Developing Emotional Balance – “Glimmers”

I hope to eventually have a good deal of content on resourcing yourself, how to help yourself have better emotional balance. This material may not be necessary for you, if you are a calm, well-balanced person. For the rest of us, who tend to get stressed or feel as though we are running frantically to keep up, there’s a sensation of “out of balance” that occurs daily.

How do we help ourselves develop a more balanced, stable life? We could dive headfirst into doing something we love, without pausing beforehand. But that will only lead us to taking what we have going on now, and trailing it along with us into what we have most wanted to do. So probably not a successful strategy. Of course, working with our emotional issues – everything from therapy and counseling to massage and acupuncture – is a good first step. What I’m going to bring up here are some tools you can use throughout your day, to help in those moments when all of the props have fallen out from under you and your emotions are out of balance again.

Personal disclaimer, I wouldn’t know so much about strategies for bringing emotional balance if I didn’t need them so often… Having gone through a great deal of emotional healing, I still find from time to time that the old emotional scar tissue tends to help me get off-balance. One of my favorite strategies was taught to me by a friend, Sunil Joseph, who uses Empathy practices to teach about Compassion. The practice Sunil introduced is called Glimmers, and comes from Deb Dana’s book, “Polyvagal Practices: Anchoring the Self in Safety”.

Glimmers were described to me as, “Micro-moments of well-being, beauty, pleasure, and joy, that we can savor throughout the day to increase our feelings of well-being.” The idea is to focus on the good feelings from that wonderful smile your daughter just gave you, or having your cat or dog jump up into your lap seeking affection, for a few extra seconds. This makes it easier to recall that feeling of joy or warmth that you got from this moment, later in the day. Or perhaps the next day, and throughout the week. Deb Dana tells us that these are not large experiences, like the first time you pet an elephant. They are the small moments of joy that increase our sense of well-being, which happen to us in our ordinary, daily life. For me, I have one that I can access instantly. It’s an image of my niece, who has been quite ill, smiling widely as her younger son is getting into mischief once again. Knowing that she was well enough to smile that day brought a quiet moment of joy to my heart.

Each of us has moments when our life includes disturbances. How we react to them determines much of the course of the rest of our day, and sometimes our lives. If we are able to resource ourselves with things that increase our feelings of well-being, especially in healthy ways (don’t want to add guilt to the collection of emotional burdens), we can use those moments of feeling good or happy or content to help soothe ourself in moments when calm is the farthest of our feelings. Even just the image of a flower blooming, and the sun shining on it. I remember one particularly dark winter when I’d given up on seeing anything but clouds. I was visiting my grandparents, and a stray ray of sunshine shone fully onto a bright, yellow daffodil. The image stuck itself into my mind and my heart, simultaneously. I carried it around for weeks afterward. It helped bring a sense of calm comfort during the ongoing stormy weather.

Glimmers aren’t a cure to areas that we find difficult in our lives. What they are is the beginning of retraining our nervous system. If you have experienced trauma, or if you lead a stressful life, your nervous system very likely has pathways worn into it reinforced by “stress” and “worry”. As we begin to focus more on what brings us a sense of peace and happiness, those old, worn nerve pathways begin to get used less often. We find ourselves less frequently jumping to fear or worry, and more often seeking the soothing calm of a happier thought.

You can find more about Deb Dana’s work on Polyvagal Practices in the article linked below.