Color Swap Breathing by Prince Kitty Co
Color Swap Breathing created and led by Angelica Gehlich (she/they), LCSW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDieN5PFuVo
What: A meditation session using therapeutic techniques of psychotherapy, somatic/physical movements, visualization, and breathing to embody joy.
Description: This activity will combine psychoeducation, therapeutic self-exploration, and somatic grounding skills/nervous system regulation to promote our own trust in our abilities to regulate our mental state and to address the intense emotions that feel stuck in our mind/body. We will do gentle stretching to release tension from the body and learn regulating movements to help calm the nervous system. We will explore the definition of trauma and how it impacts our mind, bodies, and the way we react to different moments in our lives. We will practice self-exploration into our own challenges and accept ourselves as protectors instead of thinking of our actions as sabotage. In finding empathy with these parts of ourselves, we will develop a deeper understanding as to why we react in certain ways and how to alleviate the distress in healthy ways. We will learn grounding skills to use in times regulation is needed, varying in sensory needs (movement, tapping, sound, color, etc). This will be a time to set aside to accept that we are healing from difficult moments in our lives and to learn techniques to mindfully protect and heal ourselves in whatever comes our way.
The facilitator will guide participants through shaking their bodies to loosen the tension they are holding. Then, the facilitator will guide participants through a visualization exercise and body scan where participants will think of a color that fits their body’s “mood”. The facilitator will encourage them to then imagine a time of joy and allow the thought/memory to show up in their body. We will assign this “joy” a color. We will practice 4-4-8 (regulation breathing, inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 8) breathing inhaling the color assigned to joy and exhaling the color of stress.