Impulse Control With Dot.Dot Tool ~ Serenity Wellness E110

Hi there!

I'd like to share a tool with you today,

Ball Dot Dot.

This technique can be used in a vast array of different situations or events that you may find yourself in and how it can be helpful.

It is a great tool for emotion regulation.

It's also very much an assistance for staying in the now,

In the present moment.

The more we are in the present moment,

The more it helps us regulate our whole system.

All we have is the now.

So the more we're in the now,

The more we're regulated.

This also can be a huge assistance in impulse control with habit and addiction breaking.

The first 90 seconds is an opportune time for making choices that are more in alignment with self.

The first 90 seconds we're on fire sometimes with our desire to get into a bad habit or relapse cycle.

So using this tool and technique helps us slow down and connect back to the present moment which will allow us a 90 second lapse of time to get more into clear decision making moving forward.

So to begin,

You're going to need a piece of paper of some sort and a pencil and whatever writing device you'd like and I'm going to pull up my timer.

You might have done this with me in another format.

It's an important refresh where it might be new for you today.

For round one,

I'll be keeping the time for one minute and then I'll let you know when the one minute is over.

What you'll do is just grab your pen,

Piece of paper,

Whatever writing instrument you have.

When I say begin,

For the first minute what you're going to do is you're going to simply start by any time after I say begin,

You have a change in your awareness.

So maybe a thought is changing,

A perception is changing,

Or an emotion is changing.

So you can have a thought change where you're thinking is this almost over and then you're thinking I went over to have a dinner or I forgot to do something or a change of perception might be you're connecting to yourself and then you hear a noise in your space and your focus changes to there and then maybe you hear another noise or a light comes through your own window and your perception or your vision changes to that direction or you might have a change in emotion.

You might start feeling calm at ease and then you might start feeling uncomfortable or anxious,

Wondering if this is over or when I'm going to say stop.

Anytime any of those things come through,

Whether it is thought,

Perception,

Or emotion,

Simply place a dot on your paper.

So that's it,

But each and every time.

So it might be a thought and then it might be a switch change over to perception,

A back to a thought,

And then an emotion.

I remember how many things I just listed.

I think that was five,

But I wasn't really paying attention.

So I think that was five,

So it would be five dots.

But just an example,

Anything that goes by,

Place a dot on your paper and you can begin now.

And you can stop there.

Take a moment to count your dots.

And then just separate those off,

Maybe put a line under it,

Square around it,

Circle,

Whatever you want to do,

But just so that you have them in their own little space there before we start round two.

So for the next round,

Same exact thing that you're going to do.

The slight difference is when I say begin,

You're going to start by connecting with your breath in whatever way feels right for you.

This isn't about thinking about connecting with your breath because that's going to get your thoughts involved.

It's simply connecting with your breath.

So it might be connecting with how your body is rising or falling.

It might be connecting with the air as it goes out through and in your nostrils or your mouth.

It can be anything related to just the sensation of breathing.

The thinking about breathing would be,

How am I breathing?

Am I breathing right?

What am I doing?

Where am I breathing?

Am I breathing over here?

Am I breathing down here?

That's getting the mind involved.

So all of those things that you're thinking about now related to your breath versus the feeling of breathing is just going to be a feeling of breathing and that would not require a dot.

But any of the other things,

You're going to place a dot.

When you place a dot,

Then you're going to connect back to the feeling of your breath,

Whatever way that you choose to do that.

Another thought,

Perception,

Emotion change might come in.

You place a dot and then come back to breath.

So same thing as the first round.

The difference is you start,

When I say begin,

With connecting to breath.

Any change in thought,

Perception,

Or emotion,

You place a dot and then you return back to breath.

I will be the timekeeper again so I will let you know when the minute is over and you can begin now.

And you can stop now.

And then you will again count up your dots.

For your own self-reflection,

Take a moment to notice the difference in how many dots you had the first round versus how many dots you had the second round.

You may notice that you had a decrease in the second round,

Which is very common for people.

It's very less common that that increases.

It might stay the same,

But it's common that it either stays the same or the number decreases.

And all we did was connect to the breath.

Your breath is with you all the time,

So it is an anchor and a tool that can pull you back to the present moment whenever you would like it to.

An important reminder so that we can stay present in ourself and we can use our breath to do so.

How you would incorporate this into your daily life.

You obviously probably will not have a pen and paper with you at all times to do the dotting and you do not need to count your dots.

In the future,

This was just an experience so that you could see the value of breath and reconnection cycle and realize the impact it has on where your mind goes.

What you could do though to incorporate this technique into daily living is anytime you're noticing your mind is going in one of those places,

The wheel,

The storytelling,

All the things we've been talking about,

You can do like a tap.

So this isn't tapping EFT.

If you're familiar with that sort of therapy,

That is not this,

But you can tap like you can just tap your fingers,

You could tap your leg,

You could tap your steering wheel,

You could tap your desk,

Tap your pen,

Tap.

That's what you would be doing instead of the dot.

The tapping itself or the dotting is not only a pause cycle in the brain,

But it's actually an energy release.

It lets us get out a little bit of the fidgety energy or anxious energy or whatever energy is going on there.

It could be frustration,

Anger,

Lots of different things,

But the tapping or the dotting lets us release a little bit of that,

Which is helping with that 90 second pause window to help us slow down and come more full circle to have clarity in decision-making.

So you can incorporate it in any way in your everyday life just by whenever you become aware that you're up here using breath connection to come to the now.

They're about daily mindfulness and that's why I wanted to start with the dot dot.

The second part of this is the noticing and awareness.

When we increase that volume of awareness of where our mind's going,

How we're having spoken word or the mind lapse that can occur,

The self-sabotaging cycles,

We want to try to turn off our awareness about where our mind goes.

So in the dot dot,

You had a slice of awareness of where did your mind go in the first round.

You might have even noticed a difference in emotion,

Ease,

And comfort in round two versus round one.

So when we do these things,

It lets us notice ourself.

Where does your mind go?

Where is it taking you?

And don't judge that.

Have a curious lens around that.

You can say things to yourself like,

Isn't that interesting?

Where did I go there?

What was that about for me?

I wonder what took me that direction?

What am I trying to show myself or teach myself in that moment that I'm wanting to escape the now?

What is it about the now that makes me want to escape it?

So those are things that you can bring in,

Curious awareness,

Non-judgment.

Because when we become aware,

We want to try our best to figure things out instead of just stuff them back down.

And if we judge ourselves,

We're going to stuff them.

They go down.

Curiosity lets us be open to ourself.

This tool is a part of episode 78 over on Serenity Wellness Podcast.

You can find that on YouTube or your favorite listening platform.

Catch yourself,

Mind bending,

And the places we go.

Gather some tools and info to help you be here.

Thank you so much.

And I hope you enjoy your practice.

Talk to you again soon,

My friends.