Types of Resources
I am looking out at the ocean right now, watching blue gray waves roll in, the tide obviously influenced by the wind direction and pull of other natural forces. It is not a calm ocean. It is churning and chaotic even thought there is a rhythm to the water and the ebb and flow of the crashing and receding. Yet, in my body, I feel calm. My breath is deep, my spine grounded and still, my jaw relaxed, and my stomach slightly growling and feeling a bit hungry. I have learned over practice and time that these are all ways that my individual body feels safe.
This is a resource. The ocean that I am looking at is providing these sensations in my physical body and anchoring me to the present moment, allowing for this re-membering of calm. We defined resources earlier in the month. Now is the opportunity to explore the different types of resources our body can anchor into in order to remind it of calm. By resourcing we can consciously shift our state into one that feels more receptive, more sustainable and more prepared when an actual threat is present.
The world around us is constantly reminding us of stress, anxiety, the next thing we have to do, the next place a threat might pop up. Organizations and institutions perpetuate this for their own gain (but more on that later). This can place our nervous systems into a perpetual state of discomfort. And then slowly over time, rather than starting from a place of calm and going into action if a threat shows up, our system starts in a place of discomfort and perceives that a threat is always with us. This causes our nervous system to forget how it can feel to be relaxed and calm.
There are three main types of resources:
Current Internal
Past Internal
Current External
Lets go from the bottom up…
Current External tends to be the most accessible. This is something in your current environment that you can see, smell, hear, touch, or taste that you enjoy, offering a shifting in your physical body from a feeling of tension or stress to a feeling of softening or less stress, for example. The ocean outside that I am looking at is a Current External Resource. Because this is something that our sensory organs can attach to and experience, and it is in the present moment, it can be a very useful tool that can lead to more comfortable sensations in a person’s body.
Past Internal is using your brain to remember something that you have enjoyed in the past to assist you in the present moment of discomfort. This might be remembering a beautiful place you have visited or humming or singing a song you can’t hear externally. Many of these types of resources are memory based and can conjure up feelings of familiarity and comfort.
Current Internal can be the most difficult to manifest in the body if the feelings of comfort, safety and calm are not quite re-membered yet. That is to say that the body still requires a source to bring it into a state shift. Current Internal Resources include using our own breath to regulate for example. The resource is coming from your current action in the present moment from inside your body in some way. Current Internal Resources can be nurtured over time so that they can become more accessible in times of challenge or duress.
There can be cross over within different types of resources. For example, when I was being born my mom told me that she had my dad hang a picture of a beautiful photo of an Alpine Mountain, edelweiss and a crystal clear lake near her bed. The picture was a Current External Resource and a Past Internal Resources as the picture itself brought more calm feelings into her body when she looked at it and the memory of being there when she closed her eyes. This resource allowed her to regulate her breath which then added the layer of a Current Internal Resource to her tools used during labor.
So maybe, right now, take a moment to notice any resources that you currently have around you. Are they Current Internal, Past Internal or Current External or do they cross over? Do you notice that you have a lot of one type and not that many of another. What could this reveal about how your nervous system seeks support? Next time I will talk about how important it is to vary your resources and not put all your calming eggs into one basket, so to speak. Until then.
