Transcripts: Stronger Connections Wellness Mini-Session | Micro-Practices for Everyday Resilience

Rebeca Cerna:

Welcome. We will be getting started shortly.

Welcome. Welcome to today’s wellness mini-session on micro practices for everyday resilience. My name is Rebeca Cerna and I’m with WestEd, and we are hosting this on behalf of the California Stronger Connections Technical Assistance Center. It’s an initiative of the California Department of Education. And we provide supports to school districts and schools on safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments. You could learn more about webinars, collaboratives, and other mini wellness sessions that we offer at strongerconnections.wested.org. We will also share that in the chat.

Part of our offerings are these wellness mini-sessions, and today I am glad to introduce Jen Baker. Jen Baker is a behavioral health consultant and trainer with extensive experience in school-based mental health, trauma-informed practices, resilience, and suicide prevention. As a California Association of Marriage and Family Therapist-approved continuing education provider, Jen designs and delivers engaging interactive learning experiences for educators, for mental health clinicians, certified wellness coaches, and also other school-based professionals. Her trainings focus on translating research and complex concepts into practical strategies that can be applied in both professional and everyday life. And with that, I’m happy to turn it over to Jen to get us started.

Jen Baker:

Hello and welcome. It’s wonderful to see you joining me today. I’m so excited to have been invited to spend some time sharing and exploring micro practices for everyday resilience with you all. It’s creating small moments to pause, reset, and reconnect throughout your day. We’ll start with a little context about stress and the brain-body connection, and then we’ll try a few practices together. As we go, I invite you to be curious about what you notice. Feel free to try them either seated or standing. And please, of course, adapt the movements to what feels comfortable for you. So let’s start by looking at what stress response is designed to do.

If there’s one thing I’m sure we can all relate to, it’s stress. I often hear from those I work with that taking on a new practice for their own wellbeing can feel like one more thing to do, especially when they’re already feeling overwhelmed. That led me to collect and compile micro practices that could fit into everyday moments. And what’s fabulous about these micro-practices is that not only can we use them for ourselves, but they’re also great to share with others. The thing is we often equate stress with something negative, but our stress response is actually both protecting and mobilizing. It’s our brain-body emergency response system. I think of it a little like a life vest. It is designed to protect us and help us respond when we need it. It activates automatically, not only in response to what is happening, but also to what we perceive or anticipate.

Just thinking about this presentation can activate my stress response. And rather than seeing that as something’s wrong, I can recognize it as energy and attention helping me to prepare. Much like athletes use that activation to focus and perform. So the goal isn’t no stress, it’s the right amount for the moment, and here’s why micro practices can help.

The challenge is when that life vest stays inflated or it keeps reinflating because another demand arrives before our system has fully settled. Over time, that repeated activation without enough recovery can contribute to exhaustion, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. We may not be able to remove all of life’s demands, but we can create brief interruptions within them. Micro practices give the brain and body small opportunities to pause, release the activation, and then reset. With repetition, we reinforce our neural pathways that make these responses more familiar and then easier for us to access. So that’s the rhythm we’re going to explore today. Pause, reset, repeat. And these don’t have to be lengthy. It really is those small moments that we can weave into our everyday life. And resetting does not always mean calming down.

Sometimes we need to feel more settled, other times we need energy and alertness. A practice might help us feel both grounded and energized, and we don’t all experience the same way, right? Even for you, a practice may feel different from one day to the next. So as we try these, there’s no right way to feel as you do them. Just notice what you experience and if anything shifts. So first let’s take a moment to explore the breathing we’ll use throughout the practices.

Because breath is a part of each of the micro practices we’ll be using today, let’s start with what’s called breathing in 360 degrees. We’re often told, “Hey, take a breath,” but we don’t always get guidance on how. You may have heard of diaphragmatic breathing, often taught as belly breathing, and sometimes we focus so much on the belly that we overlook the movement in the rib cage. So breathing in 360 degrees brings attention to that gentle expansion all the way around our lower ribs, front, sides, and back. So I’m going to walk you through it first and then we’re going to try it together.

So you’ll place your hands around your lower ribcage with your fingers towards the front and your thumbs towards the back. And then as you breathe in, you’ll feel your rib cage gently widening, front, sides, and back. And you want to keep your shoulders away from your ears because I have a tendency, I like to breathe in this upper part of my chest. So what happens is all of a sudden my shoulders go to my ears. So as you take that breath and your ribs expand, try to keep your shoulders down as much as possible and relaxed. And then when you breathe out, let your ribs gently draw back together, inward towards each other as though they’re knitting back together. Your hands, they’re just going along for the ride. They’re not doing anything except just kind of helping guide you and notice what’s happening. So let’s try this together.

Place your hands around your ribs just like this, fingers in the front, thumbs in the back, and then you’ll take that slow, comfortable breath in, and you’re going to feel your ribs gently expand into your hands, through that front, side, and back, and then keep your shoulders down. See, mine just went up, so try to keep them down. And now breathe out slowly. Let your ribs gently draw inward towards one another. Okay, let’s do that again. You can go ahead and go at your own pace. Nice big breath in, feel that expansion all the way around, and then breathe out. Big exhale through your lips and let everything soften back.

And since three times is a charm, let’s do it one more time. Nice big breath in. Really feel… Feel that expansion all the way around, front, sides, and back, and then big exhale, let your ribs come back together. You can just let your arms and hands relax, return to your usual breathing. And just take a moment to notice, how did that feel? For the rest of our practices, when I say take a breath, this is the kind of breathing I’m referring to. Now let’s explore what happens when we broaden our view.

When we feel stressed or threatened, our attention can narrow. This practice invites us to intentionally widen what we notice and take in more of the environment around us. Choose one point in front of you and let your eyes rest gently there. Without moving your eyes very much, begin noticing what’s within that field of vision. What’s to the left? What’s to the right? Notice the space above. Notice the space below. Now allow the edges of your vision to become part of what you’re taking in, and let your gaze soften. See if you can take in the room as a whole rather than focusing on one object. And as you do that, remember to take that breath in, gently expanding your lower ribs and then softening as you breathe out. So pause and notice, how does that feel? A broader view can help remind the brain and the body that there’s more present in this moment than the thing demanding our attention.

Now let’s try a practice that invites us to create tension briefly and then let it go. The Drain is a micro-version of progressive muscle relaxation. It’s creating tension and then releasing it. So you can either sit or stand. If you’re seated, scoot to the front of your chair so you have room in front of you to let your arms drain down to your sides. And I’ll show you once and then we’re going to try it together. You’ll extend your arms in front of you and you’ll make fists, just like this. You’ll take that breath in and you’re going to tighten your fists, tighten your fists, arms, shoulders, face. Tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten. And then you’re going… With a big breath out, you’re just going to let your arms open your hands, let your arms drain down to your side, just like a drain.

Now let’s try it together. Extend your arms in front of you and make your fists. Take a comfortable breath in. Squeeze your fists, arms, shoulders, face. Hold that for a moment, and then breathe out like you’re draining all the tension away. Let’s go ahead and do that again. Arms in front of you. Tighten your fist, your arms, your shoulders, your face. Big breath in, hold it, and then… drain that away. And one more time. Arms in front of you, squeeze your hands and your fists, arms tight, really tight, breath in, and then… let it all drain away. And just notice, how does that feel? You start to feel a little looser, a little less tension maybe in your shoulders and your arms.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. So when I do this practice, I often hear the lyrics from the song from Frozen, Let It Go, and I just think about the fact that I’m just letting all that tension go from the day. So now let’s bring in some rhythmic movement. This final practice is one of my favorites. I find it helpful when I’m feeling stuck or trying to think something through. It’s a great example of how micro practices can help us feel both grounded and engaged. So you can stand or remain seated, just want to have your feet supported on the floor and give yourself enough room to move comfortably. So if you’re standing, place your feet about shoulder widths apart. Keep your knees soft. Don’t lock your knees out.

If you’re seated, sit comfortably upright towards the edge of your chair, and then just start to let your shoulders relax, your arms hang loosely. And you’re just going to begin by turning from side to side, just like this, allowing the movement to come from your hips and your waist and just keep it small and comfortable. Let your arms swing loosely. Your gaze can follow the movement. If it feels comfortable, let your arms gently brush or tap the sides of your body and remember to continue to breathe. Nice breaths in, exhale out. Let yourself feel the rhythmic sway. You can keep the movement small or you can gradually let it become a little bit fuller. Mainly you just want to find an easy, steady rhythm.

Now make the movement a little bit smaller and gradually slow down and let your arms just return to your sides. So pause and notice how that feels. Do you feel more settled, more energized, maybe both? Does anybody feel like me? I feel like little tingling, a little energy in my hands and my fingers, up my arms now. I feel like my chest is… The breath is really kind of opened up and I’m standing a little bit taller. Now let’s think about where these small practices could fit into your day. So think about a moment in your day where one of these practices might be helpful. It could be between a meeting, it could be on your drive home through stressful traffic or after a stressful interaction.

I invite you to put yours in the chat, the practice and the everyday moment. So you might choose broaden my view, might choose The Drain, might choose rhythmic twist and swing, or you really like that 360 degree breath, really kind of getting that all the way through your entire chest. So you put one example would be The Drain between meetings. It could be the twist and swing before a very presentation.

Having a specific moment in mind and then putting that down somewhere can really make it easier for you to remember to try it. And one tip I’ll share with you that has helped me to incorporate micro practices into my day is to write down a little reminder in a post-it note and I’ll place it where I can see it. So we tried just a few practices today. I’ve also created a resource that you’ll receive with additional ideas to try. So as we wrap up, I want to leave you with one final thought. One micro practice may feel like only a drop, but drops add up. And repeated over time, these small moments become something much larger.

So just as a raindrop becomes an ocean, resilience is built one moment at a time. Sharing these practices with you has been a lovely reset in my day, and I want to thank you so much for being here.

Rebeca Cerna:

Jen, thank you so very much for that. Those opportunities to settle, to activate, and really offering it as a frame to let it go. Thanks for all of those activities. They were very engaging and informative. And in the chat, are you able, Alex, to put in the chat the LinkTree for everyone? It includes a couple of links… We’ll also send it in a follow-up email. It includes a couple of links that Jen is offering us as some resources. So one is a participant guide with direction and reflection prompts. It includes research for the practices that we did today. And then the second resource that Jen provided is a one-page collection of quick regulation tools that we could revisit.

In the LinkTree, you’ll also find the slides, a PDF of the slides that were used today, and a couple of other resources and how to connect with Jen. This next slide, for example, is on the slide handout. It’s some other resources that you could browse at your leisure. What we’re going to do right now is we’re going to pop up a quick poll for some feedback. The feedback allows us to plan other sessions, so we’ll ask you if you could please respond to these three quick questions to help us plan for our upcoming sessions.

And also in the LinkTree, there’s a place where you can register for our upcoming Wellness Mini Session. We have two more planned for this year in November and in December, and you could register there. The registration link is also on the LinkTree. And so we hope that you’ll be able to join us at a future session and feel free to connect with us also at [email protected] if you have any questions or if you need any additional supports. Thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you very much, Jen.