Relax the Vagus nerve and the entire body relaxes. All anxiety lives in the body not the mind. Anxiety cannot live in a relaxed body. These facts were taught in a training I attended five years ago along with the quickest and easiest way to relax the Vagus nerve by relaxing the head and tail of the nerve, the soft pallet of the mouth (upper roof of mouth) and the butt muscle (I like to also relax the entire jaw and pelvic floor muscles).

I call it, relaxing the snake. Try it out.

See what I mean?

Notice how often throughout the day your butt muscle is clenched and your tongue is hard pressed against the roof of your mouth. That is your body in a state of anxiety.

When I first did this I noticed clenching all the time. I was being triggered throughout the day without realizing it. Micro-triggered. Meaning, my mind was not aware I was being triggered but apparently my body was because of the clenched head and tail of the Vagus nerve.

Trauma that is not dealt with lives in the body too. Many people on the healing path these days move trauma out of their bodies through somatic practices like EMDR therapy or Somatic Experiencing (SE). For me, it was telling my stories to a loving witness over and over and writing fiction stories that moved the trauma out of my body.

Many paths to the same place.

You can see the nervous system as the holder of trauma and maker of anxiety. Most of us have stored up trauma, hence why most of us have clenched butts. The terms tight ass and stick up your butt, make a lot more sense with this understanding.

After the training, I made relaxing the snake my mindfulness practice. Throughout the day and night I checked in, noticed and relaxed the snake. After about a month or so of this practice my nervous system transformed. I was amazed. I realized, just like the trainer said, that I did not need fancy or complicated techniques or breath work and I could do this practice anytime, anywhere.

This is when I began to fully connect to my nervous system and realize she is a living creature. I had given her a healing that to this day, has lasted. I did not know then what I was about to endure in the coming years. My mother going through a cancer battle into her death and going through the pandemic alone to name two very difficult life circumstances where had I not learned to relax my body, I would have caved.

Around the same time I learned this technique, I experienced a massive cessation of anxiety when I got on the autoimmune paleo diet. I was given proof of how much anxiety lives in the body and not the mind when I got on the diet summer solstice 2018 (and I am still on it today in a modified way to keep my disease in remission). Again, within about a month, much of the chronic anxiety I experienced throughout my entire life vanished. Just with food.

This is when I began my deep dive into the health of the inner body connecting to my mental health. I made links between the autoimmune disease, anxiety, multigenerational trauma, and the oppression of the feminine. The diet and relaxing the snake changed my mental health forever.

In 2014 I started doing yoga regularly, at least four times a week for an hour. This also made a major impact on my mental health. It created some cessation of anxiety but more potently, as the word yoga means, it yoked mind to body. This yoking allowed my soul to come into body versus hovering a foot above my crown chakra, hoping to find a way in.

The feeling of embodiment is like nothing else. Contentment does not have to be achieved externally when embodied as it feels good to just be. Colors are brighter, tastes are richer, sounds are more resonant, intuition is stronger, the mind is more clear, the heart is more open, the body is more grounded and it is easier to be present and being present is…well…everything.

When I am present I am loving, tranquil and content. When butt and mouth clench, soul pops out of body and as a result suffering usually ensues, through sometimes it feels more like being a flat soda.

When I am present I have space in my psyche to make choices instead of knee jerk reacting or following the well-worn default path that leads to the same disappointing result.

When I am present I am aware that life truly is happening in the now. The past lives only as memory and stored trauma. The future lives only in imagination or worry. Presence is where life is a verb opening up a never-ending unfolding of possibility.

It is possible to choose love, acceptance, and compassion. It is possible to process sorrow, anger, despair, and pain without resistance or creating negative narratives. It is possible to notice beauty and to be tender and understanding. It is possible to let go. It is possible to lighten the footprint and treat life with more care. It is possible to dream. It is possible to take a different path. Within.

I highlight the word within as we often cannot control the harsh circumstances of life in the external but we always have the ability to shift how we show up for what life brings us whether fair or unjust, pleasure or pain, shadow or light.

As humans we all operate the same even though we each have our own fingerprint psyches, ways of being in these bodies and in this world. Reflecting on my path into presence I realize that I have given myself the most important gift and won the most important prize.

Presence is the victory.