonderful, easy preoccupation while you apply the havening touch.
If you want to have a little more fun or get more creative, wonderful opportunity to do some mindfulness practices. Go every color of the rainbow and find three items in your environment or that you can think of for every single color of the rainbow. One of my personal favorites is doing bands or artists A to Z, every letter of the alphabet, finding a band or an artist, of course, while applying that havening touch. There's so many different ways to preoccupy. The most important thing is we're giving our brain a different job that is neutral or even playful and fun.
Once you have done at least try three different preoccupy brain games, then check back in. Sense, notice, get another number on that zero to ten scale. And then depending on where you are, apply and preoccupy. If you are below a two on that zero to ten scale, then it is time to welcome in a new framework. And our next video, we'll talk more explicitly about how to do that with generalized anxiety because our wonderful Amy is great at telling endless stories of fear and spinning them out so that they generalize. And so we want to not only help her calm down and heal, we also want to build a new thriving system that Amy can connect into because Amy, our amygdala, is focused in both survival and thriving.
So I will see you then. And stay tuned. We'll do a guided exercise, of course, that will come out on Sunday. And if this is helpful for you, thumbs up, like the video, and let us know how it goes in the comments. I'll see you soon. [Music]