How to Find Comfort and Ease, Part 2: Orienting
Let’s borrow another method from somatic-based trauma work to help you find calm in the face of stress, anxiety, or overwhelm. It can also help you wake up if you feel down, disconnected, or numbed out. It’s called orienting, which means orienting to the environment around you.
There are two types of orienting: defensive and exploratory.
Defensive orienting is an automatic response to a potentially dangerous trigger in the environment. For example, if you hear a loud bang, you’re likely to orient by turning in the direction of the sound, and looking around to ascertain whether there’s a threat.
This happens naturally if you have a regulated nervous system. It’s a healthy way you protect yourself from the possibility of harm. This same response occurs in all mammals.
Exploratory orienting generally means taking in the world around you through your senses. For example, enjoying the view from a mountain top, watching a sunrise or sunset, smelling the fragrance of flower blossoms, listening to the birds or feeling the warmth of the sun on your shoulders. But it isn’t just an outdoor affair. It’s important to take time to orient when you’re indoors as well.
Exploratory orienting comes naturally when your nervous system is regulated.
Some, not all, somatic-based trauma therapists use the word orienting to refer to practices where you orient to your sensations or inner experience as well, but for the purposes of this article, we’ll speak about it in terms of orienting to the environment.
Today, we’ll focus on exploratory orienting as a way to bring you back into your zone of resilience, whether you’re stressed or overwhelmed or down in the dumps.
Both types of orienting can go offline if you’ve been subject to early trauma, shock trauma, or impacted by chronic stress. And in modern times, so many of us get lost in our heads and lose touch with our natural ability to connect with the environment.
But you can relearn how to orient by consciously practicing exploratory orienting. If you have a history of trauma, you might need to practice in small doses at first to get acclimated to it.
How to Practice Orienting
Orienting is extremely simple.
One way to practice orienting, as suggested by trauma expert Irene Lyon, MSC in the video below, would be orienting to the external environment whenever you walk out your front door.
As you step out, pause and notice with a sense of curiosity. Follow the five steps outlined below. I’ve included an example for each sense.
What you see (a flower blossom)
What you hear (heavy equipment)
What your feel with your felt sense (wind on your arms)
What you smell (damp after rain)
What you taste (salt in the sea air)
Don’t rush through it; give it a minute or two. Fully take in each experience.
Taste may not come into play in many situations, like standing at your front door, but it may be first on the list if you’re having a coffee or enjoying a meal.
You could do this same 5-step process whenever you arrive at a new location. Instead of tucking your head down lost in your own thoughts, when you get out of your car, pause and experience what’s around you using the sequence above.
Another way to orient is to take specific breaks for this purpose throughout the day. If you’re inside, you can orient to whatever’s around you in the room. You don’t need to go outside. Try out this simple protocol using the visual sense.
Let your eyes go wherever they want to go, moving your head gently.
When it feels right, let your eyes rest on an object for a while.
When you feel ready, gently move your eyes again and look around.
When it feels right, let your eyes rest on another object for a while.
Continue for 1 – 5 minutes.
Some people will feel more comfortable orienting to objects close to them: their hands, the hem of their dress, the coffee table. Others might feel better looking at objects at a distance: a picture on the wall, a standing lamp, the doorway leading out of the room. I personally like to look out the window at the trees, clouds, and sky.
You could do any combination - looking close, looking far, looking in-between, looking through a window - or just one. Whatever suits you. Just be sure to move your eyes/head slowly, not rapidly. Depending on your initial tendencies, as you continue to practice orienting you might want to experiment with looking farther or looking closer and see how it feels.
This second type of orienting is commonly used in somatic-based trauma therapy when a client feels overwhelmed during a session precisely because it can calm the nervous system. It does so by bringing the sympathetic nervous system, specifically the ventral vagal portion, back on board. This protocol uses the visual sense, but you can orient with any of the five senses.
Whatever approach you choose to use, practice it regularly throughout the day, until you begin to orient naturally again.
When Orienting Doesn’t Feel Good
Orienting can feel uncomfortable if you have stored survival stress. When you begin to orient, you might feel an impulse to flee or a sense of panic. Alternatively, you might feel extremely bored and the need to distract yourself.
Neither reaction is bad or wrong. They represent a pattern your body has established to keep you safe as a result of trauma or emotional distress. Respect you body’s messages, while learning to work skillfully with your response so you can heal.
If you feel the desire to run away, take a break. Get up and walk around. Remind yourself that you’re here now in the present moment. If you can, be aware of any sensations you feel, like the ground beneath your feet or your breath moving in and out of your lungs. You can try orienting again when you feel ready or wait until another day.
If you feel the need to distract yourself, notice that. It can be a sign you don’t feel comfortable in your body. If you need to, take a conscious pause. Or even consciously engage in a distraction. Make the to do list that’s troubling you. Or consciously scan the internet on your phone for a minute. Or have a cup of tea.
The key is to engage in the distraction consciously. That will begin to break the pattern of automatically going into a distraction without making a conscious decision. When you feel ready, try orienting again.
In either case, never push yourself if you feel uncomfortable. Never work outside your window of tolerance. Instead learn to titrate the practice of orienting, doing little bits at a time to help you build your tolerance, and ability to be present in your body.
And if you find the practice of orienting too uncomfortable or disconcerting, don’t worry about. Try one of the other practices I share in this series on Finding Comfort and Ease, you’ll find the links at the end of this article.
Lastly, after you’ve been practicing orienting for a while, you might also have a healing experience. You might feel a warmth, a pressure, sleepiness, or other sensation but they won’t feel unpleasant. Core emotions (anger, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust) or memories may arise, but they won’t feel distressing. You may feel an urge to move. You may want to wave your arms, shake your legs, or make a protective movement.
Stored survival energies are coming to the surface ready to be released. Try to feel the emotions or sensations in your body or engage in the movement as long as it feels comfortable to do so. And remember, you can always take a break if discomfort sets in.
One last caution: Like resourcing, orienting can be used to avoid feeling difficult emotions and uncomfortable inner sensations, similar to the idea of spiritual by-passing. In this way, it could become an obstacle to healing.
In order to heal your trauma or emotional wounds, you’ll need to feel challenging feelings and sensations at times. But you need to do that without overwhelming your nervous system and re-triggering trauma. This means learning to go slowly and developing your capacity to experience painful emotions and uncomfortable sensations in tiny increments.
Everyone’s window of tolerance is different so there’s no simple answer for when to stop and when to go forward. The key here is self-awareness and getting to know what you can tolerate and what is too much for you.
Is Your Nervous System Dysregulated?
Humans are biologically wired to orient, both defensively to protect ourselves and in an exploratory way to experience pleasure and regulate the nervous system. This natural ability can be damaged however, in the case of trauma or chronic stress.
Trauma doesn’t necessarily mean physical or sexual abuse or shock trauma like a car accident, natural disaster or sexual assault. Early trauma occurs when we don’t get our emotional needs met by our parents. You may suffer the effects of trauma without even realizing it.
Your nervous system may be dysregulated if you feel bumped up into the high zone: edgy, irritable, anxious, angry, hypervigilant. And the same applies if you feel bumped into the low zone: numb, sad, depressed, exhausted, isolated, disconnected.
We all have those feelings sometimes. But if you go to these places regularly, your nervous system may be dysregulated.
Orienting can help you get back into your zone of resilience and gradually heal your nervous system.
Important: I’m not a doctor or psychotherapist or trauma expert and this article is not medical advice. If you are suffering from trauma, I highly recommend working with a trauma therapist.
I’ve learned about trauma recovery and nervous system regulation from various experts over the years including workshops and trainings on the Community Resiliency Model, Organic Intelligence, and the NeuroAffective-Affective Relational Model. Most recently, I am studying with Irene Lyon, MSC. I highly recommend her 21 Day Nervous System Tune-Up. If that’s not in your budget, you can access her free videos on YouTube.
Watch this video if you’d like to learn more about orienting from Irene Lyon, MSC., psychotherapist and nervous system expert.
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Your Turn
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you heard of orienting before? Is it something you would like to try? Please let me know in the comments.
Thank you for your presence, I know your time is precious! Don’t forget to sign up for Wild Arisings, my twice monthly letters from the heart filled with insights, inspiration, and ideas to help you connect with and live from your truest self.
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