PREFACE
RESILIENT-YOU® emerged out of need, my own and others'.
The metaphor of a a deeply rooted vibrant tree, able to bend with strong winds and then right itself is a beautiful symbol of resilience for me. As the winds of change are kicking up personally and globally, now more than ever we need to become aware of our innate process of resilience, how it works as well as how to harness, more effectively use and further develop it. Understanding and being able to work with our nervous system is essential to this. |
From A Nervous System Perspective
First encountering an explanation of the nervous system while studying Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing® several years ago and then discovering researcher, developer and author of The Polyvagal Theory, Stephen Porges, has been so incredibly helpful to me, personally and professionally. To understand what happens in the nervous system when we’re displaying resilience and then what happens when we’re not, took the mystery out of it for me, which was both grounding and empowering.
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Furthermore, I noticed with surprise and delight that thinking about behavior in terms of the nervous system greatly reduces shame within myself as well as within those to whom a basic understanding of the nervous system is given. Instead of having thoughts like “I am an angry person” or “I am a bad parent”, we eventually start having the following kinds of thoughts. “I get overly stimulated and triggered by this or that, become agitated and snap at my child. Therefore I need to take steps to help my nervous system regulate itself, returning to a state of calm.”
Framing behavior in this way, helps prevent collapsing into shame, instead becoming proactive and demonstrating resilience. An extremely user friendly understanding of the nervous system and our innate process of resilience are given in the informational selections of the album and are an integral part of the audio program. |
Uses For The Techniques & Guided Experiences
Quickly Calming Down
As to the short fast-acting physical calming techniques and the longer resilience building guided experiences, they’re fundamental, very basic, and are useful for several purposes. The first, as is stated in the title, is to provide simple, powerful ways to regulate the inevitable stress and overwhelm life brings, especially nowadays. Coupled with the revelatory nervous system information, these are restorative, calming and empowering. This unique resilience focused album in and of itself has this affect on most.
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Preparing For Meditation
I've also found it to be really helpful for many in some of the following ways, which may or may not apply to you. With the ever increasing amount of research demonstrating the significant emotional and physical benefits of meditation, it made its way onto the cover of "Time" magazine in 2003 and has been gaining in popularity ever since.
Many people are now pursuing various forms of meditation training, mindfulness being a favorite one. Mindfulness is simply resting in a gentle awareness of your thoughts, feelings, perceptions and body sensations, as they occur, noticing your experience without judging it. There are quite a few excellent teachers out there, Oprah’s featuring a lot of the leading ones. I’ve found that for a lot of people, myself included, using one or more of the “Physical Calming” techniques and/or a guided experience like “Grounding Yourself”, to settle oneself beforehand, can make meditation practices more easily accessible. Furthermore, the practice of mindfulness is one of several ways that’s now proven to increase resilience. Given this, aspects of mindfulness are woven into this entire audio program, and two of the selections are actually beginning mindfulness practices, giving you a sense of it, priming you for more extensive mindfulness training, if desired. |
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Preparing For & Facilitating Other Healing Experiences
This unique audio program can also be a grounding prelude to participating in self-help groups and experiencing many other mind-body processes and practices, which a lot of us like to pursue for further growth, development and healing, both individually and collectively.
People can be surprised by their nervous system becoming overwhelmed by bumping into unprocessed disturbing experiences being held in their body as well as experiencing expanded states of consciousness. Perhaps erring on the side of caution, I suggest that people start with this audio program, in the outside chance that they really need it before pursuing something else, as well as the fact that it can be wonderfully restorative, fostering resilience in and of itself. |
For some, working with a qualified helping professional in addition to using this audio program, can be very beneficial. And if you’re aware of having trauma in your background, I strongly recommend, if possible, finding someone who has specialized training in and experience working with trauma. This audio program can beautifully complement any approach and is highly trauma-informed.
It is a compilation of information and skills that I like to share with my clients, usually at the very beginning. As I previously mentioned, basic information about the nervous system and our innate process of resilience helps people understand what they’re experiencing and not feel crazy or ashamed. Furthermore, it facilitates you knowing what you can do to help yourself when experiencing overwhelm. The techniques and guided experiences provide proven effective ways to regulate stress and overwhelm, and are something tangible to have and use in-between sessions.
I’ve also found that with repeated use, clients can internalize what’s offered in “RESILIENT-YOU®: Bending With Strong Winds, so that in addition to how I actively work with them during a session, they can become better able to tune in to their inner experience and track it as well as have more options to naturally draw upon for spontaneously resourcing themselves, allowing them to safely go deeper into their process and therefore more quickly move forward with their lives.
Whether working with me or another helping professional, it truly is compatible with any means of facilitating our great unfolding, personally and collectively.
And again, many people find this unique restorative audio program helpful as a stand-alone, wonderfully fostering resilience.
My hope is that it's beneficial in some way to whomever may encounter it,
Elizabeth Lehmann
Whether working with me or another helping professional, it truly is compatible with any means of facilitating our great unfolding, personally and collectively.
And again, many people find this unique restorative audio program helpful as a stand-alone, wonderfully fostering resilience.
My hope is that it's beneficial in some way to whomever may encounter it,
Elizabeth Lehmann