BALANCED AWAKENING COLLECTIVE
The Somatic Starter Kit
When your mind can’t think its way into feeling better, start with your body.
A therapist-created collection of short, gentle somatic practices to help you orient to the present, notice what’s happening inside, and find a little more steadiness when you’re overwhelmed, anxious, shut down, or disconnected.
Included with membership in the Balanced Awakening Collective.
Sometimes you don’t need to understand more. You need something to do.
Maybe you’re overwhelmed and everything feels like too much.
Maybe you’re anxious—buzzy, tight, restless, or moving faster inside than you’d like.
Or maybe you’ve gone in the opposite direction. You feel foggy, numb, disconnected, or checked out.
In those moments, another insight isn’t always what your system needs.
Sometimes it helps to come back to something much simpler:
The chair beneath you.
Your feet against the floor.
One neutral object in the room.
The warmth of your own hand.
One place inside that feels okay enough.
The Somatic Starter Kit gives you a collection of brief, body-based practices for moments like these.
You don’t have to analyze what you’re feeling.
You don’t have to force yourself to calm down.
You can simply notice what’s here—and begin from there.
A note from Hannah
I created the Somatic Starter Kit as a simple place to begin with body-based practice.
Somatic work can sound complicated, but the practices themselves can be remarkably small: noticing support beneath you, orienting to the room, tracking a sensation, feeling the warmth of your hands, or gently moving between activation and steadiness.
In this short introduction, I’ll walk you through what’s inside the kit and how you can use it at your own pace.
Dr. Hannah Yang is a licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Balanced Awakening.
You might reach for this kit when…
Everything feels like too much, too fast and you want help getting grounded.
Anxiety has you feeling buzzy, tight, restless, or activated.
You feel foggy, numb, checked out, or disconnected from your body.
You know you’re overwhelmed but aren’t sure what your body actually needs.
You want to understand your physical sensations without immediately analyzing or fixing them.
You’d like practical nervous-system tools you can use in just a few minutes.
Meditation doesn’t always feel accessible or useful to you.
You want to begin exploring somatic practice without committing to something complicated or intensive.
You don’t need to feel completely calm. Sometimes a little more supported is enough.
Inside the Somatic Starter Kit
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🌿 Ground Now
A brief grounding practice for moments when everything feels like too much. Orient to your surroundings, reconnect with physical support, and find one place inside that feels “okay enough.”
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👁 Somatic Tracking
Practice noticing sensations with curiosity and choice. Gently explore what you’re experiencing while moving between activation and places that feel steadier.
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🤲 Self-Holding for Safety & Support
Use gentle self-contact to explore warmth, containment, and steadiness—a quiet reminder that you can offer your body support from within.
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🌊 Pendulation
Practice moving your attention between ease and activation through small, manageable shifts—without pushing or overwhelming yourself.
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🧭 Somatic First Aid Map
A practical guide for moments of overwhelm, shutdown, or anxiety, with simple starting points for grounding, gentle activation, settling, and containment.
What if you didn’t have to fix what you’re feeling?
When something feels uncomfortable inside us, it’s natural to want it to stop.
We analyze.
We problem-solve.
We distract.
We tell ourselves to calm down.
Somatic practice offers another place to begin:
Notice.
Where does your body meet the chair?
What happens when your eyes take in the room around you?
Is there anywhere inside that feels even slightly more neutral or steady?
Can you notice activation for a moment—and then return your attention somewhere that feels more supported?
The goal isn’t to force your nervous system into a particular state.
It’s to become more familiar with what you’re experiencing and discover small ways of supporting yourself while you’re there.
Sometimes regulation begins with simply giving your body another place to put its attention.
Somatic support can sound like:
I can slow down enough to notice what’s happening.
I don’t have to force myself to feel differently.
I can look for what feels okay enough.
I can move between activation and steadiness.
I can listen when my body says that’s enough.
I can return to myself, one small moment at a time.
Why I created the Somatic Starter Kit
Somatic practices are woven throughout my work because sometimes insight alone isn’t enough.
We can understand exactly why we’re anxious, overwhelmed, activated, or disconnected—and still need help with what is happening right now, inside the body.
I wanted to create something simple enough to actually use in those moments.
Not another hour-long course.
Not a practice you have to master.
Not something that asks you to push through discomfort in order to “do it right.”
The Somatic Starter Kit is a collection of short practices you can return to when you need them: orienting to the room, noticing support beneath you, tracking sensation, experimenting with gentle self-contact, or moving between activation and steadiness.
Take what feels supportive. Pause when you need to. Go at your own pace.
The goal isn’t perfect regulation.
It’s having a few more ways to meet yourself when you need support.
This is one place to begin.
The Somatic Starter Kit is part of the Balanced Awakening Collective, our growing library of therapist-created resources for understanding yourself more deeply and finding practical support for the moments you’re actually living through.
Join the Collective and you’ll get immediate access to The Somatic Starter Kit, along with resources for relationships, attachment, nervous system regulation, self-understanding, emotional boundaries, and more.
There’s no expectation that you complete everything.
Start with what you need today. Return whenever you need us next.
And when you’re ready for something else…
Your membership also gives you access to a growing collection of therapist-created experiences, including:
❤️ Foundations of a Conscious Relationship
Understand the patterns shaping your relationships and develop healthier ways of connecting.
🧠 Introduction to Internal Family Systems
Explore your different parts with greater curiosity and self-compassion.
🌊 Expanding Capacity
Explore your edges and gently practice staying present with challenge without overwhelming yourself.
🙌 Holding Without Carrying
Practice caring for others without taking responsibility for what belongs to them.
Come back to your body.
Small moments of orientation, awareness, and support can give you somewhere to begin.
Explore The Somatic Starter Kit inside the Balanced Awakening Collective.
Monthly: $59 · Annual: $599
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