Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast There are those mornings where you just don't want to get up Me too You know in fact for most of my life every morning when I woke up I just felt this huge sense of dread.
I mean, I don't know why it was so hard to get out of bed so I talked to my therapist about it and she Gave me this life -changing technique And It's unbelievable how it works Especially on those mornings where you just don't feel like getting out of bed It's called slithering and today I'm gonna teach
it to you Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast I am so thrilled that you tuned in today because we are doing something Super cool and extra special never done this before I am laying in my bed right now I have my eye mask on I've got my retainer in you might be able to kind
of hear a little bit of a Because of the retainer my cat.
Mr. Noodle is laying with me and today I am teaching you a Technique that changed my entire life If you have ever struggled with getting out of bed If you wake up and you immediately feel dread or you feel like something's wrong or your thoughts are are just overwhelming you What I'm going to teach
you today and share with you will change your life immediately and What are we gonna talk about?
We're gonna talk about this technique that my therapist the extraordinary and Avon taught me during a period where I was going through a Really really hard time and in fact things were so difficult that I was having trouble getting out of bed And that may surprise you if you're a new listener, by the way,
if you're a new listener, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast family I think it's super cool that you're choosing to listen to something that can help you change your life and Learning how to get out of bed on those days where life feels hard or you're overwhelmed Like me you have this pounding sense
of dread in your body it kind of weighs you down like a gravity blanket and you just Want to stay in bed?
It's kind of interesting.
Isn't it how hard it can be to get out of bed some mornings I've certainly been there and What I didn't know is that all of that dread that I was feeling every morning all of the overwhelm It actually traced all the way back to an experience that I had had in childhood And we're gonna talk about that in a minute
But I gotta share something with you.
I have never been the kind of person that likes to get out of bed I mean, let's just be honest with each other for anybody that can spring out of bed when the alarm rings your we row For the rest of us normal people who actually wake up and we're sort of like, ah, can I just lay here?
Why is it so hard to get out of bed?
how about hitting that snooze button again and drift them back to sleep in my cozy sheets like That's the kind of person that i've always been and so if that's you if it's somebody that you love What you're going to learn today is going to blow your mind You're not only going to learn this technique
called slithering You're going to hear it explained by my therapist and evan She is also going to walk you through why this works as what's called a somatic practice She's going to teach you about the deep Origins of the stored tension in your body And why you continue to wake up in the morning and feel
This sense of dread or like something's wrong or your thoughts are spinning This isn't based on just what's happening in your life right now This is likely something that you've experienced for a long time in your life.
And here's the good news Using this technique You can move it out of your body And yeah, you may have a lot going on but you can learn how to wake up and not feel that sense of dread You can learn how to change it so that you wake up in the morning no matter what's going on You actually wake up and you
feel freedom in your body.
It is the coolest thing in the world I'm going to teach it to you today.
I'm so excited that you're here.
In fact, i'm gonna sit up Get the pillow in place I think nudes get the eye mask off And settle in oh, and you know what I don't have is I don't have my glasses Okay So I don't know about you and mornings But it has always been the hardest thing in the world for me to start my day And i'm gonna describe
what it feels like for me On just any given day But as i'm describing what it feels like for me from the moment that I wake up I want you to think about what does it feel like for you?
most mornings When you open your eyes, I want you to think about the sensation in your body and I gotta Pull some cat hair out of my mouth first because i've been petting my cat Okay Whenever I would wake up No matter where I was The first thing I felt was a sensation of heaviness It's almost like there's
always been something standing on my chest And it goes from that sensation of heaviness like the bed is a giant magnet and i'm just a little paper clip That's now stuck to it the amount of effort That it takes for me to push through That heaviness in my body and that sense of dread.
It is like herculean forget about doing Resistance training like this is this is pushing through something at a whole different level And once I feel that sensation of dread, you know Of course what happens is then bing it triggers my mind to start spinning And I start to scan ahead and you know, even
though i'm a very positive person One of the things that i've been learning about life is that our brains tend to default on the negative So what is it that I immediately start thinking about?
Oh the thing I did wrong yesterday the things I have to do today that i'm not going to get to or that i'm Nervous about the meeting at work that i'm not prepared for The fact that the kids have all this stuff going on The fact that I haven't exercised in four days and now i'm kind of beating myself
up or that Maybe I stayed up a little bit too late and watched yet one more episode of that series instead of going to bed And so the very first thing I feel is heaviness The very first thoughts aren't like oh Let's get out of bed i'm so grateful.
I have another day.
It's more like oh just like That's what i'm working with And it doesn't matter if i'm on vacation.
It doesn't matter if i'm in my house It doesn't matter if i'm traveling for work.
It doesn't matter where I am That is what I feel and what i've come to learn is that's the way most of us feel That there's something about going from a state of peace and rest To waking up and having to face the day and if you're somebody who doesn't sleep well at night.
Holy smokes Let's just add on top that kind of disappointment that yet again, you didn't get another good night sleep So you're not waking up rested.
You're waking up feeling behind And so that's the background here and if you're somebody just brings out of bed Like god bless you, but the rest of us kind of hate you right now because that's not the normal feeling for a lot of us But i'm here to tell you by the time you're done listening You are going
to not only understand why you feel that dread and why your thoughts can be really negative and why it can be Hard to push yourself out of bed and start the day Even better than understanding it you're going to know exactly what to do on those mornings When you feel it and I will tell you based on personal
experience using this technique called slithering Has changed my flippin life because it has changed what my body feels first thing in the morning And it has given me this simple Seemingly ridiculous thing to do to help me on those mornings where it truly is hard to get out of bed So I want to go back
in time like three or four years And explain what was happening when I was talking to my therapist the extraordinary and avin About all of the challenges I was facing and i'm not going to belabor it because then it's going to get too damn depressing But we were in the middle of massive life change like
so many of you our family had moved and we moved from Boston where we had lived for 26 years up to this tiny little town in southern vermont and at the time We were living with my mother -in -law now.
I love my mother -in -law But you know when you are sleeping at your mother -in -law's house, you're not in your own bed You are in somebody else's house and I was sleeping in the bunk room Of my mother -in -law's house in southern vermont and we're in the middle of this big move.
I have no friends I have lost my dream job, which at the time was being a daytime talk show host and I just Didn't know What I was going to do with my life I felt like I had made a huge mistake by moving to this tiny town and uprooting our whole life and On top of all of that I'm waking up in the middle
of the desolate winter months in a bunk room in my mother -in -law's house And let me tell you I would wake up every morning and it wasn't just the elephant on my chest.
It was like I don't even want to face the nightmare My life has become I don't want to get out of bed If I just roll over if you ever had a morning where you're like, okay If I just hit the snooze button and then I drift back to sleep Maybe I will wake up in a totally different life Maybe this is like
just some sort of figment of my imagination this life of mine This used to happen to me in law school all the time I would have this fantasy that as I would drift back to sleep I would wake up and suddenly I wouldn't be in law school anymore.
I'd be 10 years ahead.
I would be happy I would have known what I was doing with my life I'd have it figured out and then of course I'd drift back to sleep the alarm would ring.
I'd wake back up Oh my god this again and now i'm late for class like I just Anyway, I could talk for hours about how hard it has been For me to get out of bed And how awful it is To wake up and the first thought that you have is that you've done something wrong Or that someone's mad at you Or that the day
is just so overwhelming.
You don't know how you're going to get through it That's not that empowering That doesn't feel good And so, you know i'm going through this really challenging period where i'm like, I don't know what i'm gonna do with my life I'm so stuck.
I don't feel like we made the right decision I don't think i'm gonna make it and i'm sobbing To ann on the phone and i'm talking about how I just Am having such a hard time getting out of bed And ann says mel I want you to try something called slithering So ann and I spend one of our sessions talking
all about the sensation And that's why I asked you to think about what do you feel?
In your body first thing in the morning Is it heaviness?
Is it dread? Is it excitement?
Is it like an on edge feeling because you don't quite know what you're going to wake up to?
And so as we started to unpack the sensation and the experience of waking up She started asking me these questions When do you remember this first starting?
And i'm like I have no idea she's like what about when you were in law school?
Is it there i'm like Most definitely in law school.
What about college?
Yep. Absolutely. What about high school?
Yeah Yeah, as a matter of fact, I had a really hard time getting out of bed in high school I always felt this sensation like something was wrong And we went all the way back in our conversation To this moment that I remembered Where i'm gonna not go deep into the story because I don't want things to
get too heavy I mean, it's already heavy to get out of bed But we went all the way back to this experience that I had where I was in fourth grade And my family was away at this ski trip with a bunch of other families And all the kids were sleeping in this big bunk room And I remember waking up In the middle
of the night here. I am a fourth grader And there is an older kid on top of me And they're doing something to me And it was a really I don't know what the right word is Weird and upsetting and confusing situation Because it's like on one hand I was really scared because it was pitch dark and I didn't
know what was happening But on the other hand and this may sound a little weird like it felt like Okay, like kind of good.
I was so confused. I was not As a fourth grader able to process what was going on like my first ever sexual experience In that setting being woken up And I remember just rolling over on my side like into this ball shape and this Older kid, you know climbed out went back and I looked over And in the bottom
bunk next to me was my little brother And I remember thinking I need to keep really quiet So that this person doesn't do that to him Like I knew something was wrong But as I reflect back on it, it's not that the first experience was terror or fear It was more confusion and this deep sense That this was really
bad But again, like my fourth grade little brain I didn't know Like what was half I I couldn't didn't know how to process this in a healthy way And so that next morning When I woke up, what do you think I felt my body?
Heaviness dread I Felt like I had done something wrong and I laid in that bed and pulled the covers over me and just hid there until all the kids had left because I just Sensed that I had done something wrong and one of the things that i've learned Talking to the extraordinary experts that we've had
on this podcast that you and I are together learning from is that when you're really little There's this flaw i'm gonna call it a flaw.
There's a flaw in human design Called attribution.
I learned this from the amazing psychiatrist at stanford.
Dr. Paul conti that when you're little And bad things happen or the adults around you are super mad or frustrated or they're not around at all A little kid does not have the ability to attribute Other people's bad behavior to other people There's a flaw in the human design that makes little kids Attribute
other people's bad behavior to a flaw in you And so I actually thought this was my fault.
I thought something was wrong And I thought if I tell anybody I am going to get in a lot of trouble Even though I didn't do anything I was clearly a victim and i'll just state for the record also my personal opinion about that other kid Is if that other kid is doing something like that to a kid then
clearly somebody is doing that to him and so I know that now but in that moment in my body my body absorbed That experience And i'm going to tell you something what i've learned Over and over from all these experts that you and I talked to on this podcast and from my own deep experience in therapy And
all kinds of different modalities and diving deep into trauma That there are things that happen to you when you were little or in your lifetime And what I am learning over and over is that it's actually stored as a sensation in your body And if it is your default to wake up and have negative thoughts
or it's your default to wake up and feel that heaviness The way that I do It might not be something as like scary as what happened to me But it could just be that you had a parent or a caregiver that you never knew Which version of them you were going to get in the morning?
Like is mom or dad going to be in a good mood They're going to be in a bad mood.
We're going to have food today Are we not going to have food today?
Am I gonna have a good day at school or am I going to get bullied like I normally do?
Am I going to be able to do what I need to do in this classroom?
Or am I going to sit there because I have a learning disability that nobody's figured out And so I feel like the dummy in the classroom and i'm constantly in trouble and all of these experiences Create sensations in your body where you're bracing or you are freezing or you're in fight or flight And
so I didn't know any of this I just felt like there was something wrong with me because I couldn't get out of bed in the morning Why is it if I have an okay life?
I'm not happy when I get out of bed I understand cortisol drops and all this other stuff, but why does it have to feel so heavy?
And so i'm having this conversation with my amazing therapist And i'm crying like crazy and we trace it all the way back and now It makes perfect sense Of course if I have that kind of experience That the act of waking up gets married with the experience And that sensation got stuck in my body.
That's all that was happening And that's why i'm so excited for you to learn about this because Using this technique.
I have been able to really move this heaviness out of my body I've been able to get the elephant off my chest and I have also been able to Nurture and support myself in those mornings where the thoughts start spinning and it's super negative and I guarantee you if you try this This will help you And
it's going to help people that you love and so I really want you to share this With everybody that you care about because you have no idea how somebody else feels when they wake up I'm sure there are lots of people that are coming to mind that you know would benefit from hearing this So let's take a quick
pause. I've got so much more to share with you to teach you for you to learn We're gonna hear a short word from our sponsors share this episode with someone that you love who would benefit from it and don't go anywhere Because i'm gonna be waiting for you.
We're gonna keep on slithering our way through this episode after a short break stay with me Welcome back.
It's your friend mel robins today You and I are talking about this life -changing somatic technique that my therapist and davin taught me To help me get out of bed On those mornings where the dread or the overwhelm or just the ugh Was just too much.
So i'm talking to anne and she says mel We establish that this is something that's a pattern.
It's a storage sensation from trauma That is in my body that this is super normal It's super common and there is something you can do and so she asked me just like I asked you To think about where in my body is this thing stored?
And what does it feel like and as i've described to you it always Is this sensation in my chest?
And it's this heaviness this sort of like dark cloud thing like tar that is like right in there stuck in my chest And I want you to think about where is it in your body?
It might be in your ankles Might be on your back It might be up in your head like it could be anywhere in your body that you feel this sensation And then anne said to me I am going to teach you mel How to move this thing out of your body And she said I don't want you to push yourself out of bed That's what I
was trying to do. I was trying to force myself through the heaviness She said we're gonna do the opposite.
We're gonna move with the heaviness Like what do you mean?
Am I just gonna like melt into the bed because that's what it feels like i'm supposed to just like disintegrate into the sheets It's so heavy.
She's like, oh no. No, no.
No You are going to Slither out of bed You're gonna move with The heaviness smell and you are going to slither and slide one foot out of that bed And then you're gonna slither and slide the other foot and then you're gonna roll Off the bed and then i'm like, well, what am I gonna do?
Once I roll out you're oh, you're gonna be on the ground You're gonna move around with this heaviness and i'm like that sounds odd And anne has this amazing way of being so compelling That I tried it and i'm gonna walk you through it.
It is unbelievable how this thing works So what I wanted to do to make sure that you really understood this is I I reached out to anne and I said, hey anne Um, would you be willing to just send me a voice memo to really help me?
Explain this technique and how you came up with this and why this works.
And so i'm absolutely honored to be able to introduce you to my therapist and evan and to Have you get to experience Her wisdom As she is going to explain to you Exactly what slithering is anne is extraordinary she has been a Psychologist for over 30 years.
She has a phd in depth psychology a master's in clinical psychology All of her work focuses on the unconscious mind and how it impacts the human experience And I have had the honor of working with anne for over four years now And she's changed me from the inside out and I also just want to take a moment
and thank you anne Because what you're going to share today is truly going to help people's lives.
I just know it. So, thank you And so here's a clip that she recorded for you to explain what slithering is Slithering isn't a formal technique that is taught You won't find it in someone's lecture or course book.
It's an example of somatic inquiry The beauty of somatic inquiry is that it bypasses trying to make sense of what we're feeling Rather we let the body speak its mind through movement Sometimes it's better to feel our way through rather than try to figure our way out I want to make sure you heard that last
line that anne said That sometimes it is better for you to feel your way through a sensation rather Than trying to figure your way out of it.
And let me tell you some I've spent my entire lifetime trying to figure out How to deal with the heaviness and the negativity and the overwhelm that I feel when I wake up Talking about it hasn't worked Pushing through it has gotten me out of bed 5 4 3 2 1 But it doesn't remove That feeling every morning
So I would wake up with that feeling 5 4 3 2 1 and push my way out of it.
But the next morning it's there again What anne was teaching me and what she's offering in this type of as she called it somatic inquiry it's a big word, but we're gonna we're gonna unpack that for you is that when these sensations and experiences are stored in your body No amount of talking is going
to get them out of your body You need to use the magic and the intelligence of your body to move it out of your body So it doesn't live there anymore.
And so let's continue learning from anne as she explains Why this technique works and why we were using this right now Our work at the time was focused on healing and early childhood trauma associated with waking up in the morning As that victimized child you had to wake up and get out of bed and confront
the reality Of what had just happened to you the night before without the inner or outer resources to do so The dread that you felt upon waking as an adult was a somatic residue of this unresolved trauma Is she not brilliant?
And I want to be sure that you're tracking because it took me a little while to truly get this That it's important to talk about your feelings.
It's important to talk about what happened But there's a deeper way to heal the experiences in your life That got stored in your body whether it's experiences of racism or bias Or it's trauma or it's just chaos in your family or uncertainty Ironically for me another experience that we ended up linking
to this one Is that there was a friend of mine that was killed in a drunk driving accident when I was in high school And I was sound asleep when the accident happened and my mom came into the bedroom And I woke up in her arms to her crying And she was explaining That this family friend that the son had
died and that was another experience of being asleep and then waking up to really scary news And so these experiences you don't just shrug them off they stay with you and The opportunity here In learning how to move the sensation out of your body Is a way that you can heal this And it goes way beyond
just waking up and feeling better and waking up and not having the dread My impulse to suggest this to you now to slither Came from the dynamic interplay of my intuitive witnessing of your unconscious As it expressed itself in the feeling of dread each morning when you woke up The dread for you caused
you to freeze to be immobilized unable to move into your day with a sense of safety and well -being It took me a while to truly grasp what an was teaching me and so I want to try to simplify this and bottom line it For you You have all of these experiences that have happened in your life that are now
stored in your subconscious mind And in the sensations in your body You don't ever really get rid of it until you truly process it And an was linking up that all of these experiences Were just locked in my body with nowhere to go And so the dread that I was feeling the overwhelm the negative thoughts
the sense that something was wrong These are things that were happening on the surface that told an that there was something much deeper going on There was a stuck sensation or experience that needed to be moved out of my body And her strategy was instead of trying to push through it and soldier forward
and just keep moving on Mel it's time to move toward it to join with it And to truly push it out of your body and that's exactly What you're going to learn how to do today?
And so I want to explain in detail the process of slithering right now and i'm going to break the whole thing down And then we're going to bring an back and an is going to explain why this works And then a little later she's also going to walk you through An exercise with a couple questions so you can start
to try out this process yourself now giant disclaimer I'm not a therapist I am just a person that has had a lot of screwed up things happen and i'm doing my best To heal them and i'm sharing what worked for me and an is not your therapist This is a resource and a suggestion that is there for you to
try And for me, this was life -changing And i'm pretty sure if you lean into what she's saying and offering to you It'll be pretty life -changing for you and the people that you love too All right So we're ready to slither But first I want to give our sponsors a chance to share a few words.
They're absolutely amazing I want to give you a chance to share this episode with somebody that you love who would benefit from it Which is basically everybody on the planet and when we come back It's slither time and i'm going to walk you through it step by step.
Stay with me Hey, it's your buddy mel robins.
I am so thrilled that you're here with me today I'm introducing you to this life -changing somatic technique that my amazing therapist and davin taught me And now it's time for you to step by step slither out of bed with me.
You're ready. Good.
So am I So i'm going to walk you through Slithering and as you're listening to this you're going to hear all kinds of sounds And the most important thing for you to remember Is instead of pushing through the sensation?
And whatever it is for you whether it's on edge or heaviness or dread or overwhelm You're just going to join with it move with it.
So for me the sensation is dread So it's this heaviness And that's why it's hard to launch myself out of bed some mornings Or it used to be um And so i'm starting laying down and I kid you not The first step for me is you're going to think about just letting the weight of your emotion So for me dread
is really heavy. And so Imagine like you've just got like weights on you.
And so I I would literally Just drop out of bed like I am imagine i've now got one foot on the floor Now i've got another foot Uh that is coming out of the bed.
My body is still on the bed, but now I am dripping Down the side of the bed.
No joke. Oh my god I'm getting on the floor And now my full body is on the floor.
And when I first started doing this I would literally land By the time I slithered and slank out of bed.
I would just Lay on my stomach on the floor and you know, I really took ann's words to heart but instead of like truly Fighting the heaviness embrace it Let the heaviness just consume you and allow it To have you roll out of bed and then I would just kind of start to move and i'm writhing around on floor Just
literally like bending my knees and kind of almost like if you're in an exercise class and they're asking you to just kind of Move your body in whatever way and all you're doing is you're kind of Breaking up the heaviness like when you're laying in bed What I noticed is that it just kind of sits there
But when you start to move around and then I would just like roll around it and said to me now just lay on the floor And kind of twist and turn and move your body in whatever shape you want until you start to feel that heaviness break apart And so i'm literally laying on the floor right now and i'm
twisting And because so much of what's stored in your body first Comes to you as a sensation You feel on edge or you feel heavy or you feel like something's up That sensation is what we're moving through and for the first couple mornings I would literally lay here on the floor as pathetic as it sounds
for like a minute or two And then at some point what anne was saying is that you'll start to feel the heaviness break apart And the slow movement is what starts to break apart The sensation that had been pinning you in bed And as you move your body and you probably hear Me on the floor strange things
start to happen like your mind now is like what are you doing and i'm no longer thinking about the day because i'm Thinking about how i'm like on this floor and I want the Feeling to get out of my body and slowly what starts to happen Is that frozen kind of dread starts to break apart based on your
own movement And in the beginning I would be on the floor in doing this ridiculous like snake slither for a couple minutes and then all of a sudden You feel freed from it you're not done yet You're not done yet What you're gonna feel is this ability To actually either sit up Or roll over And you're
not going to stand up yet That's not allowed yet Because the point is to move through this And anne told me to get on all fours And crawl across the floor To the bathroom I'll tell you what I thought when she explained this to me.
Are you kidding me?
It's really gotten that bad that I am going to crawl across the floor But holy cow Does it do wonders and so i'm gonna walk you through Why this works you're gonna roll and slither out of bed like a snake You're gonna hit the floor and get your whole body on the floor Then you're gonna move your body
around in whatever motion you want in a slow way and you'll start to notice the feeling and sensation breaking apart And when you feel ready, which for me in the beginning was like a couple minutes of laying on the floor slither around Shaking this feeling up then you're gonna roll onto all fours and you're
gonna crawl toward the bathroom So Ann said, you know You stay on the ground for as long as it takes to start to feel like it's breaking up and then eventually you're gonna Roll off the ground and onto all fours which feels ridiculous, honestly, like I remember when I was learning this technique and I
Got up that first morning on my all fours and i'm thinking Am I?
Really going to crawl into the bathroom now keep in mind at this point.
I'm sleeping in a bunk room And the bathroom is down the hall So you get on all fours and the point is you're going to slowly Start to and you're going to hear that rug literally Like a dog or a cat You're just going to crawl toward The bathroom which for me is not only hard on the knees But it means
i'm risking being seen by my children or even worse my mother -in -law just Prawl to the bathroom And i'll tell you what though From the very first time I tried this By the time I got to the bathroom All that heaviness was gone And something magical replaced it This sense of freedom By the time I got
to the bathroom That I wanted to stand up.
I wanted to face the day.
I had moved with and through the heaviness That it was no longer in me and I felt something else which was empowerment And it seems ridiculous that crawling across the floor or Slithering out of the bed and onto the floor like a snake and moving through it would have this impact But I did this every
single morning for six weeks and I kid you not Slithering not only got me out of bed on those mornings.
It did something way more miraculous See what Ann was teaching me and what you're now learning about is something called a somatic technique Somatic is a fancy word that means of the body There are experiences that you have in life that you remember in your subconscious mind But it's also remembered
in the body And remember earlier how we were talking about the fact that I could talk all I wanted About the things that had happened to me and how I feel but it wasn't getting rid of the feeling in the body In order to move trauma through your body or to get rid of these negative and heavy sensations
You got to drop from the neck down And process it in the body and that's exactly what Ann was guiding me in doing when she taught me how to slither I wanted you to have the benefit of hearing Ann explain exactly why she taught me this technique and how it was working to break apart all the frozen And
stuck experiences in my body and set me free.
Let's take a listen The best way to work with a symptom a somatic symptom like this is to join with it Turn towards it amplify it when you did so the residue shifted from frozen to thawing to fluidity your nervous system shifted from a state of distress to neutral and then to calm I prompted you to
join with a feeling of dread and imagine if it could move.
How would it move would it slither?
Let your body slither out of bed onto the floor move slowly.
Notice how the dread wants to move.
Let the dread lead the movement Slithering is the tool you use to transform the trauma residue Your body now is more likely to associate a sense of well -being and safety when awakening to a new day And when it doesn't you know how to shift that feeling So I know you're going to have a lot of questions.
Let me just cover some of the ones I get all the time You're probably thinking when do I use this?
Well, I use this technique any time.
There's a morning where I just wake up and it just feels like too much to bear Pull out the slither and you're going to feel better and by the way, you can also use this on the couch So if you're sitting on the couch and you feel that heaviness hit and you can't seem to get yourself off the couch Just
slide right off slither on the floor Crawl to the doorway of that room and trust me you will break apart that feeling it's pretty unreal how this works Another question that you may have is related to what if you have a really hard time?
Actually feeling what you're feeling and dropping into your body.
I can relate to this Especially since i've spent decades running away from this heaviness and this sensation and so it can be really scary But here's what I have found The second that you literally just start small just slide your leg down and out underneath the sheets And gravity kind of takes over And
what you'll find if you're willing to just try this is that you do have more power than you think The reason why these sensations are so scary is because you don't know what to do with them And they've been there a long time And so part of my fear was is this really what my life is?
Is this what every morning is going to be because this is what it's always felt like And you'll quickly realize as you're writhing around on the ground and rolling around and then you roll up to your hands and your knees Whoa, this feeling is shifting It's weird But it's shifting and the more that you
do this the more comfortable you're going to become and look I was really scared At this point in my life.
I didn't want to feel this way I didn't want to wake up on edge and so anxious and the thing that shocked me Is simply trying this?
Made me feel so empowered.
It made me feel like these sensations.
We're no longer going to rule my life and they don't Another thing that comes up a lot.
What if you're in a bed That's really high up or you don't want to risk falling out of the bed because it's high on the floor No problem.
Just get the leg out first and just kind of Inch so that you're sort of laying there and the leg is straight and then you get the other leg out and you can go From a half sit to a lying down to using your arm.
It's okay There's no right way to do this Just get yourself eventually on the floor so that you're laying down on the floor That's the important part and then the feeling your whole body on the floor and starting to move and roll around That starts to shake up this heaviness.
It's super cool. What if you have a dog?
I mean, mr Noodle is still sitting here on the bed sleeping next to me He does not care if i'm slithering or crawling because he had a late night out hunting chipmunks.
Okay, so he's just sleeping a dog Fantastic because what happens is as you're on the floor If your dog comes over and starts licking you and then they follow you and you're crawling down the floor and they're like What are you doing?
What are you doing?
It you don't feel so alone It actually kind of makes you laugh a little and the laughter and the added kind of fun of an animal being there Shakes up all this sensation even faster At least that's what I found when my dog's homie and yolo would come and crawl along with me to the bathroom You may be
wondering is this something you can teach your kids?
Absolutely. It's a Fantastic technique to teach to a child who has anxiety who has trouble getting out of bed who may Have a lot going on that they're nervous about and they wake up and don't want to get out of bed Because it's something that you can do you can accomplish this even on the mornings when things
just feel really hard and the best part about this is you're not Correcting your kid you're not pushing them You are helping them move with the feeling and you can do it with them You can climb into bed and be like let's slither out of bed today Let's take that heaviness that you feel which validates
it by the way And let's use our bodies to move through it and shake it up And we're going to crawl together and when you feel ready and this is the most important part that anne would say to me when you feel ready You can go from crawling to standing up and you know, I said that I used this for six
weeks straight and it just broke apart everything that was in my body But it only took me about a week or two To get to the point where I could crawl three or four crawl steps I don't even know what the technical word is for it when you're on your hands and knees And I was ready I was ready to stand up
and walk Down the hall to the bathroom and honestly that was a huge victory the fact that I was ready Eight crawls before I had been the week before was evidence that this was working And I was slowly but surely chipping away at this tar Sensation and this heaviness that had held me hostage for so long
and it kept progressing like this That eventually all I needed to do was roll on the floor and then I was standing up and eventually All I needed to do was put a leg out and did I need to slide down?
Not really as I was sliding i'm like, oh I I feel Free I can do it and so you'll see That this works in magical ways because your body is designed To do this for you and one more thing Don't get back in bed No matter what don't get back in bed In fact, one of my habits is as soon as I get out of the bed
as long as i'm not slithering and crawling I make the bed right away And that's an important thing Because once you get up and you get going And you move through this you can keep going And it's going to help you move forward in your life and if you're disabled in any way And physically this is an impossibility
I'd highly recommend that you take this information to your physical therapist or to a Nurse or doctor or somebody that is supporting you and ask them how you can use a somatic technique Which is simply joining in with the heavy feeling instead of avoiding it and moving with it And I am certain that there
are ways that this technique can be adapted no matter what You're facing or what limitations your disability may create in terms of the physical nature of sliding out of a bed I really wanted to leave you empowered and so I asked anne for guidance On how you can best set yourself up to get the best
benefit from this somatic technique And this is what anne had to say How can someone who isn't in therapy with a counselor who is trained in somatic inquiry benefit from this approach to healing?
You can incorporate it into your self -care routine Ask yourself Where am I feeling friction right now in my life?
Is this a reoccurring feeling?
Turn towards the feeling by closing your eyes and notice what it feels like and where you feel it in your body Then ask yourself If this feeling could move how would it move for the next few minutes allow the feeling to move you You can do this In a quiet space or turn on music that will inspire your
movement When you're complete check back in with your body and notice what has shifted the benefits of a movement practice Help us to free the body from stress that often we don't realize we are carrying Less stress leads to greater physical vitality and wellness and we could certainly all use more
of that And you know what else we could use more of and davin and I love you.
Thank you again for Helping me share this life -changing somatic technique And to you I want to be sure to tell you in case no one else does I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life And sometimes that means you and I need to try some weird stuff like slithering
out of the bed and crawling down the floor So that we can get our power back you deserve that and I cannot wait to hear What you experience when you try this I can't wait to see your social media posts about this And you know what else I can't wait for I cannot wait to be together with you again in the very
next episode I'll see you soon Oh My god, this is hilarious.
Is that what you want to name?
Yes Okay, you want me to keep talking now?
I do. Yep See my stomach's grumbling Wow and It won't stop your stomach from grumbling, but it's going to help you get out of bed on those mornings where you just don't Feel like you can Okay, great.
I got it. Gotcha. Okay, ready like he needs like a yeah like a I don't know if we have insurance for this I've never opened the show with my retainer and this is like a One of those asmr things that people listen to that's not what I intended to do But we're going to just kind of keep on rolling here.
Um, okay, you ready?
So i'm gonna oh wait from flight or fright fright fright it is frightening, isn't it?
Oh And one more thing and no this is not a blooper this Is the legal language, you know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
I'm just your friend I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician Professional coach psychotherapist or other qualified professional got it.
Good. I'll see you in the next episode Stitcher
