In Bloom: Giving Ourselves the Gift of Rest
Making space for recovery and rest in an unrestful world
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Access an audio version of this newsletter here.
A warm welcome to the Bloom community! This is Flora and Zoë, both writing to you from London, UK. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the Bloom newsletter. In this newsletter, we’ll be grounding ourselves with a gentle exercise, rooting ourselves into the Chayn community, and branching out into the importance of rest.
Ground: Settling into Our Bodies and the Present
So much of our work at Bloom is about healing our nervous systems and teaching our bodies that they are safe through small, daily practices. So today, let’s do one of our favourite grounding exercises, which is a small progressive muscle relaxation exercise.
If you’ve never done one before, progressive muscle relaxation exercises involve focussing on different parts of our body, slowly building up and releasing tension in small bursts. It brings gentle awareness to different muscle groups, allowing us to check in with any pain or discomfort in those areas. Plus, many of these exercises can be adapted to be done pretty much anywhere without others noticing — sitting on the bus, during a quiet moment at work — so they’re very helpful for stressful moments where we don’t have our own space. You can do this exercise with your eyes open or closed.
For this exercise, we are going to focus on 7 different muscle groups, all listed below. In each of these 7 actions, first hold the position for 5 seconds while breathing outward, then release that muscle group all at once, as you allow the breath to rush into your lungs. This exercise was designed to be done while sitting down, although it can be adapted for lying down or standing up.
Are you ready? Let’s get started!
1) Clench together your fists.
2) Stretch out your fingers.
3) Squeeze your arms into the side of your body.
4) Stretch your arms out horizontally.
5) Extend your legs out in front of you (if you’re standing up, rising onto your tiptoes also works).
6) Curl up your toes.
7) Clench your core/abdominal muscles.
For a guided progressive muscle relaxation exercise, you can listen to this video here (or find many other guided relaxations on YouTube).
Root: Connecting with the Chayn Community
The Chayn year is divided into three cycles, when active volunteers greet new volunteers for a four month project sprint. Our new cycle started just a couple weeks ago, so welcome to all our new volunteers! We’re very excited for what the next four months will bring. Read more about the new cycle and project updates here.
Bloom Course Updates
Our new course on ‘Recovering from Toxic and Abusive Relationships’ is halfway done! So far, we’ve identified different categories of abuse, opened our minds to types of abuse beyond the stereotype of physical abuse in a heterosexual relationship, and learned about the science behind trauma bonding and the trauma response within the cycle of abuse. You can still sign up for the course via Telegram here. And we regularly post insights from the course on social media, like this recent course clip, so make sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Chayn Updates
New website: Our new Chayn website is planned to launch on 10 October, just in time for World Mental Health Day! In collaboration with SIDE Labs, we've updated the layout and design of our website to improve the experience of survivors using our services, and help them find the information and resources they need with ease.
Strategy: This year, for the very first time, we at Chayn are co-creating our strategy. Volunteers both past and present, staff, and our board are consulting with our community to document and build a transparent, reflective, and ambitious strategy. Over the last month, our team has been writing up the results of our provocations, in preparation for workshops, which will be facilitated by external contributors. You can read more about this exciting process here.
Orbits: Chayn has joined forces with End Cyber Abuse to produce a global field guide on intersectional, survivor-centric, and trauma-informed responses to tech-facilitated gender-based violence. Most recently, we held a series of consultation workshops to test and develop our design principles with experts and practitioners from around the world. We’re now working on a final version of the principles and a first draft of the field guide — which we’ll be sharing with workshop participants and other agents across different sectors for comments. If you’d like to see the field guide draft, get in touch with Naomi, our Movement Builder.
Reproductive Rights Guide: We have been busy working on new guides for our YSM project! We’ve just finished our Reproductive Rights Guide which covers information on abortion and reproductive rights, designed as always for survivors of sexual violence. Stay tuned for the launch of this guide.
Online Safety Guide: Thank you to everyone who completed our survey on online dating; we are so grateful you shared your experiences. We are currently building a guide on how to stay safe online, which will address how to navigate online dating platforms.
Bumble x Chayn: You may remember from our last newsletter that we are working with Bumble to support survivors of sexual assault from their platform, and launched a survey to analyse people’s experiences of online dating. We are now deep in the development stage of this project — including thought-provoking survey analysis — so stay tuned for news and insights!
Remember you can stay updated with Chayn on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Contact us via these accounts or by email (team@chayn.co).
Branch: Exploring Together
I, Flora, am based in the UK where more than 66% of people — including 82% of people over the age of 16 — are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. So, there are very few restrictions remaining, and people are starting to get back to ‘normal’ — whatever that means! However, the effects of COVID-19 are still very present; masks are mandatory on public transport, vaccine passports are becoming mandatory for many events and spaces, and infection rates are still rising.
Recently, I caught the virus and was very unwell for a couple of weeks. Since recovering from the fever and cough, I am still very weak and short of breath. As a very physically active and busy person, this has been a struggle, since I have had to slow down and learn to rest, in order to fully recover. It has taken colleagues, family and medical professionals telling me that I must rest, to get me to actually do it!
This got me thinking about why I struggle to rest and why slowing down doesn’t feel like an option for me. The first thing that came to mind was responsibility; like many of you, I have a lot of responsibilities: rent, caring for my cat, maintaining healthy relationships with my partner, friends and family, my job and career, as well as the emotional labour of supporting people I care about. All of these things are totally normal and — with balance — sustainable. They can help us lead rich and rewarding lives. BUT, without balance — and especially with COVID-19 in the mix — we can easily get burnt out or find it hard to recover and get back to ‘normal’.
Burn-out is something I have also struggled with. Because even before the COVID-19 pandemic, I was pushing myself to the edge of my human capabilities. I was working 4 jobs alongside studying part time, trying to earn enough to sustain myself whilst pursuing my academic career. On top of this, I was working out everyday and carrying the weight of all the responsibilities I mentioned as well. As I am sure you can imagine, this was not sustainable! Being inside a lot over the course of the pandemic and not being able to do the many things I was used to, has forced me to slow down and re-evaluate how I work and live. I am still working hard, exercising, and doing what I love, but I am also making an effort to allow myself time to rest and recuperate when needed.
Spacing out activities that require different levels and kinds of energy throughout the day is really important to make sure we’re working — and recharging! — at a sustainable pace. For example, I make sure that if I have a busy day of work, that I block out some time in the middle of the day to go out for a walk, to grab a coffee, or to meet up with a friend. I also like to wake up early so that I can do some yoga and get ready at my own pace, before sitting down to work, allowing myself to ease into the day ahead. Has the pandemic given you any insight into the pace that is sustainable and nourishing for you?
So, my take away from the last month (and last couple of years!) is that we need to be kind and patient with ourselves, more so now than ever. And, to make sure that we rest, so we can carry on doing what we love, with those we love.
If you need support, you can always message us on social media, or email us (team@chayn.co). We are here for you.
We hope you stay kind to yourselves, and get the chance to rest, over the next few weeks. We’ll see you next month.
Warmly,
Flora & Zoë
Muscle relaxation is really helpful for sexual abuse survivors. It helps us become grounded and comfortable with our bodies while teaching us to relax.