Calming Your Emotions Naturally using Community Resiliency Model (CRM) Skills (2 of 3)

Hi, everyone.  This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'm doing the second part of a series on calming your emotions naturally using the skills from the Community Resiliency Model or CRM.   This video introduces the first three fundamental skills: tracking, resourcing, and grounding.

The Community Resiliency Model was developed by Elaine Miller-Karas with the Trauma Resource Institute as a way for people and communities to use their own resources within their own nervous systems to bring calm and balance to their lives.  These methods have been taught individually and to entire stressed out communities of all ages in multiple countries around the world.  Learning these skills allows people to gain some mastery over their emotional responses -- not by supressing them or avoiding them, but by expanding our ability to tolerate and function while still having uncomfortable emotions.  In the first video in this series, I go through a simplified overview of our nervous system and brains as a way to understand how our bodies function during times of stress or trauma.  In this video, I’m going to teach the first three most fundamental skills in the CRM toolkit.   One word of caution — if you have experienced trauma, practicing these skills on your own might be difficult.  If so, you may want to find a licensed trauma-trained professional to walk through these skills with you. Okay — the first skill is

Skill 1 - Tracking

Remember in the first video, we talked about your nervous system and how we want it to operate in the resilience zone?  That means that even though you experience stress and unpleasant surprises, your thinking brain is remains online and you can still navigate life well.  Well, how do we know where your nervous system is?  If we had you in a biofeedback lab, we could hook you up to a bunch of sensors which could give us a sense of your heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, skin response, etc.  Then we would know exactly what your body was doing.  But guess what?  For lots of reasons, we can't do that.  So instead -- YOU get to be the biofeedback monitor.  This first skill -- tracking — requires you to get in touch with how your body is feeling.  And believe me, this sounds WAY easier than it actually is.  As I said in the previous video, most of us are pretty disconnected from our bodies and if we've experience trauma, we can be almost entirely cut off from our bodily sensations.  So, the idea is to tune into your body at all different times -- when you are stressed, angry, content, relaxed -- and just notice how your body feels.  What happens when you get anxious?  Does your heart race?  Do you tense up your shoulders?  Where do you carry that anxiety in your body?  Some people feel it directly in their stomach, which has so many nerves that some people call it our second brain.  How about when you are relaxed?  Where do you feel that?  If you tense up your shoulders when you are stressed, notice what happens to them when you are relaxed -- do they feel any different?  Everyone has slightly different bodily response to our emotions, so this is really figuring out how your individual body carries things.   What you want to notice is what feelings in your body are associated with distress -- or emotions like anger, anxiety, frustration, fear, and sadness.  And what sensations are linked to happiness, contentment, and joy?  It sounds crazy, but the very first step in this process is simply noticing how our bodies react to distress and how we hold wellness.  Without this first step, we have NO idea where our nervous system is and therefore, how to calm it down.  So practice this -- all the time!  Get into the habit of checking in with your body.  How is it feeling?  How is it reacting?   What feels good?  What doesn't?  There is another set of sensations that you will have when your body is shifting from distress to the resilience zone which might be confusing if you aren't expecting it.  This shift is called release and there are a bunch of bodily feelings associated with it that could include shaking, tingling, crying, yawning, or changes in body temperature.  These all indicate that your body is coming into balance and shifting back into wellness.  Once you've been doing this a while, you are ready for the next skill which is called

Skill 2 - Resourcing

Okay -- this is the first skill that will tap into your parasympathetic nervous system to balance out your emotions.  Remember, your sympathetic nervous system gears you up to fight or flee and once the danger is over, the parasympathetic nervous system comes into to calm you down so that you can rest and digest.  Sometimes people in situations of chronic stress or trauma get "Stuck on high" which means they have a hard time engaging their parasympathetic nervous system to help them calm down.  This skill gives us a way to call it into action intentionally.  How do we do this? 

It seems simple, but it involves thinking about something that makes you feel happy or safe.  So, let's do this right now.  Think of something that makes you feel calm and safe.  This could be a place, a person, a pet, an idea, a hobby, an activity -- anything.  For the purposes of this video, I'm going to pick an example from my life.  My happy place is walking in the woods in a specific place on the Apalachian Trail.  It makes my lips turn up a little at the corners when I think about it.  This is my positive resource.  But it's not enough just to bring this activity to mind -- we have to intensify this resource.  What does that mean?  It means we have to make it more real -- bring it into our present world.  So, in order to do this, I need to think of as many specific details as I can.  So, the walk I'm thinking of is wooded, there are leaves underfoot, and it is slightly uphill, so it requires a bit of physical effort.  Even more than this, I need to bring to mind all of the sensory experiences.  What am I seeing?  The sky peeking through the canopy of leaves, the trail in front of me, the trees casting shadows.  What do I hear?  The birds chirping, the sound of my footsteps, the quietness of the woods.  What do I taste?  This might be a tough one for this positive resource, but may be easier if you've picked something where food is involved.  What about scents?  The loamy smell of leaves decomposing and the fresh mountain air.  And finally, what can I feel -- the rocky path under my feet, the place where my hiking boots rub a bit, that pleasant feeling of moderate exercise.  And don't stop there -- make it a little world that you can enclose yourself in with all of the feelings, the scents, and the sensory input that you can draw out of it to make it as real and present to you as possible.  As you are building and enhancing this resource, notice how your body feels.  Do you sense any release of tension or irritation?  Notice how thinking of this resource makes your body feel and, in particular, where there are feelings that are neutral or pleasant in your body.  Then focus your attention on those parts of your body that are neutral or pleasant and see what happens next.  This is how we can intentionally engage our parasympathetic nervous system to start the calming process.  But don't just pick one resource, pick lots of them.  But make sure you spend the time to enhance all of the details around each resource so that you can bring them fully into your present moment to help you return to your resilient zone.  The final foundational CRM skill is

Skill 3 - Grounding

I'm sure most of you have heard the term grounding. Many times it is used interchangeably with mindfulness. However, in the context of CRM it has a very specific meaning which involves direct contact of your body with either the ground or something else that is providing support. Believe it or not, this is one other way to call in the cavalry of the parasympathetic nervous system. Whereas resourcing takes you to another world that is calmer and happier, grounding forces you into the present moment.   But not necessarily the present moment of where your brain is -- stressed, anxious, fearful, angry -- but where your body is physically right now.  It serves to take energy away from your uncomfortable thoughts and turn that energy towards your body in the present moment. 

Grounding is quite simple and you can do it while sitting, standing, walking or lying down.  All you have to do is notice where your body is making contact with the ground, chair, or bed.  Notice all of the places where your body is touching something and feeling supported.  Sometimes you can press your body into those areas just to feel them more intensely.  As you are doing this, notice your body calming down and coming into balance.  Notice which parts of your body feel pleasant or neutral.  If you notice unpleasant sensations, direct your attention back to the areas that feel neutral or pleasant. 

So, those are the three foundational skills.  Tracking helps you to get in touch with and monitor your body's sensations and reactions, and the other two serve to call in the parasympathetic nervous system to help calm you down and restore a sense of balance.   Resourcing does this by immersing you in a detailed world of a positive person, place, activity, or animal.  Grounding does this by bringing you into the present moment and away from your distressing thoughts. 

Practice these three skills and then join me in my next video where I discuss the final three CRM skills.  And let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!