In the Taoist tradition, winter is the time of rest, introspection, and deep stillness. The energies of the earth and the natural world withdraw inward. Nature becomes dormant.

You can observe this living process in the behavior of plants and animals. Bears enter hibernation. Leaves fall and sap is pulled underground into roots or bulbs. Fish sink into warmer waters or mud and slow their metabolism to torpor.

We are not separate from the natural world. Our bodies, too, want to enter the deep quiet and rest of winter. 

Outbreath between dark and light

Winter solstice, which this year falls on Sunday, December 21^st in the northern hemisphere, marks the lowest point of the sun on the horizon, the day of shortest sunlight and longest night. It is the astronomical start of winter, when the cold and stillness really set in.

It also has deep significance to the psyche, as the time when the light slowly begins to return to our days. Solstice rituals to mark the return of the light have been seen across cultures since neolithic times. Even the simplest ritual of lighting a candle on solstice sends a message of renewal and hope to the unconscious—the part of us that speaks in symbolism. 

Aligning with the energy of the season

During this period of greatest dark, in the deep stillness of winter, we can align with nature and let our energies move inward.

Winter is the time to sleep more, to go to bed early and sleep later. It’s the time to cocoon, to slow down and wrap ourselves in warmth, to woolgather. It’s not the time to rush around, start energetic exercise programs, or work on mentally draining projects.

Of course, it’s the great irony of the holiday season that, in contrast to what our bodies need, so many of us end up hectic, running around, and not getting enough sleep.

Entering moments of stillness

Even if you can’t shut out the world and hibernate in your pajamas, you can still take moments to connect to nature’s stillness.

Shift your attention to something in nature…bare trees, snow covering a pond, the dormant earth. Let your breathing slow. Then imagine or sense into the deepest, slowest aspect of whatever you picked. Try to feel the energy stored deep in the roots of an oak tree. Sense what a fish feels like buried in the warm mud of a pond. Become a hibernating bear. Connect with the deep quiet of the earth.

Your body craves this frequency right now. Let its instincts guide you toward stillness.

Do you remember what it was like to go barefoot as a child? I do. The asphalt was blisteringly hot. You had to leap for the curb for relief. The grass was cool and slippery when we ran through sprinklers. The gravel driveway jabbed my feet. Every sensation… emblazoned in my memory.

I was there in those moments, in my feet, in that eternal now. And it felt good. Summer stretched out forever.

We can’t go back to childhood. But we can recreate the simple pleasure of connecting to our feet and walking on the ground. And in the process, we can short-circuit stress and panic.

What is grounding?

Being grounded means your feeling awareness—and thus life energy—reaches down your legs and feet to the ground. You feel your body down to the ground. Ideally, it also means your electrically conductive body is directly touching the earth, connecting to the planet’s DC electrical circuit, like when you walk barefoot on grass.

Being grounded helps you relax

Sinking your awareness to your feet stimulates a downward flow of energy through the body into the earth, which is naturally relaxing. It also brings you into present time, where you can notice safety. This calms the nervous system. Connecting to the earth’s electrical circuit may also put the body into a healing state and stabilize the autonomic nervous system.  

Grounding helps with both stress and panic. When we’re stressed, we often have excess energy in our heads from swirling thoughts. When we’re panicked, we often have excess energy in our core, especially around the heart and lungs. This can make the heart race and cause panic attacks. In both cases, we need to send energy down the limbs.

How to ground

Put your attention on your legs and feet and feel them. Energy follows awareness. If you can feel your feet for a bit, your energy will start to sink.

If sensing your feet is hard, use the stimulation of walking and weight shifts to feel the pressure of your feet on the floor. Or press your heels into the floor, which directly stimulates downward energy flow.

For a racing heart and panic, start by increasing energy flow to your arms and hands. Conscious arm movement, like rotating wrists, will help. You can also “fling water” off your hands, or vigorously swing your arms down, while you exhale and “throw” your attention into your hands. Once your heart is calmer, ground down to your feet.

Of course, the easiest way to ground is to go outside and let planet earth help. Walk barefoot on grass, sit on the ground, dig in the garden, swim in the ocean. As long as there’s no plastic or rubber between you and the earth, you’re grounding.

Chronic stress and trauma can frazzle our nervous systems, making it tough to get back in balance. But if we understand a little about our physiology, we can use that to reset.

The first thing to remember is that we’re mammals. Under threat, our nervous systems kick into high gear or collapse into shutdown. This is fight, flight, or freeze. Then, once the threat is past, they reset to “rest and digest.” Basic survival software.

But sometimes that software gets scrambled and we don’t automatically reset. In those cases, especially if we’re stuck in high gear, orienting can help.  

Animals orient in the wild

See the meerkats above? They are performing nature’s most basic safety check: up on their hind legs, as tall as possible, heads on a swivel looking for danger. If they sense a threat, fight-or-flight ignites. If not, they resume daily life. This is orienting. It’s hard-wired into animals.

Watch a restaurant crowd react to a sudden noise. Heads pop up and snap toward the sound. Is it dangerous? Nope, a waiter dropped a tray. Everyone relaxes and returns to eating.

Animals orient anytime they sense something novel in the environment to see if it’s dangerous. They also orient after a threat’s passed, when they’re noticing all is well. This second type’s more relaxed and exploratory. You can use both.

When you’re hypervigilant

If you’re feeling on edge, try slowing down and noticing when you orient. The next time your head snaps toward a stimuli, pause and really look. Is it a bird? A slammed door? A shout? Is it a threat?

If there’s no threat, let your head keep turning and notice your surroundings. Notice exits. Notice people. Do they look friendly or unfriendly? Any obvious signs of danger? If not, let that register and notice how it affects your body. Give this time.

A spontaneous breath. Muscles relaxing. More weightedness. These are signs your nervous system is downshifting.  

When you’re stressed or triggered

Use relaxed, exploratory orienting to signal “all’s well” to your nervous system.

Let your eyes explore your surroundings with curiosity, slowly turning your head to follow. Then rest your sight on something pleasant or neutral. Some people will look out a window at nature. Others are attracted to colors or objects. See what draws your eye and pause to take it in.

As you look, tune in to your body and notice what you feel. Again, you may notice signs of settling, like warmth, relaxation, and fuller breath.

Struggling with orienting?

Orienting is usually calming, but if it makes you anxious or unsettled, stop. There could be stored trauma linked to the orienting process itself. Next month’s technique, grounding, may work better for you. And a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner can help you take the charge out of orienting.

The past couple years, I’ve been taking tai chi and qigong classes in the Taoist water tradition. This meditative standing and movement practice is highly kinesthetic, bringing awareness into the body and using it to feel energy and melt blockages.

And while I’m just a beginner, I’m struck by how similar these thousands’-year-old practices are to bodywork. Because at the core, all of it relies on awareness.

Melting blockages

In my qigong practice, I first get into an aligned standing posture. Then, starting at my head and working downward, I bring my awareness into each part of my body, inviting any tension to melt and sinking the released energy.

That’s the entirety of the first stage of this ancient practice. Simply:
Soak your feeling awareness into an area. Invite any tension to melt, like ice to water.

Not…focus hard on your shoulder and will it to relax.
Not…breathe into your shoulder and exhale the tension.
Not…imagine a knot unraveling or a warming light.

Just…take a moment to actually feel what’s going on in your shoulder. Invite any holding to melt. See what happens. Often what happens is the tissues let go.

Why? For one, you regain conscious control over those muscles. For another…

Everything is energy, vibrating at different rates. Your mind is energy. Your muscles are energy. Your bones are energy. As my teacher explained, you’re bringing the higher-frequency energy of the mind into the lower-frequency energy of the body. And that higher energy stimulates the lower, causing change.

Awareness makes the change

When I was studying massage therapy, our instructors constantly told us awareness makes the change. Indeed, the structural integration profs were adamant that hands and techniques didn’t melt tight shoulders. Awareness did.

Imagine kneading someone’s shoulders. If you dig hard into the knots, the muscles may tense up and fight you. If you connect with slow, steady pressure, you bypass this guarding. And if you also intend to melt the muscles, bringing your mind—your awareness—into the tissues, they may start to melt.

But if you really want someone’s shoulders to relax, invite them to bring in their feeling awareness. Once their awareness joins yours, even the tightest muscles can release.

Nowhere is this effect more apparent than in a distance craniosacral session. I’m joining my awareness of your body with yours, not just to melt muscles but to turn on your body’s healing systems.

If something’s tight

You can play with awareness yourself. Softly bring your attention to a tight spot. Try to just feel it—without focusing too hard, which can make you tense up. Just let your attention be like water, soaking into the area, and notice what you feel. Then issue the softest of invitations: Would you like to let go?

People who come to me are typically looking for more than relaxing bodywork. They’re looking to heal old pain that often has deep roots in trauma and emotional wounding. They’ve heard craniosacral therapy or somatic bodywork can help but often have little idea what to expect. So today, I offer a snapshot of how these elements can blend.

First, though, some quick definitions. Craniosacral therapy is a light-touch bodywork that wakes up the body’s healing forces. Somatic bodywork involves noticing and sharing aloud your inner experience of yourself—things like sensations, feelings, and imagery—to connect directly with the body. I blend these in distance sessions using dialogue and intentional touch.

Getting started

To start a session, I like to talk with you a bit. How are you doing? What are you needing? You’re a person who’s come to me for help—I want to hear about that. 

Next, we both get comfortable. You lie down or recline. I sink into my chair, usually with my cat nearby. Then we tune in and start with somatics. What are you noticing in your body just now? A sensation in your belly…an overall mood…a restlessness? Whatever it is, we’ll just be curious. This starts to tune us both in to your inner world.  

At this point, I might also connect using intentional touch. For instance, I might picture a craniosacral hold at your feet and start to “listen” with my hands. Then, we wait for your body to settle and organize its healing forces. For you, this can feel like starting to relax.

Deeper work can begin

If your body can settle and has enough juice, it will bring up something specific to work on. We may feel drawn to your tight neck, for instance. If the muscles and vertebrae begin to relax and realign while I hold there, then we’re deep in a craniosacral process.

But let’s say the process stalls. Your neck feels stuck and it’s not changing. Something more may need acknowledgment and support, so I’ll add somatics. When you tune in, you notice the stuckness is actually more in your throat, and it’s accompanied by a feeling of frustration. We’ll just notice that.

As our attention stays with the throat, things start to happen. Unsaid words may bubble up. Or an image of a current or past person in your life may surface. Perhaps you realize you often swallow your frustration in conflicts and this tightens up your neck. As we acknowledge this bigger picture, the energies held there can start to unknot.

Dancing together

Obviously, there are a million possible permutations for a session. How we blend it will ultimately depend on your needs, your body’s wealth of creativity and resources, and my responsiveness as a dance partner. Together, we co-create the session.