What Does Support Look Like, Sound Like, Smell Like & Feel Like?

What does support look like, sound like, smell like and feel like?

This is a sensory based question I often ask my clients, because it moves them out of their head and into their body, into the felt sense of support.  Typically, it takes them a minute or two, and even some additional guided inquiry by me to begin to open up to that part of knowing.  It’s usually there, within them, they just haven’t yet acquainted themselves with it.  Uncovering a felt sense of support is powerful because it can help you to recognize care, help and protection in your body before your mind catches up and creates a thought about your experience.  The sensory data arrives first and when you que yourself to consciously connect with the sensory data you calibrate your guidance system in accessing support more attuned to your real time needs.

Here is a guided visualization exercise to assist you in developing a connection to your felt sense of support.  All you need to begin is a quiet comfortable place where you can be undisturbed for 15 minutes and a little bit of willingness.

1. Find a comfortable seated or lying down position and begin to connect with your body by noticing your breath.  Notice each inhalation and each exhalation. Notice the rhythm and process of how your breath moves and lives within you.

2. After a few moments of noticing, allow yourself to remember a time you felt support, support you offered yourself, or maybe support offered to you by someone else. The picture may even be an imagined experience of support, whatever arrives is enough and even just right to use for this exercise.

3. Now drop into your senses; what is the smell or smells in this experience of support?  Is it related to food? A place? How does the support in this experience sound?  Does it sound like music?  A comforting voice? Sounds of nature?  Really open to whatever those smells and sounds are and where you experience the sensations associated with those sounds and smells in your body.  Next notice what you see? Notice the colors, textures and sizes of the scenery.  What is touching you? Even what are you tasting?  Follow the same process as above, not only noticing those aspects of sensory information but also noticing how you feel and where you feel that in your body.

4. Next allow yourself to use your breath to breathe in the felt sense of support, expand it as you deepen your inhalation and release any resistance to it with each exhalation. Spend at least a few minutes practicing this, until it feels less awkward and more natural to expand the sense of receiving support throughout your body.

5. Wrap up the visualization exercise by spending a moment in appreciation of the time and effort you just spent in embodying an experience of support.  Affirm your intention to remain open to noticing the felt sense of support in your daily life.

Practicing simple visualization exercises like the one above, expands your ability to learn, how you respond to support, what support you may need in various situations and how to benefit more deeply from the felt sense of support.