I am exploring combining Tension & Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) with Natural Rest, triggering, and inquiry.
One is to combine natural rest with the sessions. Notice and allow. Notice sensations. Images. Words. Sounds. Allow it all. See how it is to allow it. Notice it’s already allowed. (By awareness, mind, life.) Notice how it is to shift from thinking to noticing. Notice even the thoughts that seems the most intimate, the most like “you”. See how it is to allow them too.
Another is to trigger stressful images (memories, situations) within natural rest, and while trembling. This may help release tension around this issue. It can be something stressful. A regret. Trauma. A compulsion. A time you wanted to …. (smoke, drink, use drugs). Or anything else. Bring the image to mind. Notice. Allow. Rest with it.
Yet another is to take time to look at images and words, and feel sensations. (a) Look at the image. Notice the texture. Colors. Shapes. Lines. Notice it as an image. See it up in front of you. (b1) Look at the word. Look at the letters. The spaces in between and around the letters. (b2) Listen to the words. Listen to the sounds. Say them in silence or out loud. Listen to it as sounds. (c) Feel the sensations. See how it is to be curious about it. Give it full permission to be there. Take time to feel it. Notice the space around the sensations. Notice the space within the sensations.
Following the TRE session, we can take what surfaced (if anything) to inquiry. It’s also possible to do it during the TRE session, by occasionally and briefly ask simple questions about what’s here. Is that image me, the one who is worthless? Is that image of my mother my actual mother? Are those words angry? Are they me, the one who is angry? Does that sensation mean that something terrible is going to happen? (Or is happening, or did happen.) This requires some familiarity with one or more forms of inquiry, and also self-facilitation.
I have for a while brought some principles from Breema into TRE. Find a way to do it that’s comfortable. So you could do it forever. (Body Comfortable) Notice the support from the floor. (Mutual support.) Relax. Allow the body to do it on it’s own. (No extra.)
It’s also possible to do it the other way. While resting with what’s here, I can invite in trembling. Or I can even invite in trembling during inquiry. It’s all an exploration to see what happens, and what seems to work for me in the situation I am in.