Project Reassure: For-Self-Advocates-Resilience Skills

What Is Tracking?

Tracking is a way to help you stay in or get back to your “Resilient Zone” or “OK Zone.” When you use tracking you pay attention to what is happening with your mind and body. We sometimes call these thoughts and feelings in our mind and body “sensations”.

What Do We Mean By Sensations?

There are many ways the brain takes in information. One way is through our senses. These are called sensations. Some senses are sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. You can pay attention to other sensations like breathing, your heartbeat, and how your stomach feels.

Sensation Words

Having the right words to talk about what you are thinking and feeling is important. Here are some sensation words that may help you talk about what you are paying
attention to inside your body:

• Vibration: shaking, twitching, trembling, fast/slow
• Size/position: small, medium, large, up/down, center
• Temperature: cold, hot, warm, neutral (just right)
• Pain: intense (which means strong or sharp), medium, mild, throbbing, stabbing
• Muscles: tight, loose, calm, rigid
• Breathing: fast, short, deep, shallow, light
• Heartbeat: fast, slow, rhythmic or regular, fluttery, jittery
• Taste: spicy, sweet, sour, juicy, bland or plain
• Texture: rough, smooth, thick, thin
• Weight: heavy, light, firm, gentle cold, hot, warm, neutral (just right)

Why is Tracking Important?

You may feel different ways in your body because of what you experience, your thoughts, and your feelings.

• • Some things give you good feelings in your body and mind.
  • Some things may make your body and mind feel bad.
  • Sometimes, your body and mind feel the same as usual.

When you track how your body and mind feel, you can pay attention to when those feelings are bad.

Bad feelings may be telling you that you are moving to the edge or even outside of your Resilient or OK zone. You can then use your resilience skills to help you stay in your Resilient or OK zone. Feelings that are usual or good let you know that you are in your Resilient or OK zone.

You can choose what to pay attention to in your body when you learn the difference between good and bad feelings.

Paying attention to good feelings in your body may help you stay in your Resilient or OK zone and feel better.

Learning How to Track

Tracking is when you pay attention to what is happening with your mind and body. Tracking can help you pay attention to good feelings in your mind or body to help you stay in your OK or “resilient zone”.

It may be hard to pay attention to what is going on with your mind and body. Talking to people you trust about these “feelings” is important. They may be able to help you learn to pay attention to good and bad feelings.

Practice describing how you feel and what you sense by speaking up and telling others.

Asking yourself questions can also help you pay attention to what you are feeling. Some questions may be things like:

• • Is my heart beating fast or slow?
  • Is my breathing fast or slow? Deep or short breaths?
  • How do my clothes feel? Are they tight or loose? Soft or scratchy?
  • Am I sitting, lying down, leaning, or on my knees?
  • Is this food spicy, salty, sweet, sour, bitter, or plain?
  • Do I feel hot, warm, cold, or “just right?”
  • What sounds do I hear?
  • Is it loud, quiet, non-stop, or something else?

Tracking Practice

Tracking is when you notice what is happening inside your mind and body. It is one of the skills that can help you get back to your Resilient Zone or “OK” Zone.

Let’s look at an example of the thoughts and feelings someone might have if they are practicing tracking. In this picture, Jack and Jill are having a picnic at the park after a bike ride. What kinds of sensations could they notice?

Jack and Jill have noticed these sensations during their picnic:

Tracking is paying attention to the sensations within your body. The five main senses are what you see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Practicing tracking can help you learn more about your body and your body’s sensations. All of this practice can help you to stay in your Resilient or “OK” Zone.

What is Resourcing?

Resourcing is a resilience skill that uses people, places, things, and ideas to help you feel better.

Resourcing can help you stay in your Resilient or “OK” zone. It can also help you get back into your Resilient or “OK” zone if you have been bumped out.

Resourcing uses things you like to help you feel better. These things are called resources.

Resources Can Be Things Like: 

• • Things you like about yourself like your hair, eyes, or sense of humor.
  • A happy memory.
  • A person that makes you happy or feel good.
  • A place that you like to go.
  • Your favorite animal or pet.
  • A special picture.
  • A favorite song.

If you have the resource with you, use your senses to pay attention to how the resource looks, smells, or feels. If it’s a picture of a person or place, pay attention to the details of the picture.

If you are thinking about your resource, imagine what it looks like, how it feels, what it smells like, what it sounds like, and how it makes you feel.

When you are using the skill of resourcing, try to pay attention to at least three details about your resource.

After you have spent some time thinking about your resource, try to notice parts of your body that feel calmer or even “okay.”

Pay attention to your breathing, heart rate and muscles. After thinking about your resource your breathing and heart rate may slow down, and your muscles may feel more relaxed.

Resourcing Practice:

Resourcing is the name of a skill that includes resources. Resources can be anything that helps a person to feel better. They can be a person, place, thing, idea or, anything else that helps them feel better.

Jack is telling Jill about how he learned to take pictures with his mom. Jill asks him questions about his mom and the things he likes about

taking pictures.

Jack says that he enjoys taking pictures with her outside and the time they spend together. He says she is funny and makes him laugh. Jack

smiles as he tells Jill about his mom.

Resourcing Practice Examples:

Difference between Tracking and Grounding:

What is Shift and Stay?

Shift and Stay is a skill you can use to change your thoughts and get back into your resilient zone.

In order to shift and stay, you have to use the other skills; tracking, resourcing, grounding and gesturing along with it. Using these other skills first helps you find more comfortable thoughts. Let’s refresh!

If you are thinking about something uncomfortable or difficult, SHIFT those bad thoughts to good ones. Find something that is “okay” or happy to think about. You may need to practice using the other resilient skills to find thoughts that are calmer, more comfortable, or more peaceful.

After that, STAY focused on those good thoughts. Do this until you feel better and are ready to move onto something else.

It is okay if the skill does not work the first time you try it. Sometimes people need to try out several skills before they feel calm. Sometimes people need to practice the skills a few times before they feel calm. The important thing is to keep using them until you are back in your resilient zone.

Practicing: Shift and Stay?

Shift and Stay is a resilient skill that needs the other skills (tracking, resourcing, grounding, and gesturing) to work.

SHIFT your bad thoughts to good ones. Use the other skills to find something that makes you feel happy, calm, or relaxed. STAY focused on these good thoughts.

Practicing this skill is helpful because you can use it when you are faced with challenges to get back into your resilient zone. It also lets you practice the other skills at the same time!

Practice:

Practice using each of these skills to SHIFT your focus to something “okay” or pleasant, and then see if you can STAY with those thoughts for at least two minutes.

After you go through this activity, take a minute to think how each skill made you feel. Which skill was the most helpful? Keep practicing the skills so you can have better control over your thoughts and your body.

Help Now Overview: 

Help Now: is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed. When you are faced with a lot of challenges, it can be hard to stay in your resilient or “OK” zone.

Usually when you are bumped out of your zone you can use the other skills to get back into your zone. Sometimes you may get so overwhelmed that the other skills don’t work well enough and you get stuck outside of your zone.

Help Now Strategies: 

Pay attention to how your body feels before and after using them to see what might work best for you. You may need to try more than one.

• • DO SOMETHING PHYSICAL: Try stretching the muscles in your neck, shoulders, arms, back, chest, or legs. You can also go for a 5 minute walk, do 20 push-ups against a wall, or jump up and down 10 times.
  • COOL DOWN: Try drinking a glass of ice cold water. Or you can run your hands under cold water for 20 seconds.
  • USE YOUR SENSES: Find 6 different colored items in the room, find items around you that have different textures and pay attention to how they feel, or focus on sounds that are around you.
  • COUNTDOWN: Slowly count backwards from the number 20.

Help Now Practice:

Help Now is a skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed and can’t get back into your resilient or “OK” zone.

This skill is made up of many different strategies. The skills in Help Now! focus on your body instead of your thoughts. As your body relaxes, you can keep using this skill or switch to one of the other resilience skills. Try out some of these Help Now! skills for yourself. Pay attention to how your body feels before, during, and after using each skills. Some of these may work better for you than others. Try them out at different times to see which you like best. Put a check mark beside the skills that work best for you.

Once you find the skills that work best for you, practice them throughout the day so you can use them more easily when you are bumped out of your resilient or “OK” zone.