Orienting: its simplicity and complexity explained. 

Oh my goodness! This makes so much sense to me. I’ve always been messy. I can walk by something and not even register it being there. It’s like blindness of my environment. I’m the hide-my-head-and not see type. Since starting trauma therapy I’ve had a switch. Thank you for this video. I’m also a therapist, so I’ll share it with my clients.

I hear you mention those who experience a sympathetic stress response when they orient and wanting to go back into shut down, but I’m not really hearing what to do about that… I suppose working with the rest of the system and growing capacity, as you said at the end? It’s funny… I actually automatically begin to orient whenever I experience overwhelm as an HSP. I do it intuitively; I could never explain to my therapists the things I did to take care of myself if I was feeling overwhelmed, so they didn’t trust I would be able to be connected and safe enough to explore my traumas, but since it was a completely intuitive practice that I didn’t have words to explain, I couldn’t. I just knew I knew how to connect to myself. This is funny because I also really struggle with dissociation, procrastination, and being basically locked into freeze. It’s very, VERY hard to get anything done, to move, to not just live my life vicariously through RU-vid and pretend I don’t actually exist in my own life. So I’m amazed at the level of connection I have with my body and how present I can be in myself (knowing what emotion I’m feeling a lot of the time, and why, knowing where it sits in my body, being able to feel the environment around me, naturally orienting, etc). I don’t really understand myself because I was so dissociated from my life growing up, as well as my body from sexual trauma, and yet I also have always felt this level of connection with myself and spent a lot of time introspecting. It’s odd. I feel I should have less connection with myself than I do (not that I’m complaining; I’m just sort of confused as to what I’m struggling with exactly, but I know I am struggling… it’s hard to heal when I can’t really tell what the matter is). I am on permanent disability, so I cannot afford to join the programs and benefit from the paid practices to get into the rest of my body… so far, all I’ve really learned to help myself from you is orienting and trying to follow my impulses, which is very hard in a severely frozen state, but I’m doing my best. Are there any free resources that could help me get more comfortable in myself? Every time I acknowledge my environment, I start to feel big and scary emotions I don’t think my system is yet ready to process (especially because I’m trapped in an environment that has me constantly locked in activation and a sense of being completely helpless to fight or flee, hence why I’m freezing up so much), and so I start to shift back into freeze and can’t maintain connection with myself… Sorry if I’m rambling… it’s very, VERY hard to talk, even through typing. I think being locked in freeze has me almost verbally shut down, and the overwhelm from just imagining trying to communicate is so strong, hence why I’ve never really commented on any of your stuff before or asked questions, I don’t think… I just can’t barely speak, and it’s extremely painful trying to organize my thoughts and share them with you right now. Thanks for listening.

When i was a kid, my life was pretty traumatizing. I ve lived all my life in some kind of partially functional freeze. I ve always had huge challenges getting my environment in order. Now in my mind i look back at my messy room when i was a kid. Perhaps the mess was not because i was a bad kid, or because i was so lazy and stupid. My nervoussystem was extrenely disregulated. It was not my fault.

So, in other words, it's a technique for becoming present to our environment or the body and training the mind to come back to the present, a mindfulness techique. This can be helpful if we have the tendency to become overwhelmed by our distressing thoughts and emotions and lose connection with our inner and outer environment. Thanks for this video.

I wonder, i feel the opposite. Whenever i orient in my apartment i get more anxious and feel the overwhelm to fix everything. I learnt that from my mum i think, who had dust allergy and i was her no 1 helper cleaning up the house. I think i need to practise to not be so perfectionistic about cleaning.. so i rather not orient inside my apartment and work more on capacity for emotions?

This exploratory orienting also shuts down DMN and switch on TPN of brain Trauma activates DMN of brain

Irene you are absolutely glowing!

Ahhhh... I believe this will be of assistance to myself and others. Thank you and blessings! ❤️‍🔥✨

Thank you for explaining in detail and with all the side notes. ❤

Thank you! 💕

Thank you 🙏🏻 ❤

Irene, what do you think about using neurofeedback? Any warnings or advice with it? Thanks

I am aware....but the action....procrastination!!!! Its sooooo frustrating!! ADD does not help!!!! I feel the older im getting 56 the worse im getting....its scary.... thankyou for channel, after years of therapists, courses etc...no help!!.im having to seek my own healing/tools.... No body understands!! 😢🙏🙏