Find-and-Feel-Your-Alarm Somatic Reset
Map the anxiety in your body, then oscillate between it and a good memory
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 85%
This is Kennedy's hands-on somatic drill for reaching the alarm the Alarm-Anxiety Cycle identifies. The person brings a moderate anxiety trigger to mind, relaxes the jaw and shoulders, then scans the torso between chin and pubic bone for a region of pressure, heat, tightness or nausea. They characterise it precisely by depth, temperature, colour and sensation to make the felt sense concrete. They then place a hand over the area and breathe into it, treating it as the younger self that never got repair. Crucially they do not merely sit in the pain: they also anchor a vivid peak positive memory and its bodily feeling, then oscillate attention back and forth between the good feeling and the alarm. This changes the brain's insular-cortex representation of the alarm without overwhelming the person.
Origin
Dr. Russell Kennedy adapted somatic therapy and internal family systems work into a guided body-scan practice, demonstrating it live on the episode with host Chris Williamson, and packages deeper versions as personalised hypno-meditations for his anxiety clients.
Core principles
- 01Anxiety is a feeling problem, so it needs a bottom-up bodily solution
- 02The alarm has a locatable place, depth, temperature, colour and texture
- 03Contacting the alarm is contacting your younger, unrepaired self
- 04You need a way out of the sensation, not a mandate to suffer in it
- 05Do the practice while you still feel okay, not only in crisis
How to run it
- 1
Choose a moderate trigger
Pick an event that causes you some anxiety, not the worst event of your life. It can be recent or from childhood and you do not have to share it.
Watch out Starting with your most severe trauma can overwhelm you; deliberately choose a mid-level charge.
- 2
Relax and evoke the fear
Close your eyes, relax your shoulders and jaw, and in your mind's eye really experience the fear or anxiety attached to that event.
- 3
Scan for the alarm
Scan your body between your chin and your pubic bone for an area that feels painful, pressured, nauseous, hot or cold, and identify exactly where it sits.
Pro tip Note whether it is superficial or deep.
- 4
Characterise the sensation
Give the spot a temperature, a colour on first impression, and a texture such as tight, twisting or prickly. This turns a vague dread into a concrete felt object.
Pro tip Trust your first impression rather than analysing.
- 5
Hand over and breathe in
Place your hand over the area and breathe into it, staying with it for a moment. Relate to it as your younger self holding something unresolved.
Pro tip Light tapping over the area can also help shift the sensation.
Watch out Your mind will fight to pull you back out with fresh worries; expect this and keep returning to the body.
- 6
Anchor a peak good feeling
Recall a time you felt amazing and on top of the world, and grab the bodily feeling-sense that goes with it while relaxed.
- 7
Oscillate between the two
Move attention back and forth between the good feeling-sense and the red-hot alarm spot. This gives you a way out and re-maps the alarm rather than trapping you in it.
Pro tip Do this while you are still feeling okay for far greater benefit than attempting it mid-crisis.
Watch out A rigid mandate to only sit in the pain can make you worse; always keep the exit route of the good feeling.
In the wild
Guided live, the host scanned his body and found the intensity in his solar plexus: deep, hot, red, and tight with a twisting quality. Kennedy identified this as where he holds his alarm, the spot that lights up when he worries, and framed it as contact with a younger, unrepaired version of himself to be met with a hand and breath rather than more thinking.
→ A previously diffuse anxiety became a specific, locatable sensation that could be breathed into and worked with.
Common mistakes
Sitting in the pain with no exit
Forcing yourself to stay in the raw sensation on a mandate to just deal with it can intensify distress; you need the good-feeling anchor to oscillate to.
Only practising in crisis
When you are impaired by acute alarm the technique yields little; the deep re-mapping happens when you practise while relatively calm.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone wanting a concrete, repeatable somatic drill to contact and soothe the bodily root of their anxiety.
Not ideal for
Someone in acute crisis expecting instant relief, since deep change happens gradually and while relatively calm.
From the transcript
“Now scan your body somewhere between your chin and your pubic bone and see if there's an area that feels like painful or pressure or…”
“We go back into that place in the solar plexus, that red hot place, and we sort of go back and forth between the two.”
From the episode
How To Fix Your Brain’s Addiction To Anxiety & Worry - Dr Russell Kennedy - #951
Dr Russell Kennedy