Enhancing Stability

Your Guide to Being a Force of Comfort and Resolution in Challenging Times

Welcome to Our Enhancing Stability Program

When things change rapidly, it can be hard to find your footing, but if you experience a storm more like a mountain, then the shifting and destruction seem manageable. Recovery and renewal feel more possible. This is a short program in developing practices that make you feel like a mountain.

  • Below you will find easily explained frameworks and practices that help you enhance your stability in times of change. They are based on the neuroscience of trauma healing, which teaches you to enhance your awareness, let go of old patterns, and form new connections.

  • Each section builds off the previous, so there is benefit to working your way through the page in order.

  • You are welcome to return to any exercise or video as many times as you like.

  • You can decide what interests you and what benefits you most as your goals and needs evolve.

  • Each section has links so that you can learn more about self-focused trauma-informed leadership.

    Thank you for joining us in this program!

IN THIS LESSON

How do we recognize and respond to instability?

In order to know when we are operating on shaking ground, we have to first notice movement and its impact. This first video is an introduction to practices that will help you do this.

IN THIS LESSON

In the Mirror

Neuroscience teaches us that occupying a witnessing position—observing our own experience and that of others—gives us a greater capacity to identify options, to collaborate effectively, and to be a source of recovery. These two videos are conversations between our co-owners, Lesley Curtis and Cord Whitaker. The first describes why we developed this practice to encourage culture change. The second is a 1-minute daily exercise that you can do to enhance your ability to be a witness.

An explanation of the value of the witnessing position

How to do the exercise

  • Physical and meditative practices that help you calm your nervous system are not only beneficial for you, they provide stability for those around you. We work with trauma (and the need to heal from it) as a near-universal experience. For more information about this, please see the links below.

    Click here to read about trauma and culture change in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

    Click here to read about Peter Levine's research on somatic healing.

    Click here to listen to our free 15-minute podcast episode on grief and healing.

    For more research on witnessing and trauma healing, you can explore the work of Resmaa Menakem.

    You might also enjoy the research of Bessel Van Der Kolk.

IN THIS LESSON

Applying What Therapists Know

When considering how to establish a grounded, healing, and collaborative environment, it’s key to know how to manage the charge of other people's emotions. Therapists are trained to do this in ways that protect their own well-being. In this conversation, trauma therapist Robyn Smith, LCSW, and consultant Lesley Curtis, Ph.D. discuss how to apply certain skills in your interactions with others so that you lead by modeling grounding, not be exhausting your own resources. The next section gives you a chance to practice what they explain here.

IN THIS LESSON

Grounding

This is a meditative practice in nervous system regulation by Robyn Smith, LCSW. It allows you to feel physically calm and centered, increasing blood flow and connections so that you are better able to serve as stable presence, for yourself and others.

IN THIS LESSON

Why this works

We follow a transformative justice model inspired by the neuroscience of trauma healing. On a base level, we know that people want compassion and connection. They want, and deserve, love and stability. This desire is so profound that it moves us toward healing like gravity. Your stability serves as a model for others. In this video, we explain how to work with this as a foundation.

  • Thanks for joining us! Feel free to stay in touch by following our free podcast on Substack.