The magical world of Glimmers: An interview with Deb Dana (AUDIO)

Hi, Deb. Welcome to Perspective Living magazine. I was wondering, first, could you tell us a little bit about who you are, and what your background is?

Sure. It is nice to be here. Nice to meet you. I am a licensed clinical social worker. I work with trauma specifically and more recently I have moved into the world of writing, presenting and offering workshops, and I think that’s where my passion lies.

I’m a specialist in polyvagal theory, which is a theory of the autonomic nervous system. I have taken Stephen Porges’ brilliant science, and translated it into clinical as well as everyday application.

OK, I would like to come back to one of the things you said in a minute. But first of all, what is a glimmer?

So a glimmer is a tiny moment of I think ‘OKness’ or goodness. That would be the easiest way to think about it. A tiny moment of joy, of happiness. It comes from our biology. It is when our biology moves into feeling that tiny micro moment of feeling regulated, balanced and safe: many of those words we might use to describe it.

A glimmer, in the way that we bring it to life, and when we bring our attention to it, is a moment that we can watch for. It is something we can track, we can feel, we can notice, we can share with others. But it emerges from our biology, from our nervous system: finding that moment where it feels drawn into regulation.

Glimmers: sometimes we think of them as the opposite of triggers. Triggers are the things that that activate our sense of unease, or distress. So, sometimes we think of glimmers as the opposite of of triggers, and that’s an OK way to think about them. But glimmers don’t impact our triggers in any way, they’re a totally separate category.

And so glimmers invite us to feel a bit of happiness, joy, magic, safety and connection. And we can do that in the midst of all the trauma and distress and suffering that may be going on in our in our everyday lives as well.

And that’s the beauty of the nervous system: it is created to be able to hold both the suffering and the sweetness. We pay much more attention to our trauma, to our suffering, to the ways that we feel not OK in the world. And that is true for all humans, because we have what’s called a negativity bias built into our our brains and our bodies. It is where we pay attention to the things that are a bit dangerous or distressing, in order to survive.

But our nervous system is also exquisitely able to find the moments of goodness. It is built-in. And every time we find one of those tiny moments, and we notice it, and we mark the moment, then we become more able to find those moments again in the future.

My use of glimmers began with my work with complex trauma survivor clients. Not as a way to ignore their suffering, but as a way to build the capacity for a sense of regulation in their nervous system. So we could turn toward the trauma and work with it.

And so that’s been the the joy of of really understanding glimmers, and bringing them first to clients, and then into the world. Every time we find a glimmer, it builds on the glimmer we found just a bit ago, and so forth. This increases our capacity to navigate the world from a place of feeling safe, feeling connected, feeling joy.

OK, can you give us some examples, and how they might vary between people?

Yeah, sure. You know, today is a beautiful rainy day here in Maine. I woke up this morning to the sound of it through an open window. So I started my day with that glimmer. It was a lovely moment, and that’s often how it happens for me. I hear something, or I see something. I put my hand on my heart, as for me that is a way of marking it.

Taking a glimmer moment for someone else: you might have noticed something in nature. You might have heard a song or a sound. You might have that first sip of your tea or your coffee in the morning. Maybe someone smiled at you unexpectedly on your way to work today. There’s no end to the moments that can bring a glimmer.

And in fact, those glimmer moments exist all around us. But if we’re not looking for them, we most often miss them.

Right. So what can we do, or not do, to to become more aware of them?

So there’s a really simple practice. And I love simplicity because it encourages me to keep doing the thing. And on an autonomic nervous system level, the nervous system feels that it can stretch and reach toward such an experience, so it’ll keep prompting you to do it again.

At first it’s a ‘see, stop, appreciate’ three-step practice. First we see a glimmer. How do you know that you’ve bumped into a glimmer? What are the ways to help you recognise it?

For me, it’s often when my attention gets caught. I look towards something and I find myself putting my hand on my heart. So the first step is to say, how do we notice we’ve bumped into a glimmer?

And can you do that by looking back on a day and wondering, oh, was that a glimmer? Bringing it back to life and thinking, how does my body tell me, or my brain tell me, that that’s a glimmer? And then we can stop for just a moment, because this practice is a tiny little practice. We stop for just a few seconds and just go to the third step; appreciate. Just appreciate that moment for a few seconds and then go on with your day. So that ‘see, stop, appreciate’ is really going on all the time. The bumping into a glimmer is the important part. ‘How do I know?’ Oh, there’s a glimmer, stop, appreciate for just a few seconds.

And then if we wanted, we could expand on that. To find a way to remember the moments. So we might keep a journal, jot down our glimmer experiences or keep a running list.

We also want to remember and then share, because we humans are always longing to be in connection with other ‘safe’ humans. So, I invite people to find a glimmer buddy. Or to create a glimmer group.

So we see, stop, appreciate, but then we also remember in some way, and we share in some way. So that’s the basic way to bring glimmers into your world.

Can glimmers change our perspective on life?

I do, I think, that’s what is so lovely about glimmers. I learned from my clinical practice that they provide gentle yet powerful ways to reshape our nervous system, so that we have more access to the pathways of connection, the pathways of safety.

And so every time we notice this micro moment that we’ve named a glimmer, and bring it into our active awareness, it then comes into our brain-body experience and rests somewhere. And then the next glimmer we find comes in and rests along with the first one, and those begin to accumulate.

And so it become easier to move into connection. It’s easier to move into safety. It’s easier for our nervous system to be regulated and to bring that regulation into our daily living.

What I often think, is that these tiny moments are shaping our experience…in a new way, in a in a way that is easy to reach for, and yet powerful in the ways that it affects our lives.

Ultimately we could think of every human finding glimmers, every nervous system beginning to shape towards safety, and the ripple effect of that. That’s where I like to go when I dream big. I think of the ripples of glimmers, and how each glimmer that comes into someone’s system and finds a finds a home there, begins to change not only that person, but everyone around them, right?

And I wonder, can these tiny moments of glimmers create a cascade effect and change the world? That’s my curiosity.

OK, that’s beautiful. I think that’s amazing. And I just would like to thank you for sharing your perspective with us and and wish you a great day.

Thank you. And I’m going to wish you a day that brings you glimmers.
Thank you!
Bye.
Bye-bye.