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Becoming You Again
Becoming You Again is the podcast for women who are going through divorce wanting help navigating grief, guilt, and the challenge of rediscovering who they are. Divorce Recovery Coach, Karin Nelson offers compassionate guidance, practical tools, and powerful mindset shifts to help you rebuild self-trust, reconnect with your intuition, and create emotional resilience. Each episode is a safe, supportive space that reminds you: divorce isn’t the end of your story; it’s the doorway to becoming the most authentic, confident version of yourself and creating the best of the rest of your life.
Becoming You Again
Self-Holding Somatic Practice
In this episode I share a simple somatic self-holding practice that you can use anywhere to calm anxiety, quiet a racing mind, and remind your body it’s safe. This isn’t about forcing yourself to relax; it’s about giving your nervous system the cues it needs, like gentle touch, longer exhales, and compassionate words to settle into presence and rebuild trust from the inside out.
We start by reframing where safety comes from and why that matters so much when you’re navigating grief, legal stress, co‑parenting tensions, and sleepless nights. Then we walk through the practice step by step: how to position your hands and arms, what to notice in your breath, and which supportive phrases help your mind soften. You’ll learn why parasympathetic activation is the key to regulation, how to spot micro‑shifts like relaxed shoulders or an unclenched jaw, and how two minutes of focused contact can reset your day without special equipment or a quiet room.
Use this reset whenever rumination takes over, before a hard conversation, or after a triggering message. Save this guide for daily support, and share it with a friend who needs a calm, caring hug from within.
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To download your FREE GUIDE: "7-Day Self Trust Reset" click here.
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If this podcast resonated with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts.
You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I'm your host, Karin Nelson. This is episode number 248. Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, my lovely, lovely ladies. It's that time again where I like to offer a short somatic practice that is going to help you through any of the times that you might be feeling overwhelmed, your nervous system is heightened, your mind is racing, where maybe you're feeling triggered about different things, or for any other reason where you just want to come back to you, get back into the present, get back into your body and understanding that you are safe in this moment. This is a really easy one that you can do literally anywhere, but I'm calling it the self-holding practice because when we go through a divorce, we often kind of have this stark realization that, oh, I don't have really anyone else to turn to at this point in my life to hold me, to make me feel safe, to create that environment that I might need as I'm navigating this divorce where I'm feeling overwhelmed a lot and I'm having big emotions and I'm feeling a lot of negative emotion, like an emotion, like I'm on an emotional roller coaster. And I want to remind you that creating an environment of safety and being able to feel safe in your body, it has to come from you anyway. And so this somatic practice is going to just be a really great foundation of being able to do that for yourself. Yes, it's beautiful and amazing to have someone on the outside, like for outside touch and comfort and all of that. Not saying that you shouldn't have that in your life if you want it, you should, but creating that emotional safety, that safety in the present moment of like, I'm safe, my survival is not threatened, that kind of safety needs to come from you. And so this is a really great somatic practice to be able to start doing that for yourself. And what research shows when it comes to this somatic practice in particular is that it's number one, going to activate your parasympathetic nervous system through your own gentle touch. It's going to slow down your body and your mind when you are feeling overwhelmed or when you, your maybe your anxiety is feeling heightened, or maybe when you're emotionally just feeling the pressure all around you. And most importantly, as I just said, it is going to help you increase your inner safety. You are going to be able to self-soothe and have self-compassion as you go through this somatic practice, which is just going to serve you as you go through your divorce and as you go through your life. So when you're feeling dysregulated, when you are spinning out and ruminating about your ex, or when you maybe are feeling rejected or hurt or sad or angry, even any of those things, you can come back as many times as you need to this somatic practice. All right. So I'm going to walk you through it on this podcast. You can use it anytime you need, come back to this podcast, mark it, save it, whatever you need to do. But it's just a really great way to remind you through your own touch, hey, I'm here with you. You're safe. You're not alone. All right, so let's jump into this. If you're driving, please just save this part for later. Uh, but you can keep listening, obviously, so you can get an idea of what it's going to be look like. But otherwise, if you are in a place where you can just take a couple of minutes and pause for yourself, please do this with me in real time. So I want you to get in a comfortable position. You can either sit on a chair or lay down or stand, whatever makes you feel supported. So just let your feet be on the floor if you're sitting or if you're standing. You can, you know, have your feet about hip width distanced apart. And if you're laying, just lay comfortably and just let your body be as comfortable as possible. Now, what I want you to do is gently place your right hand, bring it across your body, and put it in your armpit and just kind of gently grasp the back and front of your body with your hand. And then I want you to take your left arm and cross it over the top of your right arm so that your left hand gently lands on the top of your arm/slash shoulder area. So that you're kind of just wrapping yourself up in a gentle hug or hold. And just let your hands rest there in that position so that you feel steady. You don't have to press too hard. You just want it to be gentle and a reassuring weight. Now we're just gonna close our eyes if if it feels safe for you to do that or just have a soft gaze. And then I just want you to notice for a few minutes. Notice the feeling of your hands resting on your body. Notice the feeling of you being held by your own arms, by your own gentle comfort. Notice do you feel warmth? Notice the rise and fall of your breath under your hands. Nothing that you have to force here in this moment. I just want you to notice. Notice your hands wrapping around you, holding you. Recognize that you are literally in this moment holding yourself. I just want you to breathe in and breathe out, slow it down, breathe through your nose and out through your mouth. Let the exhale be just a second or two longer if that feels comfortable to you. And just breathe. And just be in this moment, noticing what it feels like to be here holding you. And as you breathe, and as you feel your hands on your body, you can simply remind yourself, either in your head or out loud, I'm right here with you. I'm not alone anymore. It's safe to soften just a little bit. And I'm doing the best I can. You can say all of those. You can pick one sentence and repeat it gently and quietly as you breathe. Whatever feels right and best to you. And just stay in this moment as long as you feel you need to. A minute or two will do. And then as you come out of it, I just want you to notice if there are any shifts in your body, if there are any shifts in the way you feel. Are you able to breathe a little deeper? Maybe your shoulders have relaxed and they're not hiking up to your ears as often as they usually do. Maybe your jaw unclenched. Maybe your arms feel more relaxed. Your body has just lessened the intensity that it's feeling. We're not trying to go after big dramatic changes. We just want to give your nervous system and your body a chance to come a little bit closer to its center to create a little more capacity for you to feel and move through your day. Feeling safe, feeling held, feeling comforted. And when you're ready to finish, you can take one deep breath in, feel your hands, notice them against your body one last time with that gentle hug. And then let your hands rest in your by your sides or in your lap. And then thank yourself. Thank your body for getting you to this place in your life. Thank yourself for taking two minutes to be present with you today. That's a beautiful thing. All right, my friends. That's the whole practice. It's that simple, it's that easy. And by the end of it, you should feel a little more held, a little more comforted, a little more loved. Thank you so much for being here. You are beautiful, you are amazing. I will be back next week. Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.k-ar-in-n, n-e-l-s-o-n coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
