It’s Safe to Go Slow: Jewelry as a Somatic Practice

My rings say “My needs matter” and “It’s safe to go slow”

I am a learner. And what that means to me is that I am always in the process of growing, making mistakes, learning from them, and growing some more.

One of the ways that I support myself in that is that I love to have jewelry that reminds me of what I’m working on. Lately I’ve been making rings. Right now I have a ring that says “My needs matter” and another one that says “It’s safe to go slow.” I have another one arriving today that says “Slow supported noticing” because that’s what I worked on with my somatics coach this week. I have bracelets that say “Water your hormones” and “That felt… Could you rephrase that?” to use in situations where someone offended me or hurt my feelings. I also have one that says the Serenity Prayer: “Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

If you’re interested in trying my jewelry reminder strategy: Here are the rings I’ve been using. I’ve also made some of these bracelets. I find that the rings are harder for my eyes to see as I get older, but even just looking at them reminds me of what they say. Also I try to look carefully at the font choices so that I can see what might be more legible. I find the bracelets easier to read but harder to deal with them being around my wrist while I’m typing. You can fit more on a bracelet, and I've used ChatGPT to try to find phrasing that resonates with the smallest amount of characters. In order to start making rings, first I bought myself one of these ring sizers. Let me know if you decide to try it!

Related Content

My name isn’t Laura: what mistakes can teach us

Songs for joy and growth mindset

Completing stress cycles

She’s like a walking, talking hug—except way smarter and with better advice

*“Okay, everybody, listen up—because I need you to understand how incredible Lara is.

Absolute legend. Total rockstar of a human. She’s like a walking, talking hug—except way smarter and with better advice. Seriously, if you’ve got a problem, she’ll solve it with science, love, and probably some magical fairy dust.

She’s basically a wizard. You got a kid who won’t sleep? She’ll fix it. A toddler with big feelings? She’s got you. A couple trying to keep their marriage strong while raising little chaos gremlins? She’s got strategies for days.

She knows everything about sleep—like, scientifically. She’s certified up the wazoo and customizes everything for every family, whether their kid is neurotypical or has unique challenges. And connection? Oh my God, she is the queen of helping families actually enjoy each other. She’s trained in all this brainy, therapeutic stuff, she teaches people how to massage their babies (which, by the way, is ADORABLE), and she literally helps parents not lose their minds.

But thriving? That’s her secret sauce. She’s got the degrees, the credentials, and the biggest heart. She knows how to break down overwhelming parenting stuff into tiny, manageable steps, and she’ll remind you that you’re doing better than you think.

Basically, she’s out here making the world a better, more rested, more connected place, one family at a time. If you don’t know her, you’re missing out. If you do, congratulations, you’ve already won at life. Cheers to her!”***********************

According to ChatGPT, this is what my drunk best friend would say about me and my business. I like it! 🤣 I added applicable links to relevant blog posts.

Imagine a world focused on strengths, playful learning, and empowered parents. Let's create it together.

Imagine a world where strengths shine, play fuels learning, and parents are trusted as experts. Let's build this world together!

The world I want to live in focused on strengths over deficits. It is focused not only on what is going wrong, but it focuses more often on what is going right. In the world that I want to live in, we have rules for children that are based on the behaviors that we do want rather than the ones that we don’t want.

In this world, we do not look at developmental charts of what a child should be doing at a certain age. We figure out where a child is at right now in this moment and what is the next step in their development. We look at what is motivating to the child, and we use those motivators to inspire learning. It uses a growth mindset and breaks tasks into small, doable pieces.

The world I want to live in is playful. In their book Bright from the Start, Stamm and Spencer say “the critical link between play and learning – the reason we repeat something and therefore learn from it – is pleasure.”

In my world, we value parents as being the experts in their family and in their children. We encourage and inspire them to be the people that know their children best and we value their opinion about what will work for their child. We create a culture that inspires people to get to know their child well, and to continue to get to know them as they change over time.

In the world that I want to live in, people know that it isn’t fair to expect someone to think clearly when their lid is flipped. And we all work together to help each other to manage our lid flipping experiences, and we build calming rituals for those tough moments.