September 7, 2025 • 9 mins
This week Carly explores the power of glimmers—those tiny moments that calm your nervous system and begin to shift you out of stress. Learn how to spot them, why they matter, and how becoming a glimmer hunter can change the way you experience everyday life.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey everyone, it's Carli Tayley here and welcome back to
this week's Mojo Monday. So last week we were looking
at polyvagel theory and I kind of touched on this
concept of glimmers, and I wanted to dive a bit
deeper into glimmers because it's such a simple but amazingly
effective way to calm our nervous systems, or to help
(00:34):
calm our nervous systems. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or
stressed out or anxious, glimmers can help regulate you just
enough to create some space for making choices based less
on fear and more on what is important to you
and to those around you at that moment. So let's
(00:55):
dive into glimmers. So you would have heard of triggers,
and if you haven't, you must be living under a
rock because being triggered is part of our seems to
be part of our everyday language, which is not necessarily
a good thing. But in general, triggers are those moments
that send your nervous system into a bit of over drive.
(01:16):
So maybe somebody cuts you off in traffic, or you know,
it could be just a stranger giving you a weird look,
or the dishes are piling up next to the sink,
or your child melts down at the worst possible time
and suddenly boom. You know, you go from feeling calm
to being in a fie or flight situation. And that's
(01:37):
your sympathetic nervous system firing up. So it's saying danger, danger.
It's an evolutionary survival response, that response that has kept
us alive since the dawn of time. It's just that
now our environment is generally safe, but our nervous system
is reacting as if it's not so. Trigger they're just
(01:58):
a part of life. But when we live in a
state of constant triggering, our nervous system can get stuck.
So we start operating from a place of stress or
hypervigilance and reactivity. And that's not a place that we
want to be stuck in. But the good news is
that you can get unstuck. And just as we can
(02:21):
be triggered, we can also be glimmered. So glimmers are
these tiny micro moments that que safety in our nervous system,
so they send a signal to the ventral vagual state,
which is that calm and connected. It's that social part
of the parasympathetic nervous system. And when we're in Ventral
(02:44):
we feel grounded, we feel calm, connected to others, curious
and grateful, and Ventral is kind of like our home base.
This is what deb Dana, who I spoke about last week,
who's an expert in poly vaguel theory, she calls it.
It's the home base. So we leave it every day,
(03:05):
which is normal. We go in and out of Ventral
and move through the other states. We can't stay in
Ventral twenty four to seven, but what we can is
move towards it when we're feeling stuck. Now, our brains
have a negativity bias, and some of us have more
of a negativity bias than others, and that I think
(03:26):
that really depends on a lot of things, on our
experiences from the moment we were born right up till now,
and also our level of self awareness. You know, I
think if somebody asks you, or next time somebody asks you,
how are you just notice whether your automatic response is
(03:47):
to tell them about the bad stuff or do you
kind of catch yourself on and then talk about the
good stuff. But if we want to support our mental fitness,
we have to actively retrain our brain to notice the good,
especially having an understanding of our brain having that negativity
(04:08):
bias and glimmer hunting can be part of that training.
So let me share a few of mine. So a
glimmer that I was thinking. I have lots of glimmers,
but one of them I was thinking the other day
is I've got this friend who is just so supportive
and she motivates me, she challenges me, and every time
(04:32):
we are together, I feel I feel a sense of
joy and a sense of kind of happiness. And so
that is a glimmer. So just notice the people you
are surrounded with. Are any of them glimmers in your life?
And are you a glimmer for them? I mentioned last
week there's a beautiful cooker barrough that sits on the
(04:54):
same wine near my house each day and I drive
past it and I smile. There's a glimmer. My dog
half asleep on her mat, so you know, letting out
those beautiful doggie soft size when I pat her. There's
a glimmer. There's a photo of my kids, So when
my daughter calls me or my son calls me, a
(05:17):
photo of them when we're on holiday shows up on
my phone and I look at it and it brings
me this beautiful sense of joy. So there's a glimmer.
And I could go on and on and on, because
there are so many glimmers in our life. So just
start thinking about those small things each day that bring
(05:39):
you a little sense of calm and joy and connection.
And of course these are not magic pills. They don't
make the pain disappear, or they don't delete any of
life's challenges that you're going through. But what they can
do is just soften the edges of them. They give
enough space to signal to your nervous system you're safe,
(06:03):
you're okay, you're connected. And that's not necessarily a conscious thing.
So it doesn't mean that you've got to think about
being safe, but it's a message to your nervous system
that you're safe. I hope that makes sense. So since
I started intentionally looking for glimmers, I've just noticed that
(06:24):
I've become more grateful, Like even if I'm going through
a hard time, so when I was stressed, when things
went going to plan, when I felt overwhelmed, I'm still
seeing the glimmers, And the more I notice them, the
more they start appearing. And it's almost like my brain
is saying, Okay, you're looking for these, now let me
(06:47):
show you a few more. See, we're training our brain.
We're wiring our brain to look for these glimmers. And
it doesn't matter what you're going through. Glimmers are there
if you look for them, and if you don't look
for them, you won't notice them. So this is like
an attentional strategy. You can choose what you pay attention to,
(07:07):
so shine that light of attention on the many glimmers
that you have at hand. So here's your Mojo Monday
challenge for this week. Each night, before you go to bed,
write down your glimmers from that day. So it can
be three, five, as many as you want, really, but
they don't have to be big. Could be just a
(07:29):
smile from a stranger, or the smell of your morning coffee,
or a lyric from a song that you know you
were listening to. The listening to in the car brought
back a memory from the past. And talk about your
glimmers with your kids, and you know, it's a great
dinner time conversation to have. Ask them what made them
feel calm and happy or connected today, and you'll be
(07:51):
amazed at what they actually noticed, and remind them before
they go to school to look out for glimmers, because
how amazing would that be if you could train your
children to start looking for glimmers, and what difference that
is going to make as they grow older. And make
it a daily ritual because if you do this every day,
(08:12):
and you do this consistently, it'll become a habit and
then over time, your brain will start scanning for glitters
and maybe it'll cut down on scanning for the threats.
So polyvagel theory teaches us that our nervous system is
always listening. It's always asking am I safe? Am I connected?
(08:32):
And when we feed our nervous system the glimmers, that
means we're not just surviving, we're building a life filled
with little moments of meaning and magic. So be a
glimmer hunter this week, because your nervous system is going
to thank you for it. So have a beautiful week, everybody,
and I will catch you next week. See you
Hey everyone, it's Carli Tayley here and welcome back to
this week's Mojo Monday. So last week we were looking
at polyvagel theory and I kind of touched on this
concept of glimmers, and I wanted to dive a bit
deeper into glimmers because it's such a simple but amazingly
effective way to calm our nervous systems, or to help
(00:34):
calm our nervous systems. So if you're feeling overwhelmed or
stressed out or anxious, glimmers can help regulate you just
enough to create some space for making choices based less
on fear and more on what is important to you
and to those around you at that moment. So let's
(00:55):
dive into glimmers. So you would have heard of triggers,
and if you haven't, you must be living under a
rock because being triggered is part of our seems to
be part of our everyday language, which is not necessarily
a good thing. But in general, triggers are those moments
that send your nervous system into a bit of over drive.
(01:16):
So maybe somebody cuts you off in traffic, or you know,
it could be just a stranger giving you a weird look,
or the dishes are piling up next to the sink,
or your child melts down at the worst possible time
and suddenly boom. You know, you go from feeling calm
to being in a fie or flight situation. And that's
(01:37):
your sympathetic nervous system firing up. So it's saying danger, danger.
It's an evolutionary survival response, that response that has kept
us alive since the dawn of time. It's just that
now our environment is generally safe, but our nervous system
is reacting as if it's not so. Trigger they're just
(01:58):
a part of life. But when we live in a
state of constant triggering, our nervous system can get stuck.
So we start operating from a place of stress or
hypervigilance and reactivity. And that's not a place that we
want to be stuck in. But the good news is
that you can get unstuck. And just as we can
(02:21):
be triggered, we can also be glimmered. So glimmers are
these tiny micro moments that que safety in our nervous system,
so they send a signal to the ventral vagual state,
which is that calm and connected. It's that social part
of the parasympathetic nervous system. And when we're in Ventral
(02:44):
we feel grounded, we feel calm, connected to others, curious
and grateful, and Ventral is kind of like our home base.
This is what deb Dana, who I spoke about last week,
who's an expert in poly vaguel theory, she calls it.
It's the home base. So we leave it every day,
(03:05):
which is normal. We go in and out of Ventral
and move through the other states. We can't stay in
Ventral twenty four to seven, but what we can is
move towards it when we're feeling stuck. Now, our brains
have a negativity bias, and some of us have more
of a negativity bias than others, and that I think
(03:26):
that really depends on a lot of things, on our
experiences from the moment we were born right up till now,
and also our level of self awareness. You know, I
think if somebody asks you, or next time somebody asks you,
how are you just notice whether your automatic response is
(03:47):
to tell them about the bad stuff or do you
kind of catch yourself on and then talk about the
good stuff. But if we want to support our mental fitness,
we have to actively retrain our brain to notice the good,
especially having an understanding of our brain having that negativity
(04:08):
bias and glimmer hunting can be part of that training.
So let me share a few of mine. So a
glimmer that I was thinking. I have lots of glimmers,
but one of them I was thinking the other day
is I've got this friend who is just so supportive
and she motivates me, she challenges me, and every time
(04:32):
we are together, I feel I feel a sense of
joy and a sense of kind of happiness. And so
that is a glimmer. So just notice the people you
are surrounded with. Are any of them glimmers in your life?
And are you a glimmer for them? I mentioned last
week there's a beautiful cooker barrough that sits on the
(04:54):
same wine near my house each day and I drive
past it and I smile. There's a glimmer. My dog
half asleep on her mat, so you know, letting out
those beautiful doggie soft size when I pat her. There's
a glimmer. There's a photo of my kids, So when
my daughter calls me or my son calls me, a
(05:17):
photo of them when we're on holiday shows up on
my phone and I look at it and it brings
me this beautiful sense of joy. So there's a glimmer.
And I could go on and on and on, because
there are so many glimmers in our life. So just
start thinking about those small things each day that bring
(05:39):
you a little sense of calm and joy and connection.
And of course these are not magic pills. They don't
make the pain disappear, or they don't delete any of
life's challenges that you're going through. But what they can
do is just soften the edges of them. They give
enough space to signal to your nervous system you're safe,
(06:03):
you're okay, you're connected. And that's not necessarily a conscious thing.
So it doesn't mean that you've got to think about
being safe, but it's a message to your nervous system
that you're safe. I hope that makes sense. So since
I started intentionally looking for glimmers, I've just noticed that
(06:24):
I've become more grateful, Like even if I'm going through
a hard time, so when I was stressed, when things
went going to plan, when I felt overwhelmed, I'm still
seeing the glimmers, And the more I notice them, the
more they start appearing. And it's almost like my brain
is saying, Okay, you're looking for these, now let me
(06:47):
show you a few more. See, we're training our brain.
We're wiring our brain to look for these glimmers. And
it doesn't matter what you're going through. Glimmers are there
if you look for them, and if you don't look
for them, you won't notice them. So this is like
an attentional strategy. You can choose what you pay attention to,
(07:07):
so shine that light of attention on the many glimmers
that you have at hand. So here's your Mojo Monday
challenge for this week. Each night, before you go to bed,
write down your glimmers from that day. So it can
be three, five, as many as you want, really, but
they don't have to be big. Could be just a
(07:29):
smile from a stranger, or the smell of your morning coffee,
or a lyric from a song that you know you
were listening to. The listening to in the car brought
back a memory from the past. And talk about your
glimmers with your kids, and you know, it's a great
dinner time conversation to have. Ask them what made them
feel calm and happy or connected today, and you'll be
(07:51):
amazed at what they actually noticed, and remind them before
they go to school to look out for glimmers, because
how amazing would that be if you could train your
children to start looking for glimmers, and what difference that
is going to make as they grow older. And make
it a daily ritual because if you do this every day,
(08:12):
and you do this consistently, it'll become a habit and
then over time, your brain will start scanning for glitters
and maybe it'll cut down on scanning for the threats.
So polyvagel theory teaches us that our nervous system is
always listening. It's always asking am I safe? Am I connected?
(08:32):
And when we feed our nervous system the glimmers, that
means we're not just surviving, we're building a life filled
with little moments of meaning and magic. So be a
glimmer hunter this week, because your nervous system is going
to thank you for it. So have a beautiful week, everybody,
and I will catch you next week. See you
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