Episode 27: Borrowed Calm

Tina Boogren
3 minutes ago
6 min read

Description: Sometimes calming yourself feels like too much work. In this episode, Tina introduces the idea of borrowed calm, which is the practice of letting your nervous system settle by connecting to something already steady. Whether it’s a person, a pet, music, or simply stepping outside, this invitation reminds us that we don’t have to create calm alone.

Subscribe here to receive a weekly reminder for each new episode.

Listen Now:

Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Everyday Wellness with Dr. Tina H. Boogren. I am your host, Tina Boogren. This is episode 27, and I am so grateful that you are here. As we settle into this week and this week's invitation, let's go ahead and perhaps utilize one of the strategies that we talked about last week in episode 26 to help regulate our nervous system.

So we had a few options you might recall. One was the long exhale and let's do that one right now. It's one of my favorites. So let's just pause for a second and go ahead and inhale through your nose and then take a really long exhale. I'm going to do this with you. Let's do it right now.

Good. And then let's just double down and triple down and quadruple down. So go ahead and if you can get both feet on the floor to ground yourself. Then take a second and name what you notice. So look around and in your mind, I want you to just list three things you can see, two things you can hear, and one thing that you can physically feel.

I'll pause so you can do that.

Good. And then finally, let's do that shoulder reset. So go ahead and lift your shoulders towards your ears. Maybe you discover that they're already there just to hold and then release slowly and let that stress move out of your body. I hope that felt really good and that you had lots of opportunities to play around with those last week. And in fact, this week we're going to kind of keep working on our nervous system because I don't know, I just feel like we could use more work on our nervous system. So remember, you know, we can regulate our nervous system through connection. And what I love about this is the idea of borrowed calm is what we're gonna play with this week.

So last week we did things on our own by ourselves to help regulate our nervous system. This week what we're gonna do is play around with this idea of borrowed calm, because I know sometimes we don't calm ourselves very well. That can be really hard to do, and so we can tap into borrowing calm from something steady. Another person, an environment, a rhythm, a routine. I love this idea so much, because there's days when calming ourself kind of feels impossible.

You know that feeling where our thoughts are moving way too fast. Our body feels super tense, we're overwhelmed, or we're just totally depleted, and in those particular moments, those self-regulation strategies can just flat out feel like too much work. Even what we just did there, right? The extended exhale, the feet on the ground, the shoulder relaxation, the naming to notice. Even those teeny, tiny little things sometimes it's just, ugh, it's too much. So that's where this week's invitation comes in. This is the borrowed calm strategy. Again this strategy is the idea that your nervous system can settle just by being near something that is already steady.

And what I love about this is that then you don't have to create the calm, you just have to connect to it. And this is actually how we're wired. Our nervous systems co-regulate with the world around us. So consider how your breathing slows down when you sit next to someone at peace. Consider how your shoulders drop when you pet a dog. Consider how just walking outside can absolutely change your mood without you even purposely trying to do that. That is borrowed calm and it counts, and I love it. So our invitation this week is to find one source of borrowed calm. And then spend a little time with it. I'm going to offer up two minutes, but remember, everything is on a dial. You can turn that dial up if you've got more time or turn it down if two minutes feels impossible. Remember you are in charge of taking these invitations and making them work for you.

So let me give you some ideas of ways that you might borrow calm. So it could be, again, sitting next to someone who feels steady. It could be petting your dog or someone else's dog or animal. Again, it could be just stepping outside, looking up and noticing the sky during the day or in the evening. I love, love, love looking at the moon. It could be listening to a calming song. Maybe you'll even create a calming playlist. You know, we talk about playlists to increase the energy, right? Boost us up, like get us all fired up, especially for a workout or a big day, big presentation. How about we create a calming playlist?

Even just holding a warm mug of coffee or tea can be that borrowed calm that we might need. I love a rocking chair. Do you have access to a rocking chair? Oh, rocking in a rocking chair is absolutely borrowed calm.

How about purposely walking more slowly? This is something I've really been working on. I am a fast walker. I walk as though I live in New York City and I am late, and so I have been purposely just allowing myself to walk more slowly, and it's amazing what that does for my sense of calm and my whole nervous system. So maybe you purposely slow down today. Maybe you just gently place your hand over your own heart and you borrow calm from your own heart. Here's the reminder in all of these.

Remember, you're not, you don't need to fix anything. You don't need to change everything. You don't need to blow your life up and try something completely different. It's just this idea of these, again, teeny, tiny little things that can have such a big impact. And if we combine these borrowed calm ideas. With the strategies and invitations that I offered up last weekend at the start of the show, then we have so many tools in all of our pockets ready at any time when we notice that, whew, we are just feeling our entire nervous system feels kind of wacky, right?

When we have these on hand and we practice them. It gets easier and easier and easier, and I feel like then we can catch ourselves when we kind of get a little bit, ooh, out of whack and our nervous system gets really activated when we have these on hand again and we practice them, we can just catch ourselves a little sooner, which I love. I absolutely love.

So that's what I want you to play around this week. Remember that calm can be relational, it can be related to our environment, to music rhythm, sensory, it can be shared. And what a gift to know that we're allowed to lean on the calm that already exists around us. Let me say that again. We are allowed to lean on the calm that already exists around us. So if, if today feels heavy or this week feels heavy, and you just feel like, ugh, I don't know if I have the strength to power through. Instead, we're just gonna borrow some calm. We're gonna try to do that for just a couple minutes. Again, even I'll take a few seconds and see if that makes an impact. I think it's going to, I'm doing this right beside you.

Thank you so much for being here. I'm cheering so stinking hard for you. We're so grateful to Adrienne and Solution Tree and Marzano Resources. And I am so grateful for each of you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this podcast with friends, family members. Remember, our circle is big, right? We stand, it's not even a circle, actually, it's a horseshoe. We invite others to join us, and so thank you for again being here and for sharing this podcast and for trying these invitations. I'm cheering so hard for you. Feel my hand on your back as you move through the week. I love you.

If this episode resonated with you, find more mental wellness episodes here.