Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women

(#94) The Somatic Toolkit for Anxiety: 9 Practices for a Safe & Grounded Nervous System

• Rae The Somatic Coach • Episode 94

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Feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or emotionally stuck? In this episode of Somatic Healing for Wellness-Focused Women, I'm sharing 9 powerful tools, practices, and perspectives to help you navigate anxiety, emotional stress, and dysregulation through a somatic, holistic lens. 🧘‍♀️💛

These are the exact tools I return to in my personal life and with clients when working with anxiety, grief, fear, sadness, or self-doubt. Whether you're new to nervous system work or a seasoned practitioner, this episode offers grounded, trauma-informed insights you can apply today.

Inside, you’ll learn:

🔹 How to create your personalized “Toolkit” in the Notes app
🔹 What the Window of Tolerance and 4 trauma responses reveal about your nervous system
🔹 The power of shifting from “I am anxious” to “I’m experiencing anxiety”
🔹 How sensation association and inner child healing support lasting regulation
🔹 Why emotional inclusivity = deeper healing
🔹 The 3 types of breathwork (mindful, integrative, meditative) and when to use them
🔹 How to deepen self-compassion and become your own safe place

💌 Want to take this work deeper? Get my Free Somatic Breathwork Bundle when you join the Somatic Healing Newsletter. You’ll receive 20+ guided breathwork practices to support you through anxiety, stress, emotional blocks, and more.

🎤 Have a question or aha moment? Leave me a voice note at SpeakPipe. I might answer it in a future episode.

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Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Rae, I'm a somatic coach and breathwork facilitator, and if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you are tuning in for today's episode. So for today's episode, we're going to be diving in and talking about a few different tools, resources or perspectives that can help with navigating any kind of emotional challenge, any kind of anxious thoughts, feelings, anxiety. That is what we're going to be diving into, and when I first started my business, I chose to really specialize in anxiety specifically because it's something that I've been navigating and I've felt since I was very, very young, like my first memory of anxiety is like seven years old. So when I discovered breathwork about nine years ago, that is really the thing that changed everything for me and it opened me up to a whole world of somatics and somatic healing. And so what I'm going to share with you today is about nine different resources, perspectives or tools that I think it'd be helpful to chat about, nor know more about, when it comes to working with anxiety or, like I said, any really kind of challenging emotion, grief, sadness, fear, self-love, self-compassion, finding more joy, more safety, things like that. So that is what we'll be diving into today. So the first tool that I want to share with you is something that I may have mentioned on the podcast previously, but I really like using the notes section in my phone to, you know, write down different things, keep track of things and help things to stay organized. So what I would invite you to do is, in the notes section of your phone, create a note and call it something whatever you'd really like. You could call it toolkit, and this is going to be like a living library and ongoing resource that you can add to. And as you start to create this note, I want to invite you to ask yourself, like what is? What are some tools, some resources, some books that maybe have worked for you already so far? Like, if you've been tuning into this podcast, what are some resources that you've already learned and know about and like to use to add to your toolkit? And I like to use a perspective of if you are struggling with something every day, like when I was really struggling with anxiety. It's something I was feeling anxious like every day, and I kind of had this moment where I was just like, if I'm struggling with this every day, there's something that I need to be doing for this every day, even if it's a five minute morning practice before work or, you know, a five minute breath work during lunch, like I need to be doing something every day to help learn more about my nervous system, regulate my nervous system, work with, you know, more positive thinking, mindset, like whatever it might be. So invitation to create that toolkit and write in the notes section of your phone and allow it to grow and be a resource that you can work with and come back to whenever you think you might need it. Come back to whenever you think you might need it.

Speaker 1:

The second thing I'd love to share with you is to check in with your basics. So I find that sometimes we can overcomplicate things that can be sometimes more simple. So if we are, you know, struggling with an emotion or really feeling dysregulated, are we getting enough sleep? Are we drinking enough water? What does our diet look like? Could we be benefiting from some vitamins, some supplements? And it's not about getting things like perfect here. You know, different seasons of our life are going to require some of these basics to change and not everything is going to be in balance at all times. But it's about being honest with yourself. And if you are running on no sleep, chances are you're going to be dysregulated in some way. And if you're eating, you know really poorly and your gut is all funky, chances are that's going to dysregulate you in some way. And so it's about checking in with these areas, checking in with yourself and really seeing, okay, like, what areas might need some extra TLC right now, where might I be out of balance and is this out of balance area contributing to my emotional health?

Speaker 1:

The third thing I would love to share with you, something I jam about a lot on the podcast and something I'm passionate about, is learning about the nervous system. When I first started working with anxiety, I had no idea, never even heard of the nervous system, didn't know what it was, and I have a lot of episodes that you can dive into on the podcast, a few in the past few weeks actually. So if you just scroll back a little bit, you'll see that there's a deep dive into the window of tolerance and nervous system regulation and the four trauma responses freeze, fawn, fight or flight. So I think, scrolling back, listening to those few episodes, really diving in and learning more about the nervous system and understanding where does your nervous system default to when you look at what you're struggling with from this approach. And I find this helpful in particular because, like I mentioned, when I was struggling with anxiety and I first started diving into this world, I had never heard about the body-based perspective and never heard about the window of tolerance, never heard about working with the nervous system, and the first time that I learned about it and heard about it, it was so eye-opening to me that, yeah, our bodies are brilliant, like our mind, our body. They are connected, they're working together. Sometimes, you know they might not be working out the way that we would like it to, when we're feeling anxious and uncomfortable, but it's something that everybody's bodies and everybody's nervous system is regulating or being dysregulated. And really finding what your window of tolerance is working with in your optimal window, how can you expand it, how can you find safety and really, yeah, scroll back, listen to those episodes. They're just absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 1:

The fourth tool that I would love to share with you is called working with observation versus identification, and observation and observing is a practice where you are able to really slow down and see what is happening in your experience, what is happening with your emotions, your thoughts, your feelings and what it does is this ability to pause, slow down, have that you know extra level of awareness. It's creating a stronger connection with the part of you that is called, like the inner witness. So it creates some flexibility and some space within emotion, rather than identifying with that thing. So an example would be oh my gosh, I'm so anxious, I'm so anxious, I am, I am, I am, whereas observing the emotion is I'm experiencing the sensation of anxiety, or these XYZ feelings are really coming up for me right now, but you are not that thing. So the feelings, yes, are real, the thoughts are real, the fear that might be present is real, the anxiety is real, but it doesn't define who you are. That doesn't mean like you are not the anxiety, it's a part that is activated, and I'll talk a little bit more about parts in a moment here.

Speaker 1:

And then, the fifth tool and perspective that I'd love to share with you is called sensation association, and working with sensation association to help you to find a deeper sense of safety. And so sensation association will help you to shift the meaning that you give a sensation in your body. So, for example, when we feel anxious, that might feel really uncomfortable could show up as like tightness in the chest or tightness in the throat, and when we feel that way, we're feeling really, yeah, uncomfortable, unsafe, maybe some other things, depending on. You know what's going on in your body, but by creating space and sitting with the sensation in the body, you'll create an awareness of what your body is actually trying to communicate to you. And this can also be used, you know, proactively. So, when I mentioned using it for creating safety, this is something I love, to start with, because you can find a sensation of safety in your body and it can help you to reframe how you access safety. So we're super familiar with anxiety and super familiar with how that might feel in the body. But are we familiar with how safety shows up in the body and what it feels like to feel grounded and resourced? And do we have a few, you know, memories or moments where we can look back and resource from a place of safety? So, working with the sensations in your body, understanding them and also doing that same practice to help you understand and find a place of safety in your nervous system too.

Speaker 1:

And tool number six is a perspective and I also think it's a felt feeling, but it's called emotional inclusivity. And this is a frame of thinking and a practice that includes, you know, every thought, every emotion, every feeling in an experience to be able to process it completely. And so this is a perspective and an idea that allows you to really lean into what you're feeling like, lean into the anxiety, lean into the grief, lean into the discomfort and allow it to help you to feel safe and knowing that all feelings, all parts, are welcome. And this can be challenging, you know this is, I think, this is a learned practice, and especially with emotions that might feel heavier or more tender, like shame or grief or guilt, those are hard emotions to feel and I would even say sometimes joy and bliss and love are hard emotions to feel too. So, leaning into this perspective that all your emotions, feelings and thoughts are welcome, none of them are bad or wrong, it's this idea of finding that comfort and understanding to be with whatever might be arising for you and meeting yourself in that arising. Whatever might be arising for you and meeting yourself in that arising.

Speaker 1:

And tool number seven you know that I could not skip breathwork in my list of tools and resources. We know this, talk about it all the time, but the practice of breathwork is an active meditation technique. It supports you in clearing out the body, the nervous system, of any unprocessed or stagnant emotion and energy, and when we connect with our breath to access different subconscious parts of ourselves, we're really able to experience shifts, breakthroughs and change the relationship that we have with the parts of ourselves that might be wounded or vulnerable. And so this is a very supportive daily practice for anxiety, for any emotionality, and I like to break it into like three different kinds or forms of breathwork. So the first is mindful breathing. That is like the four, seven, eight breath or box breathing, and this is like you're using, you're pausing, you're using mindful breathing, counting breaths, kind of like a 4-7-8 container or 4-4-4 box breathing, and this is using your mindfulness to connect with your breath.

Speaker 1:

The second practice, or the second form of breathwork that I like to refer to, is called integrative breathwork, and this is about eight minutes or less of active breathing. It's a guided practice and this is going to allow you to really pause, let some energy move in your system, depending on your intention, find that place of grounding and safety and move through what might be coming up for you in that way. And the third form of breathwork that I like to refer to is called meditative breathwork, and this is about eight minutes or more of active breathing, and so this is a longer experience typically done laying down, and this is going to allow you to, you know, open up your system, connect with your heart, release any stuck or stored trauma in the body and really move and move that energy through your system, depending on your intention. Same thing, it can help you to find safety, more connection with your heart, more creativity, joy, bliss, all of these wonderful things creativity, joy, bliss, all of these wonderful things. I love having breathwork on the list of resources and tools. I think it's super important and nowadays it is so accessible to find, you know, online on YouTube. If you check out the show notes, I have a free resource that you can download that has like 15 or 20 free breathwork practices, and I add to it a bunch as well, so you can definitely dive into breathwork and find a form of it that feels good for you, and I also offer, you know, individual sessions for both the integrative and the meditative breathwork as well.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and tool number eight is inner child work and parts work, and inner child work is a concept that throughout our lives we've had experiences at all different ages and during the time of zero through 14 years old. There are parts of ourselves that had different kinds of needs that went unmet, and so we have these like wounded, vulnerable parts of ourself. And so inner child work is the ability to discover these different parts, the practice of finding out what they might need and allowing ourselves to reparent them to meet our inner child needs, and these needs could range from love to attention or acknowledgement or acceptance, but the practice is really unique to each individual person and their lived experience. So this is super supportive if you're navigating anxiety, because it gives you another level of awareness of what you might need and what might be coming up for you in your system. It also empowers you to meet the need for yourself through reparenting. So it's a very specialized and individualized practice and approach because it's really dependent on you know what you need and what might be coming up for you.

Speaker 1:

And then, when it comes to parts work being supportive for anxiety, it's really helpful because parts work is this idea that we all have these different parts of ourselves and they all serve a different role or function, and so we have the idea of self which is at the core of us. We have a self, and that part of us is very calm, it's very compassionate and it's very capable of leading yourself through an experience of meeting all the different parts of yourself. And then the other parts we have protectors, and so I've talked about protectors a bit on the podcast before, but this is the part of us that is really trying to protect us from the pain, maybe shield us from any discomfort, and they can also try and like manage what might be going on, or what's called like a firefighter, which is the part that tries to like put out the fire as well. Then we have another part and that is called exiles, and these parts, the exiles, are wounded parts that can carry different types of trauma, shame or parts that feel emotionally heavy from the past, and so when we start working with the inner child and we also start working with different parts, we end up finding you know the different parts of our identity that have different needs that influence our emotion and behavior. So when it comes to anxiety, this can be super helpful because you're going to experience knowing so much more about yourself with curiosity and you're going to be able to be that much more compassionate to yourself because you have so much more information around what you need. And then the last tool that I'll dive into with you, the last concept, is this idea of having a really compassionate relationship with yourself, and the relationship with yourself is the most important one that you have. It's the way that you talk to yourself, it's the way that you handle the inner critic. The way that you speak to yourself. What happens when things get tough, when things get uncertain and there's heightened anxiety? Do you turn on yourself or do you feel like you have your own back? And this definitely builds off of inner child work and parts work. And the narrative of how you speak to yourself is really what you hear all day. So can we make that a positive one, a compassionate one, an empowering one, a safe one?

Speaker 1:

And I like to use this idea of a snow globe, because when we're, you know we're in the snow globe and things are fine, maybe it's like all the snow is settled and then all of a sudden, something happens in life and the snow globe gets all shaken up and now there's just like snow everywhere and we can't really see what's happening when we're in it. You know, like when we're, in our experience, we're inside the snow globe, like things are just like like everywhere and I like to share that analogy because someone shared it with me and I found it so powerful. But it really gives us this like insight of having another perspective and being able to co-regulate with somebody else can be such a game changer to really understand what's happening for us in the snow globe. So if anything that I've mentioned in this episode so far, you're like I really want to do that, but I'd love more support in that area, like I understand the idea but I really want a felt feeling of it. Ask for support. You know, when we're in the snow globe, it's hard to see past the snow that's happening. It's really nice when someone's able to give us a different perspective or help us to co-regulate through something that might be challenging. So a quick recap for you.

Speaker 1:

The first tool that we dove into was creating a note section in your phone and titling it toolkit and adding to that and revisiting that in times that you think that you might need it. The second is checking in on the basics. Are you getting enough sleep Water? How's your diet? Are you taking, do you need to take, some vitamins. Are you taking vitamins? The third is learning about the nervous system, and you can look back at a few episodes that were just released on the podcast to dive deeper into that. The fourth was observing versus identifying with an emotion. The fifth was working with different sensations in the body and finding a place in your body that feels really safe. The sixth was inviting in all of the different emotions, different ways of thinking, thoughts and feelings into your experience and using what's called emotional inclusivity, and that also builds off of parts work. Actually, now that I'm reflecting on this episode, the seventh tool was breath work. The eighth was inner child work and parts work. And the ninth was really working with that relationship with yourself and making it a place that feels self-compassionate, that feels safe, empowering and positive, and that can also take some time and take some work, depending on where you are in your journey.

Speaker 1:

So asking for support and reaching out if you need support in any of the areas that we went over in today's episode. So, as always, thank you so much for tuning in for today's episode. I really enjoyed recording this one for you. It was a bit of a longer one, but we covered a lot of information. So if you have any questions, you can always send me a DM. You can send me an email. I love chatting with you, I love hearing from you and if you want to check out that free resource of the 20 or so meditation breathwork meditations, it's free.

Speaker 1:

You can sign up for that in the show notes by signing up for the somatic healing newsletter. The newsletter goes out on the 1st and 15th of every month and includes all different types of tools and resources and perspectives. Similar to today's episode, deep dives into all different stuff. So definitely check that out if that interests you. And yeah, I hope you have an incredible rest of your week. I hope you have an incredible rest of your day and I will talk to you soon.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for being here and tuning in to Somatic Healing for Wellness Focused Women podcast. If you were moved or inspired by today's episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It truly helps the podcast grow and helps more people find me on their healing journey. Make sure to check out the show notes. To sign up for the monthly newsletter links to more resources, opportunities to work with me and ways that we can stay connected If we aren't already connected on social media. Head over to Instagram to follow me at raythesomaticcoach. Send me a DM. I'd love to connect with you and I answer each note that comes in. I am so happy you're here and I cannot wait to talk with you on our next episode of the podcast.