The 5 Guiding Questions

These are 5 questions that can be helpful when checking in with yourself; you can think of them as a step by step of 'how to feel your feelings'. (It's important to note: there are many ways to do this, some of them detailed in my blog, some not. This is just ONE way you might choose to engage with your inner world). These questions are slight variations on the 5 Guiding Questions that were developed and taught to me by Nkem Ndefo as part of The Resilience Toolkit, designed to support people who can't step away from their lives to find healing, and instead to teach and encourage practical skills to be used 'in the quiet fatigue of ordinary overwhelm'.

They are simple and effective, and can be used even in the midst of a very busy or chaotic life. You don't need a full hour of yoga everytime you're dysregulated. Sometimes you just need 30 seconds to check in with yourself, and attend to whatever you find.

1) What is my state right now?

2) How do I know?

3) Is my state useful for me right now?

4) If not, what practice could I do that would help?

5) How will I know if it worked?

Let's explore each of these questions a bit.

1) What is my state?

You might prefer the version that Nkem uses: 'what is my stress level right now?' Consider what you are experiencing - interupt the cycle by stopping to take a breath and getting curious.

2) How do I know?

What is actually happening in your body when you are in this current state? It might be that your body is tense and tight, it might be that you feel dissociated or disconnected, or maybe you have a knot in your stomach. What cues are telling you what your state is?

This is a great place to stop if you are new to practices like this, or just want to start to build up an understanding of what is actually happening to you on a day-to-day basis and how your body responds to your environment. It invites us to engage our interoceptive muscles, and take a moment to be with ourselves. For those of us who spend a lot of time turned outwards (exterocepting!) this can be a really helpful practice to begin. It might be that you set an alarm on your phone to check in with yourself, or decide you will do it at 3pm each day. If this already sounds overwhelming - start small, build up.

3) Is my state useful for me right now?

This is why I love Nkem's Guiding Questions. This question directly addresses what a lot of trauma healing modalities ignore - sometimes your state is completely adaptive. Insisting that any reaction you have must need to be shifted or regulated is not just unhelpful, it's dangerous. It encourages you to disconnect from your agency, to distrust your reactions, to minimise what might actually be keeping you safe, and in some cases is used as a control tactic. Shaming you for your responses trains you to disconnect and repress. This question asks us to consider our relationship to our environment, and if we discover our reaction is exactly what it should be, to allow the experience without shame.

4) If not, what practice could I do that would help?

If you decide that you are fundamentally safe, that your state is not currently helpful for you, what might be helpful to shift you into a state that matches your situation? If you're say, safe at home, with no current threat to your safety, but you're incredibly anxious, what practice could you try that might help move that energy? There are many other places (on this blog and others) to explore different regulation practices, but the key thing here is to know that your nervous system responds quickly. If you try a breathing practice and after 30 seconds, you feel no different/worse, let it go, perhaps you try a movement practice instead. If you go for a fast walk and your anxiety is worse, stop, try something slower. You get the picture. Try it for a short period of time, don't push through if it is not helping you.

[If you're interested in exploring building up a toolkit for yourself, check out my Reclaim resources or pop me an email if you'd like to work together. This is work that is highly personal and one size definitely does not fit all. I cannot say that enough. What works for someone else might dysregulate you even further - your body is the most important source of information you have!]

5) How will I know if it worked?

Once you have tried a practice, return to your body. Has something shifted? If you feel even the tiniest better, this is great information. If you feel even the tiniest bit worse, that is also great information. Return back to your body each time you engage with a practice, use that information to guide what you do next.

That's it, those are the questions. Give them a go, see what shifts.