In various somatic practices we’re often asked to focus inward. For years I thought I was doing so…some days better able, some days struggling to tune in.  A few years ago, I made it a lived intention, a dedicated conscious embodiment practice. The focus was a game changer in, for example, the breadth of what I’m able to notice at any given time.

The other day I noticed a sadness at first. Reflective. Sensitivity. Tenderness. A desire to pause.

At the same time, aliveness, a vibrant electricity; excitement to dance, create and play.  

Joy.  

Not the explosive exuberance you might imagine with that word, but something more subtle and a variation I’m more familiar with: quiet, steady, mountainous joy… the kind that doesn’t move or waver… the kind that rain falls on and while the rain is felt, the mountain remains still & calm, exactly as it was.

I felt into the gentle, immense and exquisite power of being able to feel a broad range and to be completely grounded and calm.

In that moment, an awareness arrived:all this practice, all of these years — this is where it leads.

what feels different

Joy is often taken to mean something louder. Something more likely to be performed, posted, pursued.  A pressure to feel something that looks like an Instagram post. Fixing one’s face into an image.

This is not that.

It’s an acceptance of what is difficult, rather than suppression.  A sitting with what is real and letting it be.  That particular day, it was the noticing of sadness, tenderness, the desire to pause that — at least in part — made noticing the joy possible. Both present at once.  The practice of presence being the chalice that holds both.

This is the learning — not an absence of difficulty but that the difficult and the divine — it’s all here all the time.

what your nervous system knows

There’s a name for this in nervous system language: ventral vagal activation.

When we feel threatened, we move toward sympathetic activation, when threat feels overwhelming, into dorsal activation, and when the system registers genuine safety we can access ventral vagal.  This is where we find openness, curiosity, social connection, and grounded aliveness.

It doesn’t arrive dramatically. It tends to feel something more like a warmth or ease — perhaps in your belly or chest, softness in your breath, a settling or gentle heaviness in your limbs.

Less something to achieve, more an organic consequence of a system no longer defending.

finding your way here

It’s not something you can think your way into. 

Your mind can’t make sense of how to find it.

It is not a reframe or a mindset shift. 

It is found when the nervous system has had sufficient opportunity to release what it’s been carrying, and has found genuine support to be available.

Somatic therapies such as Somatic Experiencing®, Hakomi®, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy work directly with this. Rather than trying to resolve experiences solely from the top down (with logic and language),  it works from the body up.  Over time, the ventral vagal state becomes a place you can find your way back to.

In other words, you expand your Window of Tolerance — another nervous system term that will be the subject of a future post.

What’s visible now is that mountain-like state — still and calm — it turns out it was always available.

going further

If reading this stirs something — a recognition of what you’ve been reaching for, or a wondering whether it’s possible for you — I’d love to connect with you. A free 20-minute conversation is a good place to start.  No obligations.  Just a chance for you to learn more about what piqued your interest.