Guided Practice for Regulated Reflection

Sign up for the NYE Circle – Sunday, December 29th at 8 PM ET

In today’s episode is a guided practice for Regulated Reflection. I'm intentionally keeping episodes shorter this month as this time of year is busy and I want to offer you a resource that fits into those smaller pockets of time.

This episode has two purposes:

1. To invite you to join my NYE Circle this Sunday, December 29th, at 8 PM ET—a free, 90-minute virtual event to pause, reflect, and set meaningful intentions for 2025.
2. To guide you through a shorter, calming practice to help you regulate your nervous system, reflect on the past year, and plant seeds of intention for the year ahead.

Take a moment to pause and care for yourself in the midst of the holiday season. If you enjoy this practice, I’d love to have you join us for the full NYE Circle experience. You’ll find all the details and the sign-up link in the show notes.

Looking for more personalized support?

• Book a FREE consultation for RESTORE, our 1:1 anxiety & depression coaching program.
• Join me inside RISE, a mental health membership and nervous system healing space.
• Order my book, Healing Through the Vagus Nerve today!

*Want me to talk about something specific on the podcast? Let me know HERE.

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Transcript

0:00  
Welcome to regulate and rewire an anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong, and I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here now. Let's dive in. 

Welcome back, friend. Thank you for finding time in this busy, chaotic season that is the end of December holidays, New Year's, to still show up for yourself and to hit play on a podcast that hopefully helps you move forward in your healing journey. And I know that this time of year oftentimes is busy and the pockets of spare time are smaller. And so if you haven't noticed, these episodes are a little shorter than normal, because I want to adjust this resource to fit that for you, if needed. 

Now last week, I offered some prompts for regulated reflection. This week is going to be an extension of that, and it's going to offer a guided practice. I also shared with you last week that this Sunday, December 29 at 8pm eastern time, I am hosting my largest virtual community event of the year. It's my fifth annual New Year's Eve circle. It's absolutely free. Anybody can join from anywhere, and I want to invite you again if you haven't signed up, the link and more details are going to be in the show notes, little bit more information so you can set expectations. This event usually runs about 90 minutes, and it provides a really intentional pause from the chaos, to reflect, to regulate and to connect both to yourselves and to community. This event is a space to process the hard from this year, to celebrate the good and to gain some clarity on what you want your life and your healing to look like in this coming year. And today's episode specifically serves two purposes, first as a final invitation to join me this weekend for this event. And again, you'll find that link in the show notes sign up and you'll get all of the emails with all the details. And the second purpose of this episode is to offer you a shorter opportunity to pause, regulate, reflect and reset a little bit. So the rest of this episode will be a guided practice. So if you are not in a place where you can sit or lie down, close your eyes or really settle, then I would recommend hitting pause and coming back when you can and with that, we will begin.

Welcome to this guided practice to regulate and reflect. Take a moment now to get comfortable. I'm going to have you start in a seated position, and in a few minutes, you will have the option to finish the practice either seated or lying down, however you feel most supported. But before we settle into our final resting position, before closing our eyes, I want to do a few different regulatory exercises to help your nervous system settle specifically, some practices aimed at stimulating or activating your vagus nerve. When we stimulate our vagus nerve, this helps to turn on your body's relaxation response, begin to bring your awareness to your breath, breathing in and out. I invite you to place one hand on your chest and the other on your belly and as you breathe, think about drawing your breath a little deeper, noticing the hand on your belly rise With the inhale and slowly lower with the exhale. 

And as you continue to take these deep, slow breaths, gently lift your gaze, slowly scanning the space around you, allowing your eyes to gently shift from one thing to the next, continuing your deep slow breaths as you orient to and scan the space around you, see if you can slow your gaze. And just a little bit more shift from one thing to the next, just a little slower.

This distance viewing, this slow lateral eye movement, helps to signal safety to your nervous system. And as you continue to scan or re scan this space, allow your gaze to settle on something that feels like a glimmer. A glimmer is a small but meaningful moment of joy or positive emotion that can counterbalance stress or anxiety. So in your room, maybe there's a picture of a happy memory, a color that you like, a texture you find interesting, just allowing your gaze to settle on something in your space, and as you take it in with these next couple breaths, allow a gentle smile to come to your face, allowing your hands to come off your chest and belly, take one hand and begin rubbing at the side of your neck. If you turn your head to the side, you might notice this chunky muscle that runs from behind your ear down to your collarbone. This is called your sternoclemastoid. You don't need to know that, but just allowing yourself to rub up and down the side of your neck, or maybe offering some gentle squeezes to this muscle. This is a place where your vagus nerve innervates pretty close to the surface, and this external touch can stimulate and help to settle your system.

Switch sides. Now rubbing the other side of your neck. We're offering gentle squeezes down this muscle, continuing with your deep, slow breaths, noticing if there's anything settling, any shifting happening for you.

Now that we've taken some time to connect and tend to the body on a somatic level, it's time to settle in for the rest of this reflection practice. So now is the time for you to choose whether you want to stay seated or lie down, or maybe you're seated, but you want to recline, whatever you can do to be as comfortable as possible. So we'll give you a few moments to shift, to adjust.

And when you find that place, this is an invitation to gently close your eyes.

Now bringing your attention to your body, notice the places where it makes contact with the surface beneath you. Maybe it's your feet on the floor, your back against a chair, or the floor, the firmness or the softness of the surface that you are on,

noticing all your various contact points as you scan from the bottoms of your feet slowly up to the top of your head, oh,

feeling the support, holding you. Imagine the ground beneath you, gently rooting you, keeping you steady, safe and supported.

Now, bring your awareness back to your breath once more, you don't need to change it for now. Just note. Sit. Notice if it's slow or quick, shallow or deep,

nothing is right or wrong, just letting your breath guide you into this moment you

music now is an invitation to begin deepening your breath, maybe trying to extend your exhales out a little bit longer, and with each exhale, feel your body start to soften and release into the support beneath you. With each exhale, releasing some of the tension that you might be carrying.

And if your mind starts to wander, that's okay. That's what minds do. But when you've noticed that your mind has wandered, gently bring your attention back to your breath, back to this present moment. The beautiful thing about your breath is anytime you are focusing on it, you are here and now, because we cannot breathe in the past, we can't in the future, only right here and right now in this present moment,

now in this settled and supported space, let's take a moment to reflect on the past year, not with judgment, but with curiosity and compassion and

in your mind, maybe picture a timeline of the year stretching from last January until now. Starting in January, you begin to move along that timeline, and you let moments that stand out come to mind. These could be moments of joy or growth or connection. They might be moments of challenge, grief or difficulty, and

with each breath, moving you along that timeline, giving space for this reflective review and

allowing whatever emotions do or don't come up to be fine, To be welcome, to be Okay, to be allowed, to

and as you near the end of this timeline, getting closer and closer to right here and right now, taking a deep breath to remind yourself that you are right here and right now, You've made it to right here and right now, and in this moment, pause to ask yourself, what is one thing that I am proud of from this year? What is something that you are proud of from this year.

Now, taking a moment to ask yourself, what is one thing I learned about myself this year? What did you learn?

Now asking yourself, what is one thing that I want to let go of? I. As I move forward, what is one thing I want to let go of, I want to release as I move forward,

taking a deep breath in, and as you exhale, imagine releasing whatever you are ready to let go of again, taking a deep breath in expanding exhale, letting go, picturing It dissolving or floating away, leaving more space inside for what serves you, for what comes next for you, in your life, in your healing.

And now, let's take a moment to look forward. So imagine yourself on this timeline now, standing at the end of next year, standing at the end of next December, picturing what a more grounded, regulated, more healed version of yourself might feel like, might look like December of next year. I wake up in the morning and I finish that sentence, I navigate challenging situations, feeling how the actions, the behaviors, the thoughts that I choose to support myself are what I

asking yourself, what do I want to feel more of in my daily life? What do you want to feel more of in your daily life? And

then going one step further, what small step can I take to support my healing and regulation in the new year, what small step, what small action is going to help you feel more of that on a daily basis?

What small step will support your healing and your regulation in the new year? You don't need to have all the answers or the right or the perfect answer right now, just let whatever comes to mind rise naturally you

bringing yourself once more to your breath, taking a Deep breath in with a sighing exhale, one more,

slowly bringing your awareness back to the room around you, noticing the weight of your body, the feeling of air on Your skin, or any sounds that you can hear when you're ready, gently wiggling your fingers, your toes, bringing small movements back into Your body, maybe rocking your head side to side and

when it feels right or ready for you, sitting back up, blinking your eyes open, just taking a moment To notice how you feel,

taking a moment to honor if you still need more time to process or settle or complete anything that came up for you, turning towards yourself and saying, What do I need right now? What be supportive for me right now? You. Maybe placing your hands over your heart and offering yourself a moment of gratitude for giving yourself this gift of time, of regulation, of reflection, of intention, for being here and choosing this small but powerful pause in the midst of a busy season you and with this, 

I want to offer a final invitation. If this practice resonated with you, I would love for you to join me this Sunday for my new year's eve circle, and you can sign up and find those details in the show notes. 

Thank you for taking this time for yourself today, and until next time, I'm sending so much hope and healing your way. Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them, and if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space, or apply for our one on one anxiety and depression coaching program, restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes, again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you next time you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai