↝ At the Threshold · Monthly Practice Tip

Five minutes that can change everything about your session

Before your next session, give yourself a brief threshold moment — a small, intentional transition from the pace of the day into the sacred space of your own healing.

  • 1 Set aside 5–10 minutes. Find a quiet place and bring something to write with.
  • 2 Light a candle or offer yourself a small gesture that marks this moment as a crossing — from ordinary time into intentional space.
  • 3 Breathe fully. Let each exhale set something down. Feel your body begin to settle and soften.
  • 4 Notice what arises — a question you've been carrying, something that needs to be said, a feeling without words yet. Write a few honest touchpoints. Nothing needs to be polished.
  • 5 Enter your session already a little more connected to yourself — present, open, and available to your own insight.

You've given yourself the gift of this time. This is how you receive it fully.

↝ An Invitation to Know Yourself

What kind of tired are you?

Not all tired is the same tired. And not all rest will restore what's actually been depleted. Below is a gentle map — eight kinds of fatigue, each asking for something different. Read through slowly. Notice where something in you quietly says yes — that's it. Then try one small thing and see what you learn.

Mental
Emotional
Physical
Spiritual
Energetic
Sensory
Social
Creative
What it feels like

Try this

↗ Wild Women Project Circle · Wholly Wild with Stephanie

Gentle Nervous System
Integration Techniques

These practices will assist in grounding and processing the potentially intense, liberating energy that often arises in our work together. Choose what calls to you. There is no wrong way to begin.

Somatic Grounding 3 practices
Breath & Vocalization 3 practices
Gentle Movement & Release 3 practices
Vagus Nerve Nourishment 3 practices

↗ Wholly Wild with Stephanie · Sacred Tools

Body-Based Regulation Menu

Use this before reaching out, reacting, or withdrawing. You don’t need to do all of these — pick 1 or 2 that your body responds to. Select a category below that matches what you’re feeling right now.
Grounding anxiety · urgency · panic
Discharging Activation anger · agitation · restlessness
Orienting to Safety relational threat · disconnect
Settling & Self-Contact emotional pain · loneliness
Pick 1–2 that feel right
↗ A helpful question to carry

“What does my body need before I reach out to someone else?”

↝ A Somatic Resource

When life asks more than you expected to give

There are seasons when something consuming enters the picture — a challenge that doesn't resolve quickly, a situation that touches every corner of your life. The body responds to sustained difficulty the same way it responds to immediate threat: with activation, with vigilance, with charge that has nowhere to go. These tools are designed to work with that reality directly. They are not about becoming okay with what's hard. They are about staying rooted in yourself — in your whole self — while you move through it.

↝ A Practical Map

Tools for the nervous system

Choose a category below. Each one addresses a different layer of what sustained difficulty asks of the body and mind. You don't need to use them all — notice where something in you says yes, that's where I am. Start there.

In the Moment
Release
The Mind
Your Whole Self
Before & After

↝ Practices

↗ Wholly Wild with Stephanie · Sacred Tools

Your Inner River: Meeting the Vagus Nerve

A guide to calming and reconnecting with your body's natural safety system

What it is

The vagus nerve is like a river flowing from your brainstem through your face, throat, heart, lungs, and belly. It helps regulate your breathing, heart rate, digestion, and emotional state — guiding your body between protection and peace.

When life feels threatening or overwhelming, this nerve can send your body into fight, flight, or shutdown. When it’s soothed, it tells your system:

"It's safe to rest. You can come home now."
Breath & Sound
Gentle Movement
Heart–Belly Connection
Orienting the Senses
Cold & Calm
↗ Everyday Practice

Create a short ritual — just a minute or two — morning, mid-day, and evening. Think of it as training your nervous system the same way you’d train for endurance: with rhythm, patience, and care.

Your vagus nerve is your body’s bridge between mind and spirit, effort and ease. The more often you send it signals of safety, the more it learns that peace is your new baseline.

↗ Wholly Wild with Stephanie · Sacred Tools

Daily Discernment Ritual

A holistic practice for strengthening intuition and inner clarity

Morning Grounding
Energetic Clearing
Intuitive Body Scan
Intention & Inquiry
Sacred Dialogue
Embodied Yes / No
Evening Reflection
The practice

Trigger & nervous system mapping

A working map for noticing what activates you, what shows up in your body, the story underneath, what you do next, and what would feel more like you. Fill in what applies; everything is optional.

1

Identify the trigger

What set this off? Triggers can come from inside you, or from something outside.

Internal

External

2

Notice the body

Check what's showing up physically right now.

Techniques to bring more balance — tap to open

Somatic
  • Hand on chest or belly, notice the rise and fall
  • Self-hug or cross-arm squeeze, hold 20–30 sec
  • 5-4-3-2-1 grounding: 5 things you see, 4 you touch, 3 you hear
  • Press feet firmly into the floor, notice the contact
Breath
  • Physiological sigh: two short inhales through the nose, one long exhale through the mouth
  • Extend the exhale longer than the inhale (inhale 4, exhale 8)
  • Box breathing: inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4
  • Hum or sigh audibly on the exhale
Movement
  • Shake out hands, arms, or whole body for 30–60 sec
  • Gentle spinal twist, seated or standing
  • Push against a wall with both hands for 10 sec, release
  • Walk, even just pacing the room
Sound
  • Hum a low steady tone for 30 sec (stimulates the vagus nerve)
  • Gargle water for 20–30 sec
  • Sing or chant a single sustained note
  • Listen to low-frequency, slow-tempo music
Vagal toning
  • Splash cold water on the face, or hold a cold object briefly
  • Slow, extended exhales paired with a soft, unfocused gaze
  • Gentle neck and ear massage
  • Orient slowly: turn your head side to side, notice the room
3

Name the automatic thought or belief

What story or belief is running underneath? Tap one to see where it tends to come from.

Often forms when early caregivers were inconsistent or unsafe to rely on. Shows up as over-functioning, doing everything alone, or struggling to ask for help.
Often forms when needs were met with withdrawal or dismissal. Shows up as shrinking your asks or going quiet instead of requesting support.
Often tied to conditional approval or comparison growing up. Shows up as overworking or difficulty resting until something is "earned."
Often forms after neglect, exclusion, or harm internalized as personal fault. Shows up as discomfort receiving care or self-sabotage.
Often forms where mistakes were met with punishment or withdrawal of love. Shows up as harsh self-criticism and fear of being seen as flawed.
Often forms when emotional expression was punished or overwhelmed others. Shows up as numbing or feeling disconnected from your feelings.
Often forms in caretaking or parentified-child roles. Shows up as people-pleasing and difficulty setting limits.
Often forms after chronic threat, instability, or betrayal. Shows up as hypervigilance or difficulty relaxing.
4

Notice the behavior

What action did you take, or want to take?

5

What would feel more aligned (optional)

Less reactive, more responsive — what's closer to your true self here?

Choice words for feelings: calm, grounded, safe, curious, soft, steady, open, clear, connected, spacious, settled, trusting.

Choice words for the body: loose jaw, warm hands, easy breath, soft belly, relaxed shoulders, steady heartbeat, grounded feet, open chest.

I'd like to feel:

I'd like to respond by:

↗ Wholly Wild with Stephanie · Sacred Tools

Holding Grief: A Companion for the Waves

There is no right way to grieve, and no timeline it should follow.

This is not a tool meant to move you through grief faster, or to organize it into something tidy. Grief doesn't work that way, and it was never meant to. What follows are three small offerings: a way to find what your body or heart might need in this particular moment, some language for the different shapes grief can take, and a few gentle ways to stay present in your body while it moves through you. Take only what's useful. Leave the rest.

1
Begin Here
Where are you right now?

Grief asks for different things on different days — sometimes different things within the same hour. Choose whichever feels closest to where you are right now.

I'm in the wave it's hitting hard right now
I feel numb foggy · far away · flat
I need to not be alone but I can't reach out yet
I need to function today there are things I still must do
I want to remember to feel close to what I've lost
I have something unspeakable guilt · relief · rage · the unsaid

What might help
2
Understanding
The many shapes of grief

Grief rarely looks the way we expect. So much relief can come simply from having language for what's actually happening inside you. See if anything here feels familiar.

The Wave
Anticipatory Grief
Disenfranchised Grief
Ambiguous Loss
Secondary Losses
Anniversary Grief
What it feels like

3
In the Body
Staying present while it moves through you

These aren't meant to make grief smaller or move faster. They're meant to help you stay in your body — rooted, breathing, here — while the grief does what grief does.

When It's Overwhelming the wave is cresting
When You Feel Far Away numb · foggy · disconnected
To Stay Connected ritual · remembrance
To Get Through the Day function · carry on gently
Try one or two
↗ A Closing Thought

Grief is not a problem to solve. It is love with nowhere to go yet. Be patient with the parts of you still learning where to put it.

This tool offers companionship, not clinical treatment. If grief feels unbearable or unsafe to carry alone, please reach out to a grief counselor, therapist, or trusted support — you don't have to hold this by yourself.