Developing your Inner Resource
Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.“
Hermann Hesse
Your inner resource is a place you can take yourself to inside your head and when you invite it in it fills your body with the sensations of calm, security, wellbeing and ease.
It is this ‘felt-sense’ that is the power behind this tool.
Developing your inner resource is a bit like going to the gym to build up your muscles, the more you practice it, the stronger and more powerful it becomes.
Once strong and established it can be a tool you can use on a daily basis to ground and settle yourself. It can be a tool you use when you start to feel the emotional reactivity, anxiety, annoyance, fear or stress start to build. If you are about to have a difficult conversation or meeting practicing your inner resource beforehand can make a huge difference.
How do I find my inner resource?
So, your inner resource can be …
A fond or happy memory like visiting your grandma and the smells of her baking in the kitchen, the day you went to collect your new puppy, a magical place you visited or travelled to
A place you love to go a favourite bushwalk, a look-out, your garden, a special tree, the beach
A thing you like to do like surfing, swimming, curling up on the sofa under a blanket with your favourite person, an armchair you love to read in, a perfect holiday
An imaginary place a perfect waterfall, a bed covered in white linen placed on an idyllic beach, Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory or Narnia.
It really can be anything, it is your special place so you can create and add whatever you want to it.
What matters the most is that it is simple and uncomplicated in that it only brings you feelings of safety, happiness, wellbeing, calm and a sense of being at ease, no tinges of sadness or regret just simple pleasure.
What do I actually do to use my Inner resource?
Here’s the practice.
At first, while you are establishing your inner resource it can be useful to sit comfortably in a quiet place or laydown and close your eyes (if that feels ok to do so, otherwise just drop and soften your gaze).
I’ll also give you a free 4 minute recording to guide you through the practice. This can be useful when you are getting familiar with the practice and establishing your inner resource or when you are just having one of those days when a little helping hand would be useful.
After a while of practicing, you can get pretty skilled at using your inner resource and you can tap into it and the felt-sense of calm, security and ease that it brings you in all kinds of places and situations, this is when this superpower gets fully unleashed.
Ok back to first establishing it, so you are sitting comfortably or laying down, and if it feels ok to do so, you can also close your eyes.
Then you invite your inner resource in, you do this by bringing it fully to life within you by imagining
– all the things you can see there. In your mind, look around at this special place and notice all the shapes, colours and images (this is where you can get creative and start to add a few little things in to make it even better)
– then notice all the things you can hear in your inner resource, what are all the different sounds that are in this special place?
– then what smells are there? Perhaps freshly baked bread or brewed coffee, the sea air, or the scent of jasmine, it’s your place so add in whatever you want to be there.
– what do you taste in your inner resource? This could be the salty air, a sip of tea from your travel flask, or the most delicious and magical chocolate you have ever tasted.
– then what sensations do you have there? The sand between your toes, warmth of the sun on your skin, the sensation of the fluffy blanket or the heat from the log fire?
What emotions do you feel? How does it feel within your body?
If you need to, go back through all the things you can see, hear, smell, taste and feel in your inner resource to fuel this beautiful ‘felt-sense’ within your body. As you do this, note where in your body you feel particularly warm and relaxed.
Once you have spent a few moments really feeling and enjoying this ‘felt-sense’ within you, you can gradually open your eyes and have a little stretch before continuing on with your day.
Practice cultivating your inner resource until you can really feel it in your bones and you are able to call on it a moments notice in all kinds of situations.
Below is a seated 4 minute Grounding Exercise to practice your Inner Resource
Once you have invited your inner resource in using all of your senses. Allow yourself to feel the sensations of calm, ease and security inside your body that your inner resource brings you, and allow them to blossom and grow and fill your entire body.
Can my inner resource change over time?
Some people have the same inner resource forever but it can be common and useful especially in the beginning, to experiment with a couple of different options and see what works best for you. Sometimes you have the same inner resource for a while and for some reason like it feels like it is not as powerful as it was or your associations with that inner resource have changed and then it makes sense to develop a new one. It is best not to get overly attached to one particular inner resource for this reason and to also remember that it is not the actually inner resource where the true power lays it is the ‘felt-sense’ that you get from the practice. So how you access this felt-sense can change. The memory or place that you take yourself to as your inner resource is just the way to access these feelings of security, ease, calm and wellbeing that live within you. We just need a way to open the door.
When else do you use the inner resource
The inner resource is a foundational element to the iRest yoga nidra practice and we use it at the beginning of every practice, but it is also a powerful tool in its own right.
If you enjoyed this, please let me know by leaving a comment or sending me a message. If you would like to learn more tools like this and find out how we could work together send me an enquiry, book a 15-minute chat or go to my bookings page and pick a session type and location that suits you.
Thank you for reading, Lou
