Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Carli Tayley here and welcome back to
Speaker 1: this week's Mojo Monday. So last week we were looking
Speaker 1: at polyvagel theory and I kind of touched on this
Speaker 1: concept of glimmers, and I wanted to dive a bit
Speaker 1: deeper into glimmers because it's such a simple but amazingly
Speaker 1: effective way to calm our nervous systems, or to help
Speaker 1: calm our nervous systems. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or
Speaker 1: stressed out or anxious, glimmers can help regulate you just
Speaker 1: enough to create some space for making choices based less
Speaker 1: on fear and more on what is important to you
Speaker 1: and to those around you at that moment. So let's
Speaker 1: dive into glimmers. So you would have heard of triggers,
Speaker 1: and if you haven't, you must be living under a
Speaker 1: rock because being triggered is part of our seems to
Speaker 1: be part of our everyday language, which is not necessarily
Speaker 1: a good thing. But in general, triggers are those moments
Speaker 1: that send your nervous system into a bit of over drive.
Speaker 1: So maybe somebody cuts you off in traffic, or you know,
Speaker 1: it could be just a stranger giving you a weird look,
Speaker 1: or the dishes are piling up next to the sink,
Speaker 1: or your child melts down at the worst possible time
Speaker 1: and suddenly boom. You know, you go from feeling calm
Speaker 1: to being in a fie or flight situation. And that's
Speaker 1: your sympathetic nervous system firing up. So it's saying danger, danger.
Speaker 1: It's an evolutionary survival response, that response that has kept
Speaker 1: us alive since the dawn of time. It's just that
Speaker 1: now our environment is generally safe, but our nervous system
Speaker 1: is reacting as if it's not so. Trigger they're just
Speaker 1: a part of life. But when we live in a
Speaker 1: state of constant triggering, our nervous system can get stuck.
Speaker 1: So we start operating from a place of stress or
Speaker 1: hypervigilance and reactivity. And that's not a place that we
Speaker 1: want to be stuck in. But the good news is
Speaker 1: that you can get unstuck. And just as we can
Speaker 1: be triggered, we can also be glimmered. So glimmers are
Speaker 1: these tiny micro moments that que safety in our nervous system,
Speaker 1: so they send a signal to the ventral vagual state,
Speaker 1: which is that calm and connected. It's that social part
Speaker 1: of the parasympathetic nervous system. And when we're in Ventral
Speaker 1: we feel grounded, we feel calm, connected to others, curious
Speaker 1: and grateful, and Ventral is kind of like our home base.
Speaker 1: This is what deb Dana, who I spoke about last week,
Speaker 1: who's an expert in poly vaguel theory, she calls it.
Speaker 1: It's the home base. So we leave it every day,
Speaker 1: which is normal. We go in and out of Ventral
Speaker 1: and move through the other states. We can't stay in
Speaker 1: Ventral twenty four to seven, but what we can is
Speaker 1: move towards it when we're feeling stuck. Now, our brains
Speaker 1: have a negativity bias, and some of us have more
Speaker 1: of a negativity bias than others, and that I think
Speaker 1: that really depends on a lot of things, on our
Speaker 1: experiences from the moment we were born right up till now,
Speaker 1: and also our level of self awareness. You know, I
Speaker 1: think if somebody asks you, or next time somebody asks you,
Speaker 1: how are you just notice whether your automatic response is
Speaker 1: to tell them about the bad stuff or do you
Speaker 1: kind of catch yourself on and then talk about the
Speaker 1: good stuff. But if we want to support our mental fitness,
Speaker 1: we have to actively retrain our brain to notice the good,
Speaker 1: especially having an understanding of our brain having that negativity
Speaker 1: bias and glimmer hunting can be part of that training.
Speaker 1: So let me share a few of mine. So a
Speaker 1: glimmer that I was thinking. I have lots of glimmers,
Speaker 1: but one of them I was thinking the other day
Speaker 1: is I've got this friend who is just so supportive
Speaker 1: and she motivates me, she challenges me, and every time
Speaker 1: we are together, I feel I feel a sense of
Speaker 1: joy and a sense of kind of happiness. And so
Speaker 1: that is a glimmer. So just notice the people you
Speaker 1: are surrounded with. Are any of them glimmers in your life?
Speaker 1: And are you a glimmer for them? I mentioned last
Speaker 1: week there's a beautiful cooker barrough that sits on the
Speaker 1: same wine near my house each day and I drive
Speaker 1: past it and I smile. There's a glimmer. My dog
Speaker 1: half asleep on her mat, so you know, letting out
Speaker 1: those beautiful doggie soft size when I pat her. There's
Speaker 1: a glimmer. There's a photo of my kids, So when
Speaker 1: my daughter calls me or my son calls me, a
Speaker 1: photo of them when we're on holiday shows up on
Speaker 1: my phone and I look at it and it brings
Speaker 1: me this beautiful sense of joy. So there's a glimmer.
Speaker 1: And I could go on and on and on, because
Speaker 1: there are so many glimmers in our life. So just
Speaker 1: start thinking about those small things each day that bring
Speaker 1: you a little sense of calm and joy and connection.
Speaker 1: And of course these are not magic pills. They don't
Speaker 1: make the pain disappear, or they don't delete any of
Speaker 1: life's challenges that you're going through. But what they can
Speaker 1: do is just soften the edges of them. They give
Speaker 1: enough space to signal to your nervous system you're safe,
Speaker 1: you're okay, you're connected. And that's not necessarily a conscious thing.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't mean that you've got to think about
Speaker 1: being safe, but it's a message to your nervous system
Speaker 1: that you're safe. I hope that makes sense. So since
Speaker 1: I started intentionally looking for glimmers, I've just noticed that
Speaker 1: I've become more grateful, Like even if I'm going through
Speaker 1: a hard time, so when I was stressed, when things
Speaker 1: went going to plan, when I felt overwhelmed, I'm still
Speaker 1: seeing the glimmers, And the more I notice them, the
Speaker 1: more they start appearing. And it's almost like my brain
Speaker 1: is saying, Okay, you're looking for these, now let me
Speaker 1: show you a few more. See, we're training our brain.
Speaker 1: We're wiring our brain to look for these glimmers. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what you're going through. Glimmers are there
Speaker 1: if you look for them, and if you don't look
Speaker 1: for them, you won't notice them. So this is like
Speaker 1: an attentional strategy. You can choose what you pay attention to,
Speaker 1: so shine that light of attention on the many glimmers
Speaker 1: that you have at hand. So here's your Mojo Monday
Speaker 1: challenge for this week. Each night, before you go to bed,
Speaker 1: write down your glimmers from that day. So it can
Speaker 1: be three, five, as many as you want, really, but
Speaker 1: they don't have to be big. Could be just a
Speaker 1: smile from a stranger, or the smell of your morning coffee,
Speaker 1: or a lyric from a song that you know you
Speaker 1: were listening to. The listening to in the car brought
Speaker 1: back a memory from the past. And talk about your
Speaker 1: glimmers with your kids, and you know, it's a great
Speaker 1: dinner time conversation to have. Ask them what made them
Speaker 1: feel calm and happy or connected today, and you'll be
Speaker 1: amazed at what they actually noticed, and remind them before
Speaker 1: they go to school to look out for glimmers, because
Speaker 1: how amazing would that be if you could train your
Speaker 1: children to start looking for glimmers, and what difference that
Speaker 1: is going to make as they grow older. And make
Speaker 1: it a daily ritual because if you do this every day,
Speaker 1: and you do this consistently, it'll become a habit and
Speaker 1: then over time, your brain will start scanning for glitters
Speaker 1: and maybe it'll cut down on scanning for the threats.
Speaker 1: So polyvagel theory teaches us that our nervous system is
Speaker 1: always listening. It's always asking am I safe? Am I connected?
Speaker 1: And when we feed our nervous system the glimmers, that
Speaker 1: means we're not just surviving, we're building a life filled
Speaker 1: with little moments of meaning and magic. So be a
Speaker 1: glimmer hunter this week, because your nervous system is going
Speaker 1: to thank you for it. So have a beautiful week, everybody,
Speaker 1: and I will catch you next week. See you