Feel more relaxed, spontaneous and confident interacting with others

Want to feel more relaxed, spontaneous and confident interacting with others? 

So many of us have trauma around human interaction. We lose our center as soon as we encounter and engage with another. Our minds immediately get involved in trying to manage the encounter, and in the process, we lose our spontaneity, our authenticity, ourselves.

We can't interact successfully with another person unless we are clearly self-connected and grounded in ourselves. 

So how do we achieve that self grounding, that centeredness?

In my experience the simple answer is through our body. We can achieve single-minded, self-connected attention and focus by bringing our awareness inward, into our present moment body sensations. 

When we focus inwardly on our own kinesthetic experience, our body's sensations, or our own movement as it unfolds, we practice moving with awareness, breathing with awareness, inner energy awareness. When sustaining one of these processes as a primary, ongoing focus of our attention, we don't have the extra mental bandwidth to become distracted. We can't also  attempt to focus on what anyone else is thinking, needing, or focusing on.

When we are interacting, relating, trying to focus into another's experience, is a distraction.  We can't know anyone else's experience except our own. We are the center of our own experience, and when we try project ourselves into the experience of another, we get lost. We lose our own center, our own point of experience. 

When we commit to an inner, body-centered focus of attention, to tracking our own internal, somatic experience, we simply don't have enough extra mental bandwidth to also be attempting to 'be inside' another's experience; to be guessing at, or trying to predict what another is thinking or experiencing. 

I'm not talking about being without empathy. But I am talking about how we confuse where we have agency. We cannon control another person. We cannot have or influence another's agency. We can only act from ourselves, from our agency. And then respond to others acting from their own agency. 

  

Practice breathing, self soothing, self regulating, and being your own somatic witness when in social, interactive environments.

Learn to hold onto yourself, to keep focusing on your inner experience, to keep noticing what your own energy is up to. Learn to track your breath, the changes of body tension. Learn to prioritize this this self-awareness, this self-connection, this self-witnessing, this inner guidance no matter what comes your way. This is the practice.The practice that allows you to successfully interact and engage with others, without losing your center. 

And oh how freeing that is! How fun that is! How exciting, thrilling, and satisfying it is to relax, be your full spontaneous self with others, and dance together the magic that unfolds.