Glimmers are the little things that “feel good” in our nervous system, the little bits of pleasure in our day. They are what help us to come back into a felt sense of safety, to our ventral vagal state of “Calm and Connected”.

The sensation of sun on our body, our bare feet on the ground, a glimpse of our child’s smiling face, a hug from our partner. They don’t need to be big, time-consuming things, or require us to get a babysitter.

And sometimes it might not even feel like 100% “goodness”, but something that feels a little bit less uncomfortable in our body, or something that’s going a little bit better in our day.

Once we find what feels good (or better), we can play with allowing ourselves a little bit more enjoyment from these things. Letting ourselves savour the moment for just a few seconds longer.

And when we notice we’re feeling a bit worked up (Fight or Flight) or shutdown (Fawn or Freeze), it can help to turn our attention towards one of these glimmers, to intentionally resource ourselves in this way.

This can help us to touch into that sense of “goodness” or comfort again, giving us a felt our nervous system a felt sense of safety, and effortlessly transporting us back to a true sense of calm.

I want to contrast this with trying to “will” ourselves to “calm down”, or even following a prescribed, one-size-fits-all method to “calm down” that might not feel good in our own body.

A sense of safety cannot be efforted or forced. Each of our nervous systems is unique. So it’s important to listen to our own body and get to know what feels good (or better) for us.