What is a Glimmer? Finding the Opposite of a Trigger

What is a Glimmer? Finding the Opposite of a Trigger

In mental health terminology there’s something called a trigger. 

A trigger refers to something, whether it’s a sight or smell or someone’s behavior, that triggers or provokes a trauma response. In these scenarios, Your emotional response will feel out of proportion to what you’re experiencing in the moment; but that is because your brain has interpreted some signal around you as a threat similar to one preceding a traumatic event from your past, and it’s not able to tell the differences in contexts. 

Basically, something reminded your brain of a trauma you experienced, and while brains are extremely smart they can’t always tell the difference between a present threat and a powerful memory. Common experiences that trigger folks tend to be related to things like:

• being confronted

• experiencing rejection or betrayal

• feeling unwelcome or vulnerable

• boundaries being crossed

• feeling controlled or taken advantage of

Any of these scenarios can trigger a strong emotional reaction, in this instance would be called a trigger. But did you know there is something just as strong on the other end of the spectrum? This would be something that brings back memories and feelings associated with strong feelings of joy and safety. You might not have heard of it before, but it has a name! 

This is called a glimmer. 

While a trigger can initiate a trauma response within you, a glimmer is something that can be helpful in soothing your nervous system, reinforcing feelings of safety and calmness. These aren’t just things that make us feel joy, like a funny TV show or an unexpected sweet treat in the office break room. They are actually moments that literally soothe our nervous system, that spark feelings of relaxation, and most importantly, safety. A glimmer acts as a cue that we are safe and everything is going to be okay. 

Deb Dana, LCSW, is the clinician who developed the idea of a trigger, building off of Dr. Stephen Porges’s Polyvagal theory, which was developed in the 1990s. On trauma, she says: 

“Trauma reshapes our system so that we are more prone to pathways of protection than pathways of connection.” This form protection would be one of the four trauma responses, and the pathway to it would be the trigger. But while triggers activate either the sympathetic nervous system or the dorsal vagal branch, glimmers activate our ventral vagal system. As you can see in the chart above, the ventral vagal system is where feelings of groundedness, connection, curiosity, safety, and mindfulness exist. 

In that chart, you can also see why learning what our glimmers are can be helpful. Not only will it provoke those feelings of groundedness, connection & safety, but it also helps to decrease your defensive responses. 

Finding what creates those glimmers for you allows you to create cues within yourself for feelings of safety, connection, and mindfulness. While yours will be specific to you, some common things that act as glimmers for people can be things like: 

• Petting or cuddling a pet

• A specific fragrance 

• Experiencing moments in nature (the sun on your skin, smelling the ocean or a breeze, seeing a rainbow, etc.) 

• Connecting with a stranger 

• The smell or taste of a meaningful dish or drink 

• Hearing your favorite song unexpectedly

How can glimmers become a form of self care?

Even just using the existence of glimmers as a reminder that your brain is working hard to keep you safe and contented. While triggers can make us feel out of control, glimmers help to remind us that not being in control isn’t necessarily a bad thing all of the time. We learn to accept that while there may be struggle or difficulty with the way our brains are wired sometimes, they can also do some pretty miraculous things, just for our benefit. 

They can also help you practice emotional self regulation.

While you may not know what acts as a glimmer for you now, pay attention to those moments you feel calm, grounded, and safe. What happened just before that feeling came over you? Was it the way someone behaved toward you? Was it a smell? Were you out in nature? 

Keep a list of those things that soothe your nervous system, those glimmers. Then, when you experience a moment of intense emotions, or are triggered by something, you have a go to list of things that help to regulate you. 

And on top of all of that, glimmers allow for a positive change in perspective. When you’re actively looking out for things that initiate those feelings of safety and happiness, you notice more things that bring you joy or feelings of contentment. Whether or not they’re strong enough to actually soothe our nervous system doesn’t take away the gratitude you’ll feel for it, or the benefits gratitude can have on your mindset and wellbeing. 

Remember, trauma is individual to every person who experiences it. The way it shows up for you might not be how it shows up for someone else. If you’re looking for more support as you heal after experiencing a trauma, one of our therapists can help support you. Contact us today!

4 Ways to Cope with Being Disliked

4 Ways to Cope with Being Disliked

Whether we like it or not, it’s impossible to be liked by everyone. People are too different for everyone to get along all the time, so at some point we are all going to have to deal with being disliked.

One thing we don’t talk a lot about as a culture is being okay with being disliked. It often feels painful or shocking to realize that someone doesn’t like you, mostly because the default expectation is that people will like us. When you know that someone doesn’t like you, it can be confusing to deal with them in a way that doesn’t leave you frustrated or questioning your self worth. 

There are lots of reasons why people dislike other people.

There are some sources of dislike, like racism or homophobia, that are never excusable. You don’t have to try to convince yourself that it’s okay or reasonable for someone to dislike you because of who you are as a person.  The kind of dislike that we’re talking about in this post is the kind that we all feel from time to time. 

There are some people who you just won’t get along with. You might dislike someone because your personalities don’t mesh well together, or because they were a jerk to you the last time you saw them. There are lots of reasons why people sometimes don’t get along, and learning how to deal with the discomfort that comes with that can help you in uncomfortable situations in the future. 

Here’s the thing: no one on earth is liked by everyone. 

It’s impossible! We all bring our own baggage to our interactions, and that is bound to cause tension or clashes at some point. It is possible to cope when someone dislikes you and learn how not to take it personally. 

Here are 4 suggestions for ways to deal with being disliked by others. See if any of these feel supportive for you!

Accept that no one is universally liked

Expecting to be liked by everyone you meet is really just setting yourself up to fail. In reality no one is universally liked, and the pain of trying to be liked by everyone and failing can take its toll on how you feel about yourself and how you interact with other people.

Sometimes people just don’t get along, and it’s okay to accept that. Acceptance can be freeing in many situations, especially when you’re working on being okay with being disliked. In this instance, accepting that not everyone will like you doesn’t mean that you approve of being disliked or that you agree with why someone dislikes you. It just means that you don’t have to focus any of your precious energy on fighting against reality. 

Pleasing everyone is simply out of your control. There’s always going to be someone who has a different opinion, so you might as well devote the time and energy you have to pleasing yourself, which you have more control over. 

Know that it’s probably not personal

It might feel really personal when someone doesn’t like you, but often it says more about them than it does about you. Sometimes it’s tough to remember that while you see things from your point of view, not everything is about you. People react in all sorts of ways that have nothing to do with you but stem from their environment, their trauma history, their beliefs, their personality, and even from instinct. 

We often cast ourselves as the main character in our lives, because that’s how it feels! When we all feel that we’re the main character though, it can cause tension because we feel like everything has to be about us and relate to us in some way. That’s not always the case. Some things are simply not about you.  

It can be tricky to resist the urge to assume everything is about you when you’re thinking about how other people interact with you. It takes practice to remember that everyone is out there doing their own stuff for their own reasons, and it probably has nothing to do with you. In general it’s helpful to try to see things from another point of view, which is part of why working with a therapist can be so powerful. 

Ask yourself – Do you like everyone?

Being unliked by some people doesn’t make you unlikable as a whole. It’s tempting to be defensive when someone doesn’t like you, but remember that you don’t like everyone, either. There are always going to be people who you don’t see eye to eye with, who make you feel frustrated or angry, and who you don’t like to deal with. There are even times when you just strongly dislike someone and can’t put your finger on why. We’ve all been there!

Keep in mind that if everybody liked everybody, it wouldn’t be so special when we connect with someone we care about. Also if that were true, everyone would be the same, which would be boring. Just as you have preferences about people, people will have preferences about you. 

The next time you feel like someone dislikes you, remember that there are people you dislike too. We all do it, and it’s not always personal. Remind yourself that it’s okay to not like everyone, and it’s okay to be disliked. 

Remind yourself what makes you likable 

One reason it feels painful to have someone dislike you is because it can make you question whether you’re likable at all. It’s tempting to jump right to assuming that just because one person doesn’t like you, no one could possibly like you and there is nothing likable about you. 

Taking a pause before you jump to that conclusion can help you remember what is actually true. 

What do you like about yourself? What do other people like about you? Reminding yourself of the things that people do like about you can help you feel less insecure when someone doesn’t like you. Are there things that you are proud of or admire about yourself? Do people compliment you about things? Maybe keep a list of what you like about yourself on your phone or in your journal to refer back to in moments of doubt. 

You could even keep a file of things you like about yourself on your computer or other device to look at when you feel that you’re not likable. Save screenshots of nice messages from people you care about, pictures that make you feel good about yourself, and other things you’re proud of to remind yourself that you are likable, even if you’re not liked by this one person. 

It’s not easy to deal with being disliked, and it can bring up a lot of uncomfortable feelings. If you’re looking for more support as you work through uncomfortable or painful emotions, a therapist can give you a safe space to explore and build new coping skills. Get in touch with our office today to book an appointment. 

8 Blogs to Help You Manage Your Emotions

8 Blogs to Help You Manage Your Emotions

We all have emotions, but we unfortunately don’t come with instruction manuals to help us figure them out. Often when we’re young, we learn certain ways to cope that we stick with until they cause us problems. These strategies you put into place as a child aren’t always the most supportive ways to manage emotions as an adult, however. It can be painful to realize that the way you attempt to regulate your emotions isn’t working for you anymore. 

Our approach to mental health at Hope+Wellness takes the whole person into view - your mind, body, life experiences, and more are all important sources of information and wisdom. Emotional regulation isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of deal; it requires a more individual approach and lots of compassion. 

We’ve written pretty extensively on the blog about managing emotions and emotional regulation. Regulating your emotions shouldn’t have to be a big mystery. To make it as easy as possible to guide folks toward resources, we’ve put together a roundup of some of our blogs that are focused on naming, feeling, and managing emotions. 

List of Emotions

“Developing a greater awareness of your emotions can help you develop ways to cope with difficult emotions that arise, make healthy decisions, enhance relationships with others, and develop a proactive sense of mastery over your life. Identifying emotions and how you feel in a given situation is often the first critical step towards figuring out how best to manage them.”

Naming Your Emotions

“Instead of feeling uncomfortable and overwhelmed by your emotions, learning to identify them not only kickstarts that self soothing process, but also helps you to unpack where that discomfort is coming from. When you know how you’re feeling, you can start to get into the why….Understanding your feelings helps you understand how they impact how you behave with everyone in your life, and also gives you an opportunity to be open with those around about how you’re feeling so they know how to best support you.”

What is Emotional Regulation?

“Emotional regulation isn’t about stopping yourself from feeling certain emotions, or ignoring your emotions and responses, but putting you back in the driver's seat when they become too powerful. Instead of being ruled by your emotions, you can learn to be informed by them. Emotional regulation skills help give you what you need to slow yourself down and respond instead of react.”

Understanding Your Window of Tolerance

“One of the most frustrating experiences in life is when your emotions feel out of control and you’re not sure why. It can make you feel disconnected from yourself and unsure of how to feel better. One way to understand what’s happening when your emotions feel out of control is to understand the window of tolerance model, developed by Dr. Dan Siegel. This model helps explain the different zones of functioning we all experience, and how we can work to more effectively regulate our emotions.”

5 Things to Do When You Feel Triggered

“When you’re constantly breaking into fight or flight mode, it’s exhausting. Looking for danger around every turn is draining, and it can leave you feeling fatigued, irritable, and distressed. Feeling a high level of stress can also cause adverse physical symptoms after a while. Our bodies aren’t designed to be under extreme stress for long periods of time, so it can be hard on your body to feel constantly ready for danger. Although a trigger can be unavoidable, there are ways you can be more prepared when they come up, so you’re not left in so much distress each time.”

3 Ways to Build Interoceptive Awareness

“We all have a level of interoceptive awareness, or the ability to understand the messages we get from our bodies. Some people have lower levels of awareness of their internal body sensations, or lower interoceptive awareness. The messages, or interoceptive signals, our bodies send us can be tricky to understand if you’re not sure what to look for, but it’s possible to increase your level of interoceptive awareness. …These interoceptive signals help us identify our emotions, which is an important step in emotional regulation.”

What are Coping Skills and Why Do I Have Them?

“Coping skills are strategies or tools that you can use to manage stressful or distressing situations. Coping skills let you decrease your level of stress and handle difficult emotions in a way that maintains your sense of internal order…Coping skills offer options for getting through moments of distress until you can find a safe place to process what’s going on. It’s not always feasible to feel and process everything you need to in the moment, especially when emotions are heightened. Coping strategies let you get through the moment until you’re able to find a safe place, like a therapy session, to unpack the situation.”

6 Tips To Help You Feel Your Feelings

“Emotions serve an important purpose. When we avoid our feelings, we’re just opening ourselves up to more distress later. When feelings aren’t dealt with, they have a way of coming back even more intensely, and often at an inconvenient time.

Emotions are messengers, but we usually aren’t taught how to decode the messages they are sending us. Even when you do understand what the message is underneath the emotion, it can be hard to know what to do in the moment when you’re feeling a distressing feeling.”

We all experience emotions differently.

If these blogs resonate with you, that’s great! If these tips don’t feel as relevant to you, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to manage your emotions at all. You may just need different ideas or the support of a professional like a therapist to help you work on emotional regulation. 

Are you looking for more help managing your emotions? Working with a therapist can help you find more personalized ways to approach emotional regulation that work for you and your lifestyle. Contact us today to learn more about getting started.

4 Practical Ways to Build New Habits

4 Practical Ways to Build New Habits

Have you ever tried to build a new habit?

It can be surprisingly difficult to start doing something new regularly. Doing one small new thing a day (or not doing something) might sound simple, but our brains are complicated, so it doesn’t always end up being that way. 

Thankfully, we know a lot more about the human brain than we used to, which can help us make sense of how habits are built in our nervous system. It’s absolutely possible to build new habits that improve your life, it just takes some patience. 

Habits are “a settled or regular tendency or practice,” or something that you do without really thinking about it. It might be brushing your teeth in the morning, or taking your dog for a walk. A habit tends to be sort of automatic, and such a routine part of your life that it feels strange when you don’t do it. 

Why are habits hard to break and hard to build?

It comes down to our brains. When our brains notice that we do something over and over, they try to make life easier by making a sort of shortcut for that action. Our brains spend all day long taking action, so when they can use a shortcut, it’s usually helpful. These shortcuts are called neural pathways. 

Our brains work by sending electrical signals to our neurons from one area to another. When that path gets used over and over, our brains learn and develop a new neural pathway to send the message more efficiently. This is why after a certain period of time habits become so ingrained that you don’t even really have to think about them.  

Sometimes improving your life isn’t about adding in a new habit, but breaking an old one that is no longer serving you. Breaking habits is just as difficult as building one, because your brain wants to use that neural pathway it’s created for you. It takes time to teach your brain that you’re not using that one anymore. 

So, you want to learn a new habit? Here are 4 practical ways to build new habits:

Unlearn myths about habits

There are a lot of myths out there about habits. One of the most common myths is that it takes just 21 days to build a new habit. This might be true for some people, but it’s not the case for most. For many people, it can take months to develop a habit. If you’ve felt frustrated in the past that you weren’t able to establish a new habit in 21 days, know that you are not the problem! The expectation that we can re-wire our brains in 3 weeks is often what leads people to feel frustrated. 

Another problematic myth about habits is that they are good or bad. As with much in life, things are rarely that black and white. There's a gray area that's important to notice. 

Instead of trying to view habits as good or bad, try to assess them by whether they’re supportive or unsupportive. Does this habit help you feel good about yourself and meet your goals? Does it align with your values? Does it support who you are now, or is it no longer necessary? 

When you shift from thinking about habits in terms of good and bad, it’s easier to remove the judgment you feel and treat yourself with compassion. 

Try habit stacking

Remember those neural pathways we talked about earlier? Those shortcuts give you a built-in hack to start a new habit. A habit stack is when you put a new habit alongside one you’ve already mastered. 

So, if you’d like to develop a habit where you spend time meditating each day, try sticking it next to a habit you already do daily - like brewing coffee or charging your phone. When you’re done getting your coffee ready, jump right into meditation until it’s ingrained. It’s easier to remember to fold in a new habit alongside an established one, instead of forgetting half of the time. 

Examine barriers

A lot of times when we try to implement new habits, we only do so in optimal conditions, like when we’re feeling healthy and not too stressed. When life inevitably gets in the way of your new routine, it can be tricky to keep up! Often new habits are the first things we drop in times of overwhelm, because they’re not ingrained in the neural networks in our brains yet. So when you’re building a new habit, it’s important to zoom out and look for potential barriers that could get in the way of this new habit. 

Do you struggle to get the laundry done because you don’t have a set time in your schedule? Or maybe because you have to travel to the laundromat, and when your schedule gets busy you don’t have time? Whatever the barrier is, write it down, and try to come up with as many solutions as possible to give yourself opportunities to overcome what’s getting in the way of this new habit. Having a plan for when those barriers happen will help you feel less overwhelmed when they do pop up. 

Go slow

You’re not going to be able to completely overhaul your habits overnight. It can be a fun energy boost to start a new habit, but try to avoid the temptation to do too much at once and build your habits one at a time. 

If you try to do too much too fast, you run the risk of burning yourself out instead of being able to stick with the habit for the long haul. Work on one habit at a time so you can have time to build that new neural pathway so the habit becomes almost automatic. Once you have to think less about the habit to get it done, you can add in the next one. 

Have patience and compassion with yourself because you’re doing your best! Our brains are complicated and take more time to learn than you might like. You’re worthy of compassion anyway! 

Are you looking for more support as you build new habits? A therapist can help you discover what habits are no longer supportive for you and examine the barriers you face in implementing new ones, along with so much more. You can get started in one click!