221 Guiding Clients Through Body Discomfort | How to Titrate Experiences Effectively: Interview With Annabelle Coote

Chris McDonald: Are you wanting to bring a body based approach to therapy in a safe way? Are you wondering, how do I help clients explore body sensations without pushing them too far too fast? What if I ask a client to notice their body and they become overwhelmed? In this episode on Yoga in the Therapy Room Podcast, we're going into the art of guiding clients through physical discomfort with intention and care.

Join us for a compelling conversation with Annabelle Coop, a seasoned expert in somatic therapy, as we explore the practice of titration. Learn how to help your clients navigate discomfort safely and effectively, fostering a deeper connection to their bodies and empowering them on their healing journeys.

Grab a cup of tea, take a deep breath, and let's explore this together on today's episode. Welcome to Yoga in the Therapy Room, the non traditional therapist's guide to integrating yoga into your therapy practice. I'm Chris McDonald, licensed therapist and registered yoga teacher. This podcast is here to empower therapists like you.

With the knowledge and confidence to bring yoga into their practice safely and ethically. So whether you're here to expand your skills, enhance your self-care, or both, you are in the right place. Join me on this journey to help you be one step closer to bringing Yoga into your therapy room.

Welcome to the Yoga in the Therapy Room Podcast, the non-traditional therapist guide to Integrating Yoga into your therapy practice. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. And today we're talking about a topic for therapists and especially those that want to use somatic practices, how to guide clients through body discomfort.

We'll be discussing the concept of titration, which is an essential skill for helping clients process and manage challenging sensations in their body without becoming overwhelmed. As therapists, we know that trauma is stored in the body while reconnecting with the body is. a crucial part of healing, it can also be overwhelming.

We have to really go at this with care when discomfort for clients arises. So how do we help clients stay present without pushing them over the edge? And how can we encourage gentle exploration of body sensations while building resilience and safety? To guide us here today is Annabelle Coote. She is a seasoned somatic therapist who loves weaving together the art and science of therapy.

She helps both clients and therapists discover the joy and fulfillment of creative and experiential work. In this episode, we're going to explore the principles of titration, how to recognize signs of dysregulation, and practical yoga based techniques to help clients process their experience at a manageable pace.

This episode will help provide you with tools to help clients build trust in their bodies and navigate discomfort to help build that inner resource and resilience. Welcome to the podcast Annabelle. Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah, so good to meet in person. I know So, can you share how

Annabelle Coot: did you find yoga?

so I was thinking about this actually when I was Thinking about my podcast and I think the first time I ever took yoga was in college I think it was one of those like I had to do something for an activity requirement and that was one of the options I had a long history of dance background before I ever picked up yoga, and so it's sort of a natural fit for me to try out a different type of movement, um, option.

And then over the years, uh, yoga has been something that I've integrated into my life, um, in a lot of different ways. Sometimes I've, you know, taken many classes a week and sometimes I, you know, do a little breathing practice here and there. So it really kind of varies on the season and the mood and the mode that I'm in.

Chris McDonald: So was the dance background, was that a reason why you wanted to bring more somatic practices into therapy?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, you know, I, my actual original graduate degree was in dance movement therapy counseling psychology. Yeah, yeah. So for me, it was kind of like I stumbled into being a therapist by accident from the route of having a somatic background, which is a little bit different than many other folks who move into somatic therapy.

But it's also been a journey because, you know, I was such, I was You know, I was a dancer. I was in love with dance. It was my thing. And when I discovered the, the idea of using dance in a therapeutic way, it was like, Oh, hey, you know, I could, I could do these things together. And what I first discovered was I sort of lost the sense of where's the dance.

I like anybody who went to graduate school with me, it would be like, What was Annabelle's mantra? Where's the dance? Um, but what happened was that over time and through sort of, uh, different experiences and just maturing as a clinician, I kind of really discovered how the movement practices and the embodiment and the therapeutic approaches that are sort of more based in traditional work, like really can be integrated.

And I sort of fell in love with becoming a therapist over time. So it kind of happened a little bit in reverse, if you will.

Chris McDonald: So, what makes it challenging for clients when they have some body discomfort? Sure.

Annabelle Coot: I think what, what makes it uncomfortable are so many things. So many things. You know, I had an experience where I was, I was talking with a potential therapist to, to work with my family, actually, at one point, a number of years ago.

And it was a somatic therapist, and They started asking me all these questions sort of just in the interview about my body and how did I feel about, and I was really taken aback by them. I was like, wait a second, we're not, can we just like talk about what you do and how this works structurally first?

And so I realized that, you know, that we all have discomfort around how present we are in our own bodies, how present we are in a relationship with another person. And this is something that is, it's not a one size fits all or. True for the, true for, you know, kind of in a stable way, it's something that changes dynamically over the course of a day in a relationship.

So I think that for therapists, it's so important to recognize that our clients are going to have discomfort. You know, it's not so much like, there are certainly significant things that create discomfort for people. You know, maybe a trauma history, it may be a history of their bodies just not being safe or comfortable places in their attachment experiences, in their childhoods.

To maybe, you know, Illness or injury or there are so many different possibilities But we all sort of navigate the world in our bodies and sometimes that's comfortable and sometimes it's not

Chris McDonald: Yeah, for sure. And I know with trauma a lot of times though it can come through sensations Absolutely, that can be challenging for a lot of clients to especially in therapy because I'm thinking of more traditional psychotherapy It's not often addressed.

So I can be challenging with clients aren't used to them,

Annabelle Coot: right? And I think you know, there's this For me, what I think is just a wonderful sort of blooming of using somatic approaches, using yoga, using body awareness, using mind body approaches, and, you know, some really significant kinds of somatic therapies.

There's just such a really wonderful way in which somatic approaches are being brought into therapy now. But I think that the downside to that is that sometimes we lose sight of. the ways in which being trauma informed is a part of that and just being informed about just how powerful and how different working through the body can be.

So a very simple question like, where do you feel that in your body, for example, can actually really cause a lot of anxiety or distress for someone, even if they don't even realize it themselves. They may think, Oh, that's a weird question. And they have a little discomfort. that they might be aware of, but really they might actually be experiencing quite a bit of discomfort.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, and I appreciate you saying that, because I just got to think of what you said with a new therapist just jumping right in and talking about body based stuff. That's not trauma informed, is it?

Annabelle Coot: No.

Chris McDonald: So what is trauma informed? Can you just share real quick? Sure.

Annabelle Coot: You know, for me, I think, um, it's interesting.

I wrote a book chapter that the title of which ultimately landed as, let's see, Trauma Informed Dance Movement Therapy in the Age of Telehealth. And in the process of working on that chapter, my partner and I went through all kinds of things around language, and we talked about the idea of trauma informed, and um, I'm a big fan of the work of David Trelovit, who actually offers something called trauma sensitive mindfulness.

And he's a clinician, but the trauma sensitive mindfulness is not specifically clinical work. So I was curious about that phrasing and learned a lot about some of these different terms. And one of the things that, you know, there's of course trauma informed yoga, people don't necessarily realize that being trauma informed is something that everyone All clinicians really should be because no matter what, no matter what, some of your clients have trauma and my perspective is that we all have some trauma just by the nature of being human beings and the ways that our nervous systems, you know, kind of are the lens through which we experience life and, and it's easy for us to get sort of reactive to things.

whether we have big traumas or not. So, to recognize that some people are going to have different levels of activation in their bodies and that they're going to show up in different ways, you know, some people are going to have very large, kind of, clear reactions and other people are going to keep it inside and be very quiet about it, but be very uncomfortable.

So, recognizing that. We have to pay really close attention to what's happening for our clients and that we have to really titrate the experience so that we are constantly sort of checking in, doing things in bite sized ways and knowing the difference, I think, between being sensitive and aware that there could be trauma here and that we want to work on helping somebody to navigate that, but that that may be very different than doing it.

trauma processing or trauma work, which is actually sort of explicitly working with the trauma. So obviously you have to be trauma informed. I appreciate you saying that.

Chris McDonald: But I just wanted to share something from your website. I was looking at your practice website when you talk about trauma and it was very clear.

I really loved how you describe it. We'll put that in the show notes as well. But you say that trauma can be like, A loud intruder or a quiet shadow. I thought that was very profound. Can you share? Oh, I like that. I know. I was like, damn, that's good. So, so can you share the differences? I know you just talked a little bit about that, but I'd love

Annabelle Coot: to hear more.

Well, as I hear those words, you know, it's been a while since I wrote them. So it's kind of interesting to think about now how I think about it. But I think the first thing that pops up for me is that that could apply both to the experience. experiences of trauma. You know, like trauma could be a dramatic, significant, ongoing abuse experience or a really devastating natural disaster or car accident, near death experience.

Or it could be sort of a subtle sense of like, I was teased constantly in my formative years and it just kind of was in the background and I didn't really think of it as being trauma. Or it could be. There's like some intergenerational trauma that affects the way that my family responds to things and has an extra reactive nervous system, but it's not sort of a specific thing at all.

And then the way that it shows up for people in their lives and in their bodies and their nervous systems in their relationships can also sort of. Go from one of those extremes to the other. You know, some people may have a very overreactive kind of nervous system that, you know, they get very emotionally flooded or they sort of get overwhelmed easily and they have a sort of a loud, obvious kind of response to their own trauma experiences or They could have a sort of very quiet, shut down, subtle, you know, kind of go more towards intellectualizing or, you know, kind of keeping things under wraps.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it too. And, and also that I was thinking as you're talking that trauma can also come out as anger or rage because I think people don't talk about that. We often talk about the anxiety piece, but to me, that could be a really loud intruder. Yeah. Externally.

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. And I think, you know, there's an interesting, this makes me think of a way that when we talk about the nervous system and about nervous system regulation, my sense is right now there's a lot of talking about calming the system. And I think that that's really important, but I think that people sometimes don't realize that when we're talking about regulating, we're not necessarily just talking about calming.

We might be. We also might be talking about activating. And with something like anger or rage, we might be talking about how to stay in the arousal or the higher level of energy. But have it be less of a hijacking and more of something that we can manage and use effectively.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

So I know you started to talk a little bit about titration. Can you talk more about that in, in the context of somatic therapy? Sure. For

Annabelle Coot: me, it feels like one of the things that's really important for us to do is to err on the side of safety. I actually have a kind of a phrase that I developed working with one client that I've now shared with a lot of other clients, which is that we need, we need a helmet and we need a permit, right?

Like we need safety equipment and we need permission. So that informed consent piece of working with somebody, particularly with somatic work where, you know, even people who come to work with me or work in my practice who think that They're want that kind of work, they don't necessarily have familiarity with what it is, and they don't necessarily know how it's going to impact them when they actually start doing it.

So I might, you know, ask somebody even something very simple like, Oh, you know, as those shoulders raise, you know, do you feel that? And somebody may feel very sort of embarrassed or have a sense of, you know, being observed. And so even a very small kind of intervention is something that we have to do, I think, both carefully and that we have to really pay attention to the impact.

I think that's almost more important, but we have to kind of experiment. And I think we experiment in small steps until we get to know our clients and we get to know their systems and they get to know us and our systems. So that together with our clients, we get a sense of like, oh, that feels like maybe it's a little too much.

Or does that feel like it's a little too much? Or do you think we could actually stick with it for a minute? You know, like, okay, there's a little discomfort as you check out that tension in your shoulders, but at the same time, you're kind of curious about it. So really it's doing a lot of collaborative checking out.

I think it's a really important ingredient there.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, I think that's so essential and it came up for me. I'm a clinical supervisor too. It's like that clinical judgment. Yeah I talk a lot with supervisees that I work with too is really just that mindful presence with the client to really be paying attention to the body language and You know some things that maybe they're not saying Absolutely.

Absolutely. Probably even more. Yeah, I guess more maybe especially new it was newer to write newer clients It's gonna be that building that rapport is gonna be so important

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, although I'll also, you know, say that yes, I agree with the newer client, but also sometimes the clients that we sort of come to develop expectations with, I think sometimes, uh, I know that I have taken for granted some of, uh, you know, the idea that we're on the same page and have been a little bit sort of a little too forward sometimes in making assumptions about what's okay and realizing that in the moment, like, Oh, that landed a little too harshly, or that landed a little too strongly because In that particular moment, I wasn't, I wasn't paying as close attention to how they were feeling that particular day or that particular session.

Chris McDonald: So how do you determine when a client is ready to engage with somatic practices?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah. So I think I, I like to be a little bit of a rebel sometimes and one of the things that seems to be floating around out there is the idea that like, you know, somatic therapy isn't for everyone, but I actually think somatic therapy is for everyone.

But what it means and what it looks like is actually very different for, for different people because, and the reason I say it's for everyone is because so far in the human experience, we all live in our bodies and we all interact in our bodies and our life experiences happen in our bodies. So even if you're not a somatic therapist and even if you're not doing.

somatic therapy. You're having an embodied experience of some kind. So I think that when we keep that in mind, then we have to start to recognize that it can be so valuable to be explicitly paying attention to what is the embodied level, you know, what's happening here. And I think that that when you were talking about what clients do or don't say a minute ago, that part of it is like what they might be saying verbally versus what they're saying with their bodies or with their tone of voice or with other nonverbal You know, kind of indicators,

Chris McDonald: but I think sometimes we can be a guide to for clients.

If we're not sure where they're landing to. I remember my, my therapist, what time she, she reflected back to me. I was shaking my head. No, I didn't even realize it as I was talking about something. So sometimes that can bring that self awareness in the moment to those things that are unspoken.

Annabelle Coot: One of the things that I've really learned a lot about over the years is that, you know, in, in dance movement therapy, there's a lot of emphasis placed on the tumen and mirroring, which I think are really very valuable, important skills, um, in somatic work, regardless of what kind of approach you're taking.

But what I started to realize, I think probably largely by taking sensory motorcycle therapy training, is that when we're not explicit about it, sometimes it just gets lost in the mix. So that, you know, like if you didn't realize your head was, you know, saying no, um, and your, and your therapist just did that, you know, kind of movement with you, it might register in your body as sort of a connection, but it might not bring some new awareness to your own habits or, or your own state that was under the surface right there.

So that explicit connection around it sometimes I think is like really,

Chris McDonald: really

Annabelle Coot: important.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, yeah, because it just made me think that sometimes we aren't always aware, you know, other people, you know, may witness more of what we're doing with our bodies or how we're sitting or posture, because I know posture is something I talk to clients about too, and noticing that too.

Do you use that at all, any posture practice with clients?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, posture, I think comes into it a lot. from the perspective of like how tension is being held in the body or how collapse is happening in the body. So some of those sort of the, that hyper arousal of the tension or the hypo kind of drop into like not having as much alignment or strength in the, in the posture.

So, you know, I think that, I was working with somebody recently where she was talking about sort of this tension that she was having around these worries that she had, and as we practiced sort of relaxing out of that, letting the shoulders drop and kind of um, just softening that a little bit, what came up for her was this like real sense of dread and sadness.

And what she found herself doing was just, like, immediately dropping into sort of more of a collapse in the chest and then, uh, sort of the whole body coming forward and protecting in. And it was actually very hard. A lot of the work ended up being sort of like, can we find a middle ground? Is there a way to relax and still feel protected so that you don't have to have as much tension?

So that would be a pretty typical example of the way that I work with that.

Chris McDonald: Are you a mental health therapist who feels like traditional talk therapy isn't enough? Are somatic approach? You're not alone. Many people are. Many therapists feel the pull to offer something more, something that helps clients connect with their body, regulate their nervous system, and find healing beyond words.

That's why I created Yoga Basics Course for Therapists, an 8 week training designed to help you confidently integrate yoga into your clinical practice. And no prior yoga training is required. In this course, you'll learn how to use trauma informed yoga for nervous system regulation, ethical ways to introduce yoga into sessions safely, simply, and easily.

That's hcpodcast. org forward slash yoga basics today. And going back to the titration, can you share for listeners what that could look like in a session? Sure. So I

Annabelle Coot: think it can be sort of explicit titration, like the way that you talk with a client about like, Hey, you know, I have a sense that right now it might be valuable to just kind of pause the conversation and see if we could just notice that tension that we've been talking about.

And just sort of checking in and verbally asking and really giving, you know, some informed, collaborative consent there. It could also be like, you know, maybe if you're looking at that tension in the shoulders that you do it with them so that there's a sense that there's a connection there and that they're not, you know, sort of just being asked to be on display.

And that's a way to sort of ease into some of that work. And then I think with that, you know, it may be, there may be like a timeframe, like, let's just check this out for just, you know, a few seconds. Whereas somebody who has more capacity to tolerate, you know, kind of paying attention to the body might be able to really work with that for a longer period of time.

So it may be introducing something on a smaller scale in the body. It might be introducing something and doing for a little smaller period of time. It might be going back and forth between like, let's look at the tension and then let's allow the exploration to move back into a verbal processing for a little while.

Um, so I think that there's. a lot of different ways to do that.

Chris McDonald: And I think too with yoga, because since this is yoga in the therapy room podcast, I'm going to bring that in too with poses too that, because I'm wondering titration, could that also be with yoga? So if we have an asana, right, that's more difficult for us or with a client and maybe titrating, just going into that for a little bit and then coming out to a pose like child's pose of safety or something that's calmer for the client.

Can you talk about that?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So I think that, that, again, that length of time could be a piece of it. It could also be the intensity of it. It could also be sort of modifying it and doing a variation. So, for example, you know, if you are doing a yoga pose and coming out of it into child's pose might be sort of a respite pose for them.

You might modify that where, you know, somebody who's new to it, you may do a piece of a warrior pose just sitting in chairs. Right? And just do, just do a part of the arms, maybe even do it as a small gesture in front of the body instead of doing it as a full pose. And then the rest bit might be, you know, sort of bring the hands to, to relax or rest or putting them, you know, like a hand on your forehead and on the back of your neck as some sort of getting the energy of like the child's pose without asking somebody to get out of the chair and get on their knees and do the whole pose.

So you could introduce little, little bites. I also think that humor is really helpful. Absolutely. Creating things. I have like a little book of a frog doing different yoga poses. Oh, that's cute. It's the cutest thing. And then I used to have an, the book came with a frog that you could put into different yoga poses.

I love it. What a great idea. Introducing things sort of a little bit outside of the actual experience that the client's having or that you're asking them to do, you know, like, oh, here's this image of. In this case, a little cartoon, but it could be, you know, let's just think about what our bodies feel like when you see this pose, uh, like on the yoga card deck, for example, or maybe it's a, you just use images of clouds or mountains or something that sort of goes with the goal of the pose.

So like we can really titrate way, way, way, way, way back. And then clients who are ready, you could really go the other way. You can really sort of introduce like gently. But you can keep pushing the, the boundaries so that they have more of a fuller and larger and longer experience.

Chris McDonald: I appreciate you sharing about titrating with even just the way you move your arms a little different as part of a pose.

And if it's too much for a client to have arms up, for example, can we just bring them down even halfway or to the side? So looking at different kinds of options could be very. beneficial. I think that's important with yoga too, any yoga practices. But what you're talking about with the frog reminded me of the episode with Terry Littlefield where we talk about creativity and play that's coming out soon and bringing more playfulness and joy into this, because it doesn't always have to be so Serious.

Annabelle Coot: I actually think that's not only like just a valuable thing. I actually think it's really important because, you know, the things that we're dealing with in therapy, you know, from extreme traumas to like, oh, I was really frustrated because I lost my keys this morning, right? Like the whole gamut of our experience that we're working with in therapy is, you know, it's got a lot of heaviness.

It's got a lot of, Strive has got a lot of suffering and I really think that one of the ways that we get through that is by having lightness and levity and play. Um, play is a really important way to learn things and those things are also really important interpersonally, right? We build relationships with them, so I think that that's really important.

And I think that, you know, there's a real way that bring any kind of movement practice, whether it's yoga or anything else, into therapy, particularly around some of the discomfort. Uh, Oh, I'm trying to do this thing and I don't even remember where I'm supposed to put my hands. Right. We can model that sort of like, okay, so let's just try it this way.

So a little experimentation and a little playfulness and a way to laugh ourselves as well as laugh through the experience.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And I think just using your personality, you know, for who you are too. whatever your sense of humor, because I know I've talked to clients too about putting on Taylor Swift and dancing around the room, you know, and that always gets a giggle because not everybody even likes Taylor Swift, but they're just like, what the hell is this therapist talking about?

But, you know, it's just kind of taking it out of the seriousness, right? And just being like, you know, we can, and I love dance too. I think that dance can be very therapeutic. I think we can integrate dance with yoga. Make it fun. Absolutely.

Annabelle Coot: Absolutely. And I think we can, you know. I'm known for sort of saying to some of my clients like, well, okay, so I've got a weird idea here.

Yeah. And they're like, yes, you'd, yes, yes, of course, I expect that from you. I expect that from you. Um, but you know, like I've had, um, sessions where my, by the end of the session, my office is littered with like scarves from one end to the other because they represent different things and we've been, you know, kind of up and navigating like a, a river with different, you know, kind of, um, Buildings and things on, on the side that represents a journey or represents a relationship.

And so there's a way to, I just am very interested in, in figuring out how to make this like a more embodied, a more full experience for people, whether it's, you know, kind of getting up and moving the body to explore something or whether it's, you know, using props or. any other kind of creativity, too. I think that that all really goes together.

Chris McDonald: I think that is part of neurobiological process. Our brain loves novelty. Yes. Before we can bring that in. The more it's going to help them remember it, too, especially if you say, if you have a weird thought. Wonder if we could try it this way

Annabelle Coot: and

Chris McDonald: see how

Annabelle Coot: that goes. I'll have sessions with clients long after we do something like that, and I won't even necessarily remember the content of what we were working with, but I'll be like, Remember when we made that river?

And I just, I don't remember what we were talking about, but I remember that you walked away with a sense that you could flow differently in your life. And they're like, Oh yes, that was so good and it's been so helpful. And then I bring it into whatever we're working on there. So like, it's about taking away something that's underneath the story and underneath the, the particulars.

Chris McDonald: Hmm. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What about when a client becomes really overwhelmed with sensation or body discomfort? How do you handle that?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, so I think that one of the things is to actually, interestingly enough, um, go to the body, right? So if somebody is really over, overloaded with emotion or with sensation, if we can actually start to mindfully check it out through the language of sensation, right?

So actually using the language piece to start to connect with, um, Oh, it's like, I feel a little tingly. Okay. And is that tingly kind of going up or going down? And if we start to like narrate it and observe it. and bring some mindfulness to it. That can actually help sort of, that's another way of sort of titrating out the emotions and out the thought process, so that it's really just sort of, um, making things a little more manageable.

So that's, that's one thing that we can do. And we may want to actually do something more active to intervene, particularly if the nervous system's getting dysregulated. So we may want to do something that actually does help calm. So that might be, a breath kind of work, or it may be bringing in, you know, sort of some up to down, say, for people who are just listening, you know, sort of, I've got my arms up in the air, and they're just kind of coming down.

So just like really sort of working with bringing the energy down. It may be some grounding work, feeling the feet on the floor, doing yoga poses that help kind of create that, that work if you're working with yoga explicitly. But we also might be needing to sort of help people to like, bring in some more energy.

So it may be that we might actually want to like get somebody up and moving a little bit. And sometimes the movement can do both, right? So one of my favorite things is to help people do movement that crosses the midline. And so, you know, often like with arms out to the side, just taking a hand to the opposite knee.

You can either pick up the knee into the air, you could do this seated even, but that really helps sort of integrate the brain. It gets somebody a little bit more activated, but in a calmer way because the hemispheres are interacting differently and the body's having a sense of being. Um, organized and integrated.

So you're kind of really sensing what does this client need to be more present? Are they needing to slow down? Are they needing to speed up? Are they needing to connect more with me? Are they needing to feel more connected to the ground? Getting really curious about that.

Chris McDonald: So I'm just writing down what you said, but does the client need to be more present?

I think that could be helpful for listeners too, to really be mindful of that when you're bringing in these somatic practices and yoga and really tuning in more with that question. I think that's a great reflection question for people.

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, yeah. And I think I'm understanding what you're saying because I think we need it as clinicians both in terms of thinking about the work that we're doing with our clients, but we also need it for ourselves.

That too. And I think for people who are newer. And so, to have some, um, you know, I feel silly even leading a guided meditation or I feel silly asking someone to move their body in this way. And so, to have some, um, You know, some self compassion and some self awareness that we get to say, like, okay, so what's my experience of offering this kind of work and how am I taking care of myself?

How am I helping myself to be present with a client and also with myself? Yeah, that makes a difference. Yeah, yeah. And I think one of the things that's really important is that We're developing our own resources in a substantial way outside of our work because, for example, we may come, like, we, I'm sure you know those sessions where you get kind of all of a sudden turn a corner and things are not what you thought they were.

You're in the middle of something more intense or unexpected or it's triggering something personal in you and you're caught off a little bit. a little bit. And I think in those moments we actually can tap into our own resources pretty quickly often. You know, we can pause and take a deep breath or recognize our own feelings that we're having in the moment and do something to help resource ourselves, but that's, we can only do it quickly if we've got, you know, if we've got some tools in the bag, so to speak, to be able to rely on.

So our own longer practices of yoga or meditation or movement, all of those sorts of things.

Chris McDonald: How do you take care of yourselves as a clinician?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, yeah. So I think one of the things that's really important to me is really making sure that I'm recognizing that I am my own instrument, you know, like a, the chef has their knives and, and those knives, if they're not sharpened, you're not going to be able to cook as well.

So I think it's recognizing that my sustainability is actually really important. to, to me in my own life and to the work that I'm doing. So if I'm exhausted or depleted, I am not giving my clients what they need either. So, you know, it's a process and it's a practice, but I think that some of the things that are important to me are movement, you know, not necessarily even specific kind of movement, like taking a walk or dancing or yoga in a formal or an informal kind of way, like just making sure that I'm getting movement in.

For me, getting outside is really important. Taking time just to myself is really important, like getting unplugged. Mindfulness practice is really important, and creativity is really important. Like I have to be finding ways to, to be doing creative expression. And sometimes that's like more explicit, like painting or dancing.

And sometimes it's like cooking with my daughter, but just really making sure that that those kinds of activities are in the mix. Can you

Chris McDonald: share a

Annabelle Coot: yoga

Chris McDonald: practice with

Annabelle Coot: listeners today? Sure. So what I want to share is an orientation practice and I call it the 360 degree orientation because it really is about really connecting with the whole environment.

And it's one that I think is really especially useful for people who are more uncomfortable in their bodies or have more trauma activation. And it's also one that can be adapted to, um, sort of introduce other movement or other yoga practices and can be a sort of a fallback on if, um, if you need something to.

put into place to help on regulating. So the first thing that I like people to do for this is to just really kind of notice where they are sitting right now. And it could be something that you do standing, but typically I often do the seated and just to get a sense of the fact that you are in your body in this chair or on the floor or wherever it is and to be present.

And then we are going to use the eyes and that. the sensation of sight or the sensory experience of sight to just really get a sense of where we are right now in this moment. And so what we're going to do is we're going to begin by just scanning a little bit to the right and noticing what we see. And we're going to scan a little bit to the left and noticing what we see.

And it may be that you see colors or shapes. Could be helpful to name these things. to yourself, either in your head. Um, when I do this practice with clients, I sometimes have them name them out loud. And then we're just going to really expand the rotation, so that we're looking like really sort of way off to the side in one direction and then again to the other side.

Again, noticing those things that are in the space where we can start to have a little bit more of a Looking up a little bit, or looking down a little bit, and then we're going to expand it and turn all the way, really twisting our hips all the way to look entirely behind us, and really starting to open up the field of vision so that we're paying attention to What's high, what's low, what's in the distance, what's close.

And taking that to the other side, really getting a sense of the whole bubble of space around us. We can add other senses in if, if we like, you know, we could pay attention to what we're hearing, to the things that are farther away, to the sounds that are closer, but we don't have to. We could pay attention to the things that we're feeling and touching with our bodies.

We can even add those senses of smell and taste into it if that feels useful, but really what we're trying to do is really get ourselves to notice through the portal of our eyesight and what's around us, and then we start to feel in our bodies the sense of where we are, where we are in this space. And if we're with somebody else, we can really notice that we're with that person, and we can notice that they're in our field of vision, and we can notice them as we pass through the field of vision to see something else.

And then we can notice what it's like to sort of be sharing the experience together. And then we can come back and we can get a sense of, like, now how do our bodies feel? And we can get a sense of, you know, our alignment and anything that may have changed or shifted in a sense of what's happened in our thought process or what's happened to our feelings, to our emotional experience.

We could take some deep breaths if we wanted to here. And one of the things that we can do when we're using our visual site is to be very specific in particular. Like we can really ask someone or ourselves to notice colors because that may be a way to get very specific and focused if we need that kind of level of attention.

And if we are a little more. regulated to begin with, we can actually expand that to things like shapes or noticing what attracts your eye and where your eyes want to linger so we can get sort of as granular or broad as

Chris McDonald: we

Annabelle Coot: like.

Chris McDonald: Yeah, that's so grounding. I feel like more connected to my surroundings in some way.

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, I'm really noticing actually like the purple or blue color in your space, even as, as we're doing this. We can do,

Chris McDonald: that's the other thing that I learned through my therapist is that we can do this also with the screen, with the person that is in front of us, right? Because I can look at your space and see the colors, the shapes, which I thought was so interesting.

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I think we get so, um, we get into this myopic tunnel vision for all kinds of reasons. You know, from very significant, you know, kind of trauma or emotional and mental health reasons to the stresses that we have, to just kind of like we're cold and we're like huddled, huddled and looking down.

Um, and so beginning to really open our awareness helps us to, to broaden that. And to feel safer where we are at the same time. And it tells

Chris McDonald: our amygdala we're safe too. Absolutely. The neuroception. Okay, I'm in my safe surrounding, things are calm. Yeah, I could see how that could, that could be a good way to open a session.

Do you do that at all?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah, absolutely. I, I do that sometimes to open a session. I do that to help. to help reorient back to safety when somebody is feeling a little activated and unsafe. I could do it little bits and pieces or I do it more fully. It's also a nice way to end a session because you can sort of like wrap up with a way of like, okay, so here's where we are.

This is the work that we've done. You might bring that in a little bit more explicitly, and I'm looking forward to seeing you back here. And it could be back here on the screen, as you were saying, may not be out back here in an office.

Chris McDonald: Oh, I appreciate you sharing that. That's really helpful. And I hope listeners feel that grounded sense wherever they are as well.

Annabelle Coot: Yeah.

Chris McDonald: So what is a takeaway that you'd like to share for a therapist who haven't used any of these somatic practices before? Anything that you'd want to share with them?

Annabelle Coot: Yeah. Um, I think for me, it's sort of like the both and of like, Try it. Take some risks. Do it. And also, do it cautiously. Sort of that, holding that balance between learning to trust yourself and experiment, and also recognizing that it's important to learn how to do it safely, and in ways that are really going to benefit your client, and that you are, um, have enough awareness of kind of what you're doing so that you are not jumping in or diving into something that brings up unexpected material or goes too fast or, or whatnot.

So,

Chris McDonald: finding that balance. What's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more

Annabelle Coot: about you? So the best way is to go to my website, which is annabellecoote. com. From there, you could kind of branch out to other places. I have moved, I am in the process of moving my blog over to a, a Substack home, and that is Somatic Matters.

dot substack dot com. So that's another place if you wanted to kind of find a direct entry into there, but either way, the website will take you there as well.

Chris McDonald: And we'll have all that in the show notes listener. So you can find all her links and if you want to reach out to her to connect with her, but thank you so much, Annabelle, for coming on the podcast.

Annabelle Coot: It's been a pleasure and really talking with you and, uh, getting to know you a little better. Yeah, this was a lot of fun.

Chris McDonald: Thank you listeners for being with us today and I hope you got a lot of important tools from this episode and be sure to tune in next Wednesday when another episode drops. Are you ready to bring the transformative power of yoga into your therapy sessions with confidence and ease?

I've got the resource just for you. Introducing Building Confidence and Confidence in Integrating Yoga into Therapy Sessions, a thoughtfully designed checklist to help you navigate best practices and feel empowered as you blend yoga and mental health therapy. This free guide is packed with tools to help you stay ethical and fully present with your clients.

Take the first step towards transforming your therapy practice. By signing up, you'll also get access to more tips, insights, and yoga practice delivered straight to your inbox to support your journey. Don't wait, start integrating yoga with therapy with confidence today. Go to hcpodcast. org forward slash build confidence.

That's hcpodcast. org forward slash build confidence. And once again, this is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Till next time, take care. Thanks for listening to today's episode. The information in this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are giving legal, medical, psychological, or any other kind of professional advice.

We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. Yoga is not recommended for everyone and is not safe under certain medical conditions. Always check with your doctor. Doctor to see if it's safe for you. If you need a professional, please find the right one for you.

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