DECOMPRESSION - THE 2ND LEVEL OF THE CONSCIOUS EVOLVER

By Sarah Bosio March 2023

DECOMPRESSION is the second of eight levels in the Conscious Evolver Octagram. It is connected to the sacral chakra which is the chakra associated with feelings of joy and anxiety, our passions and emotions.

The step of Decompression in the Octagram is all about creating space for ourselves.

Letting go of what got us into Cup Full and releasing our emotional response to it with self-compassion. We want to get to a place of feeling peace within ourselves. Our unique situations and needs will require different approaches but might look like taking some time to be alone. Finding a spot to go to that brings us a sense of spaciousness within and taking some nice deep breaths. Taking a bath or a nice warm shower and letting the water rinse our overwhelm away. Lighting a candle, staring into the flame and letting our mind clear out. Going for a walk and watching the birds go about their day while breathing in the nature around us. Listening to some music that relaxes our nervous system, maybe do some dancing too. Doing some form of physical exercise that brings us joy. Anything that feels right in that moment and provides us with the level of self-care that we need to help release ourselves of the overwhelm that got us into Cup Full is a wonderful solution.

Sometimes we will only have a few minutes to decompress because life demands us to be

there. Other times we can consciously create space to take a few hours, a day, or even months to create stillness for ourselves. We might plan a vacation or even a sabbatical depending on where we find ourselves in our lives and the amount of decompressing we feel we need.

Creating a support team around ourselves goes a long way in helping us decompress. We

want our children, our partners and our friends to be informed of our needs and be able to

support us in these moments. Young children can be taught to respect Mom or Dad’s need for a self-imposed time-out. We can ask our partner to honour our need for some alone-time, without questions asked if that is what we need. What is critical is to find the tools to break our pattern of reaction when we are hit by a Cup Full moment. Having our loved ones informed of our needs empowers them to be there for us when we need them the most. Even if that means staying out of our way! It also provides us with the support structure we need to take care of ourselves in a whole new way.

I know that I, for one, am not effective at anything when I am in Cup Full. In fact I can even

make things worse if I'm interacting with others while in that state of overwhelm by reacting to situations with anger or frustration. Whatever task I am trying to accomplish ends up taking me longer, and I don’t do as good of a job at it. The state that my nervous system is in has a direct effect on everyone and everything around me.

Taking time for myself when I am feeling in Cup Full to get into Decompression helps me shift from having reactionary responses to responding from a place of consciousness.

With that, my relationships with those around me don’t suffer and my work is up to my standard.

The need to break the pattern and put ourselves into decompression mode might come up repeatedly at first. Over time though, as we create our new “normal”, a new neural pathway for how we handle overwhelm, we don’t get into Cup Full for as long. Then not so often. And eventually hardly at all. Staying committed to breaking our old way of being and creating a new way for ourselves is the key to success.