Glimmers
Written by Danica Zomer at Midwest Mindset Counseling
A glimmer is a newly coined term that stands for a small moment of hope which gives us a sense of safety and connection. Before we can dive into glimmers, I think it’s important to understand why they are needed in the first place. Your autonomic nervous system is also your own personal surveillance system. It is constantly on guard and asking the question, “is this safe?”. Its goal is to protect you by sensing for safety concerns on a moment-to-moment basis. This is all done without your conscious awareness of it. Because humans are meaning-making beings, we then create stories that help us understand the situation we are in, based on what our autonomic nervous system is telling us.
As is often true, too much of even a good thing can cause harm. When you’ve experienced a traumatic event (whether big or small), your system can get bogged down in trying to understand and is unable to return to a state of regulation. This often looks like looping thoughts that continue to repeat over and over again as the brain tries to find meaning and understanding from the situation. This is why we can sometimes be in a state of anxiety or fear even when we are actually safe in the present moment.
Because we know how the brain and the autonomic nervous system work, we can also connect that if someone is struggling after a traumatic event (sleep disturbances, mood changes, being lost in thought/looping thoughts, increased anxiety or depression, etc.) it’s by no fault of their own. It’s actually an effort of the nervous system and the brain to gain understanding of what happened and return to a sense of safety.
One way to assist the brain and the nervous system in this process is by recognizing glimmers. Deb Dana is a clinician, author, and speaker who coined the term “glimmers”. She describes glimmers as moments of hope and regulation. These are often small moments that can go unseen if you aren’t intentionally looking for them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there though, it’s just that your autonomic nervous system is so busy looking out for your safety that it keeps your focus and attention away from the glimmers. But when we begin to tune into the glimmers, we increase our ability to slow down and regulate. We learn to connect again. It’s how we start to build a sense of safety. This is something everyone can practice regardless of whether you’ve experienced trauma or not because like I mentioned at the beginning, your nervous system is constantly on the lookout for danger- it’s your surveillance system. We can all use a little more regulation and connection in life.
So, try it for yourself! Notice a moment that you feel a little spark of joy and name it as a glimmer in your mind or write it down in a journal. Glimmers can be as simple as noticing the colors of a sunset, smelling something sweet, or hearing someone laugh really hard which in turn makes you smile. Glimmers are unique to you. What you see as a glimmer, another person might not, and that’s okay. There are no right or wrong answers. It’s about intentionally turning your awareness to something positive. When we intentionally bring our awareness to these small moments of hope, the glimmers tend to increase. We start to notice them more and more and in time our nervous system begins to feel safe again.
