Your CTSE Tools

Rooted in science and refined through real-life experience, our tools are designed to support you where it matters most. Each practice you’ll find here has been proven helpful in managing stress and trauma for 1000’s of people.

Whether you’re navigating a moment of overwhelm or looking to build long-term resilience. Explore these tools to unburden what you’re carrying, shift your mindset, and reclaim your sense of calm and clarity.

Learn More Below

Regular Unpacking

Stopping regularly to assess what you’re carrying in your life’s backpack and doing the work to unpack, take out, reorganize, or put away extra weight. Evaluating current responsibilities, relationships, and life events we have not “unpacked” allows us to offload what may be weighing us down. Our packs are often heavier during periods of increased stress and trauma. During these times it’s important to recognize what’s missing from your backpack like rest, a healthy diet, exercise, or human connection.

Better Moment Bookmark

Chronic stress and trauma can change our perceptions of life events, making it difficult to recognize safety, pleasant experiences, or even neutral ones. It’s like we are wearing “stress and trauma lenses” and just can’t quite see the moment for all that it is. However, we hold the power to alter our present moment experience.

How to place Better Moment Bookmarks:

A. Turn your attention, with intention, to your experience taking it seriously, being descriptive and nonjudgmental.

B. Check in with all 5 senses and soothe yourself, if needed.

C. Be in the now, completely.

D. “Bookmark” the moment.

E. Regularly stop, remember, reflect, and relive the bookmark moments you’ve placed (especially during times of heightened stress and trauma).

Drive Your Attention

It may not feel this way, but we hold incredible power when we place ourselves in the driver’s seat of our attention, instead of letting it steer us away. We can most effectively do this by choosing one thing to pay attention to in the moment, like music or our breathing. Research shows that simply redirecting our attention can decrease cortisol levels (a hormone associated with stress) and significantly lower stress reactions while improving our mental health! Practice grabbing the wheel of your attention by listening to your favorite tunes, taking deep breaths, or simply enjoying the scenery! What else can you use to drive your attention?

Judgement Icebergs

We all make judgments about people, situations, and ourselves. Labels like “good, bad, right, wrong, and should” - explanations we tell ourselves about things we don’t yet understand. Like with icebergs, our attention is drawn to surface judgments when there is more beneath the surface we can’t see. Our attention holds on to the tip of the judgement iceberg triggering emotions and putting significant weight in our backpacks. When you notice yourself judging, practice describing what you see/feel and remind yourself there’s more you don’t know/can’t see.

Description is the antidote to judgment.

Identifying Primary & Secondary Emotions

Primary emotions are directly linked to the current situation, showing up in response to what's happening now, like feeling sad after a loss or disappointed when things don't go as planned. On the other hand, secondary emotions are learned over time or caused by judgments. Tackling these secondary emotions head-on is like trying to put out a fire by blowing air into it; instead, we can pinpoint the primary emotion and focus on acknowledging and managing these feelings.

Primary emotions stem directly from the core of our experiences without judgments. By tuning in to our primary emotions, we can figure out if we need to tweak our responses to each situation. This allows us to recognize when we want to lower the volume or change an emotion that is no longer helping us cope effectively.

Emotion Wave Surfing

Awareness. Acceptance. Allowance.

Think of emotions as waves that you need to ride or surf versus something to avoid, block, or run from. Recognizing that no wave or emotion is going to last forever can give you the courage to keep feeling and “surfing” it all the way through. Identify and then allow the emotions to go up and down naturally. By giving ourselves the green light to feel and “surf” our emotions, we can prevent a stress and trauma tsunami. After allowing your emotion waves, you can then more skillfully decide what to do next.

Opposite Action

Even though all emotions come with natural urges for actions, acting on those urges is not always wise. When emotions no longer ‘fit the facts’ of the current situation, it’s time to “unpack” them by allowing the emotion to exist while acting opposite to your urge, like staying put when your fear tells you to run away or avoid.

Opposite action can also be used with other emotions (e.g., shame, guilt) when we want to decrease the emotion by acting opposite to the urge it brings up. Here’s how:

A. Identify your emotion and decide whether it ‘fits the facts’.

B. Identify the urge that goes with the emotion.

C. Identify the action that is opposite to that urge.

D. Pick one low-intensity place, situation, or activity to start.

E. Practice safely exposing yourself to your emotion while engaging in the opposite action. Use your emotion wave surfing here too!

Showing Up (Validation)

Showing up to our relationships means actively recognizing other people’s experience and showing them that we get it. It’s listening to understand, accept and support, instead of giving our opinion. Recognize if you have an “inner fixer” that may try to solve someone’s problems instead of actively listening to understand and empathize with them. Show Up by saying that you get it, showing interest and curiosity or simply sharing the moment.

You can show up with a hug, a smile, a shoulder to lean on or validating words. Don’t forget to ‘Show Up’ for yourself too by slowing down to take your experience seriously and reminding yourself that it makes sense to feel as you do.

Speak Up (Accurate Expression)

It is hard to talk about how we feel and “unpack” the loads we carry with someone else. Doing so has incredible benefits for our well-being and deepens our connection with others.

Speaking Up means sharing our experience and primary emotions with someone, without judging them or ourselves! Speaking Up isn’t venting, which can actually increase our distress. Speaking Up requires tuning in to your emotions and focusing on describing your experience. It is only by Speaking Up that others can ‘Show Up’ for us.

Balance Thinking & Emotion Systems

Our emotions and our brains are on all the time and one can often overwhelm the other making it hard to find reason in our emotions and recognize the feelings present when we are explaining things away. While there is no off button, we can pause to create some balance.

Our “Thinking” System includes your perceptions, thoughts, interpretations, etc. and is the core of logic, reason, and your ability to solve problems.
Our Emotion System includes sensations, emotions, action urges, facial expressions, etc.

Ask yourself these types of questions to help identify how both systems operate for you: “What is something valuable I’ve lost? What did it cost me?” (You’ll use your thinking system to answer this.) “What did this feel like?” (You’ll use your emotion system to answer this.)

Tapping into both systems helps keep them in balance.

Managing Grief

Grief is often made up of many emotions and thoughts that can feel overwhelming and is a natural and healthy process that honors the importance of what we have lost.

Grieving often requires using all the tools you’ve learned. Here are steps for managing grief:

A. Identify your loss.

B. Think about your loss.

C. Allow yourself to express and “surf” primary emotions.

D. If the emotions are too intense take a break/or distract but pledge to return to them when you’re ready.

E. Self-validate. “I’m going to be ok.”

F. Seek validation from others

G. Reactivate or rejoin the flow of your life.

Embrace Uncertainty

Our brains are wired to focus on the worst-case scenario. It’s a handy tool to protect us but it can turn against us when we act as if these negative outcomes are the only possibility.

Remember times when you weren’t sure or were afraid of something, but it turned out ok? For example, when you drove for the first time, took a first plane trip, passed a class, etc. Place Better Moment Bookmarks for these memories.

Practice trying new things (noticing judgment icebergs) even when there is uncertainty. Remind yourself that you do not yet know the outcome and that not knowing is OK.

When uncertainty is present, embracing it builds endurance!

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