Self-Regulation Practice
Open your Capacity to Connect
Welcome to the Self-Regulation Practice card BONUS information page!
I am happy that you have taken the time out of your busy day to check out this additional information and are committed to exploring how you can further develop the intention and habit to up-regulate yourself, so you can fully open your capacity to connect.
Congratulations…….. Let’s get you started!
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We all know how challenging it is to stay calm, focused and grounded, as we rush through our busy days, trying to get as much done as we possibly can.
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If you are like me, you may have spent a lot of time trying really hard to stay in the present moment, calm and positively engaged with the important work you do, whilst simultaneously finding yourself feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Placing a focus on tasks before relationships!
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In these very moments of feeling stressed and overwhelmed it is almost impossible to fully realise the negative impact this way is having on your ability to positively connect with self and then with others.
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Benefits of Self-Regulation Practice include:
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It helps you to feel a greater sense of calm and peace
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It helps you to prime yourself before having a difficult conversation
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It significantly helps to open up conversational spaces from a place of high trust and engagement
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It helps to reduce levels of stress in moments and increases one’s ability to focus
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It helps to make the topic of emotional energy more visible
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It helps you to reset when you feel triggered in the moment
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Brings teams together, helping them to open their ability to be influenced and communicate effectively.
This in turn will help not only to improve your communication and engagement, as well as your overall health and wellbeing.
Energetic Vibrations
We all know that children can be sensitive to the emotions around them and can be impacted as our emotions converge with theirs and vice versa. In fact we now know thanks to neuroscience research that if we stand within 10 feet of someone they can pick up our energetic vibrations.
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This means we are easily prone to emotional contagion and that our emotions are felt by others!
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Meaning if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, these emotions are quite possibly converging with the adults and children around you. If you feel calm, focused and connected, these are also converging with others.​ Pause and think about this for a moment, in the context of the important work you do with children and their families.
"Emotions are far more contagious than any disease. A smile or a panic will spread through a group of people far faster than any virus ever could." - Seth Godin
Now with the COVID-19 pandemic, and its many challenges, we have all been experiencing higher levels of disconnection, uncertainty, stress and overwhelm than normal. We are being called even more than ever to become consciously aware about how we are showing up in the world and what emotions we are bringing into the spaces we work.
Up-Regulation
The Self-Regulation Practice is one way in which you can build a practice into your day, that enables you to consciously and proactively up-regulate yourself, so that you can open your capacity (heart) to connect with the children and families you work with. To consciously pause, focus and calibrate in ways that will open your capacity to 'positively' connect.
It will help you as an Early Education Leader become more conscious of how you show up in the present moment and provide you with ways to consciously practice how you want to ‘BE’ verses leaving it to chance.
This in turn will help you to become less reactive and more intentional about how you are putting relationships before all the tasks you have, whilst focusing on connection.
This practice has been used by hundreds of the Early Education Leaders, over the past few years and we have received ongoing feedback about its magical benefits and immeasurable impact.
"Like a pebble dropped in the pond, our intentions sets off an energetic vibrations that radiates our heart centers and shifts everything in our path."
- Dr Debra Reble
The reason behind this is because as human beings we are innately built for connection (it is part of our survival), it literally ‘feels’ good when we have a strong connection, because when we do open up our capacity to connect with each other and feel that human connection, we produce a neurochemical called Oxytocin which is our inbuilt social bonding hormone.
Oxytocin, a neurochemical, helps our brains to move from protect behaviours (distrust) that we can so easily experience when feeling stressed and overwhelmed and more into open co-creative behaviours (trust) that enables us to partner, collaborate and see things from a broader perspective. Helping us all to open our capacity to connect and communicate effectively, which I am sure you will agree is needed now more than ever!
How to use...
Find a quiet relaxing place where you can read through the Self-Regulation Process from start to finish. It is important to know that there is no right or wrong way of using this practice. We would, however, invite you to enter into the practice with a playful and curious mindset.
What we know is that each time you use the practice, it may produce different results, as there are many different factors, such as how you are feeling in the moment, your surroundings, how familiar you are to the practice and much more.
This is why we would invite you to try and befriend the practice, get familiar with it and become curious about how it makes you feel in the moment and beyond.
I invite you to do a little experiment with me....​
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Just PAUSE for one moment and take yourself back to a time when you were working with children.
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Pull up that memory in your mind's eye.
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What is it you can see?
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What can you feel?
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It feels good; it is like time has slowed down and you are in the present moment at peace and full of love.
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It literally feels good for you because it is!
It is quite normal for you to feel a level of resistance, especially if you are someone who rarely slows down. This can feel a bit like you have your foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time. Weird!!
Curiosity and a healthy sprinkle of self-compassion are key to embracing this practice and getting out of your ‘thinking brain’ and into your body to see and feel what it is you are experiencing. When we do this from a non-judgemental place, it is when we start to see and feel things that we may not have experienced for some time. I liken it to a feeling of ‘coming home’, returning to a place that you may not have been for, for a while but it is always available only when we slow down long enough to pause, focus and calibrate.
Self-Regulation Practice
Open your capacity to connect
The Self-Regulation Practice provides you with a way to prime yourself for connection. It helps you to build self-awareness and prepare for conscious conversations that enable you to match your intentions with the impact you aspire to create in the world. Incorporating this Self-Regulation Practice into your day will provide you with a foundation to help you build neural pathways to quickly and effortlessly connect with self and others.
Step 1. Pause
PAUSE to prime yourself before initiating a conversation. Creating a mindful state that brings you into the present moment. Breathe SPACE into the moment, so you can be calm, gain a wider perspective and open your ability to be influenced.
Step 2. Focus
FOCUS from a place of curiosity and reflect on these questions: -
Q1. How am I? (My head, heart, gut, hips)
Q2. What is my inner juice like? (Neurochemicals)
Q3. How do I want to BE? (Aspire & Intentional)
Step 3.
Calibrate
CALIBRATE and sychronize yourself with an optimal state of coherence so that your heart, mind and emotions are aligned. Focus your attention on the heart area. Imagine your breath is slowly flowing in and out of your heart or chest, breathing a little slower and deeper.
Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling, such as appreciation or gratitude for someone or something in your life. Up-regulate yourself into an optimal state, aligning your heart, mind and emotions, so you are in a place of TRUST and ready to connect!
Watch Sarah Moore explain the Self-Regulation Practice
Watch Sarah Moore explain the Self-Regulation Practice with Teams
Downloadables
Self regulation practice full-version
Click the button below to download the full PDF version of the Self-Regulation Practice.
SRP DIY steps and tracker
Click the button below to download the full self regulation practice tracker. Or get in touch to order a set of printed flyers.
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