Taking Off Your Thinking Cap
A practical method to help ground yourself, restore focus and stay regulated.
I remember being 7 years old and sitting at my desk at school. I would have been in Grade One at the time. My desk was near the front of the class, and the teacher had just finished handing out worksheets. As I was looking at the piece of paper in front of me, the teacher stopped to tell us all to put on our “Thinking Caps.”
I sat there in my chair desperately trying to conjure up a Thinking Cap that would work. I remember imagining a cap going over my head that would make it easy for me to understand how to solve the math’s problem, or spell better. Nothing happened. No magic hat, no extra brain power - nada.
I was still the same me, with the same struggle and the same brain. I am sure, or at least it makes sense that, the other kids in the class understood that the teacher was simply saying “be quiet and concentrate!”
This worked for most of the kids but not for me. One size does not fit all. I later read in my report by the same teacher: ‘Lindy’s hand couldn't catch up with her thoughts and ideas, making it difficult to express herself in writing’. I was struggling to understand the questions, let alone provide an adequate answer. My body and mind were always rushing.
Yes, I had a lot of anxiety and fear siting in the chair at school. My hands always sweating, and a constant dread that I was going to be asked something and I would get it wrong.
It didn’t feel safe to make a mistake or get things wrong. School was just an extension of life at home.
I grew up and continued to struggle at school. Working harder than my peers to get just above standard. I was determined to be like everyone else I knew and do well, despite my insecurities and difficulties (let alone moving countries at the age of 9 and learning a new language).
I guess that’s what we call resilience these days…
It was the 70s when I grew up. There was less understanding about the continuum of learning difficulties, or the subtleties and range, let alone the need for emotional regulation. You were either normal or not. Now there is so much support and information out there.
After school, I studied for my bachelor’s degree in creative education for young children and was exposed to different kinds of learning and alternative schooling: Montessori, Steiner and Open Democratic, as well as home schooling. It was a whole new world where the system was there to meet the child with regard and an acknowledgment of the child’s developmental stages. It was not a one size fits all approach.
After a relocation back to Australia and engaging in my own therapy, it was clear that I was going on a different path to teaching. I enrolled in The Kairos Centre and studied for a Diploma in Soul Centered Psychotherapy.
I learnt about trauma, the brain, the psychological developmental stages, and the mind-body system. A lot about shame and a lot about how to love all the part of myself.
During my studies I learnt how to use different trauma techniques (energy psychology) that help regulate anxiety.
The specific trauma-informed tools I learnt were tapping (most people know it as EFT) and Bilateral eye movement stimulation re processing.
I find tapping to be a profound tool to work with, both personally and as a therapist with clients and children. It’s readily available, and once you know how to use it you have it for the rest of your life. It incorporates the mind-body system, so that it’s an embodied exercise. Naming the issue and tapping it through the body helps stop the looping thoughts and targets the beliefs and feelings that can be creating the anxiety.
As part of tapping and Bilateral there are specific exercises to support your mind body system operate in an optimum way. I will be sharing two of these exercises with you in this blog.
Tapping reduces the stress response, reducing the cortisol levels in the mind-body and provides a sense of calm, allowing space to think clearly and have choice in our response to ourselves and the world around us.
I’m certain that if I grew up a child in today’s world and I knew how to use some of these tools, I would have suffered less from feelings of shame and inadequacy, especially around my academic abilities. My mind-body system would have been more regulated and able to focus rather than be in a stress response. We know that it’s very hard to take in new information when we experience stress and anxiety.
Helpful tools
Do you sometimes feel tired and out of sorts before a session or before an important task?
As part of my daily routine when starting work, I do these exercises that get my system “online” and help me feel grounded, centered and focused.
These simple exercises called Cross overs - are interventions that restore, realign, and then healthily reactivate the energy system of the human body/mind. These exercises work to align the left and right brain so that they’re operating together in a cooperative way. Imagine the old telephone exchanges where the lady at the switchboard would connect the lines into the sockets and connect the call.
I teach my clients how to use them as they are great for grounding and regulating. School kids can benefit from theses before exams or just before a school day. They take five minutes of clock time and have long lasting effects.
Energy Practices to help support a healthy mind and body:
I recommend doing this exercise every day before you start your day. You can check to see how you are feeling from a scale of 1-10 before the crossovers and then check in to see how you are feeling from 1-10 after you are done. For example, you may be feeling a level of 8 stress or a level of 7 tiredness. Check in with yourself post exercise to see if the number has reduced. You might find you get down to a 2 or a 1.
Homo-lateral /Hetero-lateral Cross overs:
When your energies are moving straight up and down each side of your body, like parallel lines, the pattern is referred to as homo lateral. You’re operating at less than 50 percent efficiency. It’s hard to think clearly, your senses are less acute, and you feel less focused.
The idea with these exercises is to slowly move you back into a hetero-lateral state that allows you to feel more focused and alive. Babies naturally do this movement as they cross over their midline when they learn to crawl.
Wayne cook hook posture: Hook ups.
This position helps restore balance by taking us out of being stuck in the active thinking mind/left brain. It restores us to a more natural state of being and integrated left and right brain balance.