SENSORY & MOVEMENT REGULATION
Regulate the body with movement and the senses.
Learn to set goals and practice using Tracking better® Tool #3: Sensory & movement regulation!
This tool teaches you how to cue your body to safety and rebalance the mobilisation or immobilisation response back to feeling right and grounded.
It includes tips on how to find safe spaces and expand your repetoir of regulating activities to use on the go.
Scroll down for instructions
Regulate the body with movement and the senses.
In this worksheet we focus on crossing the bridge from Survival Mode (blue or red zone) where we have brain-OFF, control-OFF & trust-OFF, back to the Social Engagement system.
By the end of it you will be able to do this in 12 breaths or using a 20 minute regulation plan that has been constructed uniquely for you!
So let's get to it...
① REORIENT to SAFETY by using our EYES & EARS
When Survival mode is TRIGGERED you automatically Orient to DANGER.
Your body won’t come out of
survival mode if it doesn’t feel safe, and it uses its EYES & EARS to do so - it has to Reorient to SAFETY!
- You have to feel safe from the danger and
- Close to a safe person.
We have to cross the bridge in three steps to get back to the green zone.
We have to be SAFE from the THREAT in a SAFE SPACE & close to a SAFE PERSON
What's your SAFE SPACE?
What does your safe space look like
What does your safe space sound like?
Who are your SAFE PEOPLE?
First we need name and numbers, how are you going to contact them and which people for which kind of support.
Next consideration is it's not just abut physical safety (feel protected), it's also about "attachment" or relationship safety.
Ideally we need to feel safe 4-ways.
Safe 4-Ways
Protected: Physically safe from threath including roof over our head!
Cared-for: Fed and watered, having a routine or at least knowing what is going to happen next.
Understood: Someone to understand what's happening for us and by doing that we understand ourselves better.
Belong: Validate that we're important and that we belong.
People have different preferences on what physical difference makes them feel safe with their safe person.
Joey in the pouch: up close with shared attention.
Joey near the pouch: Around but doing your own thing.
Joey away from the pouch: In your own space but people checking in every 5-15 minutes.
Which is your preference?
② Help the BODY feel CONNECTED through the 5 SENSES.
Senses help us connect to the ground right now, ourselves right now and others around us.
We're going to divide different senses into different descriptive categories, so we can later swap-in like for like sensory experiences to broaden the array of available sensory regulation activities.
So let’s start with what they are!
③ Help the BODY feel balanced and right using MOVEMENT.
Next we’re going to look at how movement helps the body feel right again.
We're going to divide different movements into different descriptive categories so we can later swap-in like for like movements to broaden the array of available movement regulation activities.
④ OMG Everyone’s different so how do I tell what works for me?.
SWAP-INS that you can add for each category
What looking and listening activities are regulating for you and what else can you swap-in?
Which movement activities are regulating for you and what else can you swap-in?
What sensory activities are regulating for you and what else can you swap-in?
What tasting and smelling experiences are regulating for you and what else can you swap-in?
⑤ Now we’re going to put a SENSORY & MOVEMENT prescription together for the RED, PINK & BLUE Zones.
So we figure it out 2 ways:
- Knowing what already works:
What helps me calm down: - As our body gets stressed (mobilize or immobilize) it naturally tries to balance itself out, so we just
watch what it does and give it more!
Defining BETTER! to stay on track.
We use the mnemonic TRACK to Track that we,ve been triggered, Regulate back from the blue or red zone where we have brain-OFF, control-OFF & trust-OFF, to the green zone where we have brain-ON, control-ON & trust-ON. So now it's time to ACK, which is Act in a helpful way, Connect for help & Kick-goals!
So now it's time to figure out where we're heading and how we're going to get there!
So there's another mnemonic for that - BETTER!:
B: Bullseye - what exactly are you aiming for?
E: Extreme-ownership - what's your part in the problem?
T: Tackle the hard part - what do you need to figure out?
T: Teamwork - who's going to help you?
E: Enabled - what can you "best-self" do "I can if..."
R: Results - what have you already achieved (wins minus the losses)?
!: Uniquely you - what's the special-sauce that you bring to the solution?