“To be able to face our fears, we must remember how to perform ritual. To remember how to perform ritual, we must slow down.”  – Malidoma Patrice Somé

Despite having participated in many ceremonies that have been deeply meaningful to me, trying to describe them leaves me wanting for words. Perhaps this is because in many ways, ceremonial experiences are ineffable. Alchemical in nature, the power of ceremony can reach beyond the specifics of what we can plan and predict. Structurally, ceremonies are containers made up of rituals, or sets of rituals, with clear beginnings, middles and ends. Functionally, ceremonies are spaces to mark transitions or passages, ranging from big to small, private to collective, joyous to somber. Mysteriously, they can open doors to the unseen and the unconscious. When attended to mindfully, ceremonies can help us access experiences of deep presence.

Ceremonies have the potential to transport us away from the routine of everyday life into “sacred” time and space. I use quotations here because in some sense all of life is sacred. And yet the ins and outs of our everyday lives can become banal, or even profane. We become entrenched in routines and forgetful of the many miracles that make up our existence here on earth. Ceremonies help (re)create sacred spaces. One of my favorite aspects of ceremonies is how they can create spaces for mystery and cracks for spirit to pour forth.

In the Jewish tradition of my heritage, Shabbat (the Sabbath) is marked by a set of rituals performed on Friday night at sundown. We say prayers as we light candles, bless wine, break bread. These ceremonial rituals usher in Shabbat as a day that breaks the routine of the week and marks the seventh day as a sacred day of rest. In the same tradition, B’nai Mitzvahs initiate a child into adulthood. Wedding ceremonies of various traditions transform relationships through a set of rituals that mark a union between two previously independent individuals. Ceremonies offer spaces to witness ourselves and others as we move through the cycles of life.

Over the past few years, some friends and I have started co-creating our own ceremonies to mark important times of transition – solstices and equinoxes, lunar cycles, deaths, griefs, births. In the midst of a painful breakup, a friend suggested we hold a grief ceremony to help mark the transition in my life.

Co-creating a ceremony with loved ones gave me the opportunity to settle into a safe container to further process my feelings and to connect to my prayers and hopes, surrounded by the elements and the unseen. I knew the ceremony wasn’t a magic wand that could take away all my pain, but it was a way to intentionally mark a meaningful transition in the presence of dear friends. Consciously enacting a grief ritual was a way for me to honour the relationship that was, to be held and witnessed, and to reconnect to my sense of agency and spirituality. Ultimately and unexpectedly, a vision for what might come next in my life emerged through my prayers.

Ceremonies and rituals can be self-designed, and as unique as those who practice them. Ceremonies and rituals derive their meanings from the intentions behind them and the presence within them. Mindfulness and presence breathe life into ceremonies, they help us attune and attend to the subtle yet powerful energies that we invoke when we open ceremonial spaces. 

In the closing of a long ceremony some years ago, a teacher remarked that we would soon be returning to the ceremony of life. A beautiful thought, that each ceremony is nested within the larger ceremony of everyday life. If we show up to life the way we show up to ceremony – with intention, reverence, presence and openness – we are likely to access more everyday magic. 

The Buddha looks pretty regulated, doesn’t he? Many of us are drawn into meditation practice by the promise of his qualities – steady, easeful, composed presence, contentment with things just as they are. It’s nice to imagine we could embody this state all the time. The fantasy is that we might be still and equanimous enough to sit in the eye of the storm when it arises, peacefully witness the commotion without getting pulled this way or that. This would be to live out our Buddha nature.

But wouldn’t we be missing something? Doesn’t the unperturbed Buddha also look a bit…dull? Isn’t his serenity a bit…lacklustre? Has he ever surfed a wave? Danced ecstatically? Orgasmed without abandon? Has he fallen in love and had his heart broken? Isn’t this the stuff of life? 

Maybe Buddha nature is attainable – maybe more so (but also not guaranteed) for folks who live in monasteries, reduce distractions and renounce worldly pleasures. But for those of us who live in the everyday world, who engage in relationships (of all sorts), who brave parenthood or entrepreneurship or creative endeavours, we are bound to expose ourselves to experiences that will cause excitation and devastation, experiences that will cause dysregulation.

To be regulated is to stay within an optimal state of arousal – not too hyperaroused (excitable or revved up) and not too hypoaroused (numbed out or shut down). But dysregulation is baked into life. From the moment we exit the womb we are highly dysregulated. We come out screaming and crying, seeking to be soothed (co-regulated). As infants our regulation is entirely dependent on others. As we grow up, we have more capacity to regulate ourselves. In the same way that the mind wanders and we bring it back in meditation, our nervous systems get dysregulated and we (try to) bring it back to regulation. Regulation is a practice as much as it is a state.

When we are dysregulated, the opportunities we have to engage in life and with others, to learn, grow and heal from trauma are impeded. Mindfulness can help us track our levels of arousal and remind us to engage in practices that bring us back into regulation. In hyper-arousal our energy spikes, and we may experience a racing heart and/or mind, jumpiness, muscle tension, hypervigilance. When we notice hyperarousal, we might be able to regulate by bringing our energy down through things like deep belly breathing, feeling our feet, orienting to the room, using the imagination to visit a calm or safe place. In hypo-arousal our energy drops, and we may feel numb, fatigued, foggy, depressed, checked out. When we notice hypoarousal, we might be able to regulate by bringing our energy up through introducing rhythm to the body (e.g. tapping, walking, dancing), deep belly breathing, cold plunges, making plans that connect us to the future. We can’t reason our way out of dysregulation. Dysregulation is experienced physiologically, not psychologically. It must, as a result, be processed through the body. 

I used “might” as a qualifier because there are times when these tools don’t do the trick. In my experience as a human and a therapist, the issue isn’t that you aren’t breathing deeply enough; the issue is that life is sometimes overwhelming and the reality is that we can feel dysregulated for long stretches of time. At least that’s been my reality, many times over.

In difficult times I do my best to remember and utilize as many regulating practices as I can. I also do my best to hold space for my experience as it is. I try to remind myself that to be human is to be vulnerable, and the fact that I’ve gone into dysregulation is not a problem in itself; it’s a very human experience. Just like in meditation, fighting and judging my experience doesn’t get me anywhere. This capacity to be with myself as I am, with less judgment, is one of the greatest gifts of my meditation practice. Judgment can add a layer of shame and self-blame, deepening the fall into dysregulation. Instead of judging, the practice is to notice the hypoarousal and do what we can to state-shift, with an approach of loving-kindness. In this way, the attempt to return to regulation is a practice, not a guarantee. Over time, when our environments are safe enough, we might be able to notice and to bring in practices that support regulation.

I also want to name that to have the capacity to be regulated is a privilege in more ways than one. It is first of all a privilege to feel safe enough in our bodies to be regulated. Feeling safe enough might come from being born into a body that is not othered and in some way discriminated against in society. Many people of colour, women and gender diverse people may never have the privilege of feeling fully safe in their bodies. In addition, feeling safe enough might also come from having had very attuned caregivers and not experiencing very much trauma or neglect, especially early in life. This is not everyone’s experience. These foundations of feeling safe enough and having good enough caregivers can give us a baseline of regulation. With a strong, regulated baseline, we have more innate flexibility to come back from dysregulating experiences and in that more opportunities to choose how we respond in life, rather than react to life. So again, people who are more regulated aren’t just better at breathing; they may have been graced with circumstances that gave them a more solid, regulated foundation to work from.

Regulation is all about bringing the system back into balance. Different approaches are likely to help different people at different times; no one approach is better than any other. Like mindfulness, the more we practice regulation, the more our bodies remember how to regulate and the easier it is to return from states of dysregulation. Over time, being regulated increases our capacity to be present to more and more challenging experiences. Through mindfulness, we expand our “window of tolerance” – the range of experiences in which we can be regulated –  and can embody more of the Buddha’s composure more of the time.

While we hear a lot these days about self-regulation, it’s important to remember that we don’t have to go it alone. Being in the presence of regulated people or animals, sitting by water or against a tree are meaningful ways to co-regulate. Wherever we are starting from, good teachers, therapists, loved ones, safe enough environments and communities can, over time, help us regulate. We are, after all, social mammals whose nervous systems naturally entrain with others. 

The Buddha’s regulation can serve as an inspiration but if we hold that caricature of regulation as an expectation, we risk denying the fullness of our natural, embodied, human experiences and the beauty of our capacity to nurture and be nurtured in times of distress. 

Somatics is the practice of bringing the body into the counselling room. As Besel Van Der Kolk’s famous book is titled, “The Body Keeps the Score.” What he means by this is that the body holds all the trauma we experience, past and present. Traumatic events (big and small) become stored in the nervous system and the body’s way of holding itself. So, the theory goes, to release trauma, we must work at the level of the body.

Traditional talk therapy works with the mind; the left hemisphere of the brain does the processing, logically connecting dots, reframing, understanding things in context, working with forgiveness of self and others, perhaps. The challenge with this approach is that it works at the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t get to the driving force underneath – imagine disembodied talking heads. Trauma lives below the surface and often beyond memory, usually because trauma is when something happens “too much and too soon” for the psyche to process. Below the surface, trauma is often replayed in the nervous system as if it were happening in present time. As Van Der Kolk explains, trauma has no time stamp. Trauma stored in the body is trauma stored in the body – it is as though the trauma is happening now, running on a loop – not an isolated event that happened and was completed years ago. While talking can sometimes help us make sense of things in a coherent narrative, it doesn’t help us fully process the impacts of trauma or undo the bracing or patterning that trauma creates when it manifests physically in our bodies.

Somatics also works with nonverbal, often unconscious material. Imagine someone who is sharing about the pain of a breakup while smiling. This shows a cognitive dissonance – the expression on the face does not match the emotion of loss and grief. By watching the body’s expressions, we can start to notice some deeper truths about what is happening for us. The smile may be a socially conditioned way of signaling that everything will be ok, no one needs to worry about my well-being, “I’m fine.” Or perhaps the smiling means that the relationship was really not serving the client and it is a relief to be out of it. Only by inquiring and looking into small details like facial expressions, gestures, postures and breath can we catch such nuances.

Once we are aware of how our body is expressing or holding our unconscious material and our traumas, we can work at a deeper level to unpack, re-pattern and honour the wisdom of the body and the unconscious. Both provide strong signals as to what our psyche and nervous system need for their healing. Working somatically and with the unconscious in counselling can help us tune into the subtle language of these two facets of our experience and bring this awareness into everyday life to be more consonant with their deeper selves.