Brain Matter

Several years ago, I had the privilege of learning from Dr. Tina Payne Bryson and have used her and Dr. Siegel’s research in my practice.

I’ll often share with clients that we all have early blueprints shaped by our early experiences, what was modeled to us (directly and indirectly) which informed the way we see the world, relationships and ourselves.

Research shows that the brain (how we think, feel, act) is shaped by genes and experience. This means that we hold tremendous power to create new experiences for the brain! Dr. Bryson calls parents, educators, clinicians, etc. “brain architects” (what a privilege and honor that we should approach humbly). As children’s brains are forming, these brain architects impact how the brain becomes built and can impact how it shifts over time.

HOW DOES THE BRAIN CHANGE? THE 5 LAWS OF NEURAL PLASTICITY

-Mass practice: doing something over and over, events that are longer in duration and more frequent in time; if we don’t use it, we lose it (for example, 2 hrs of tennis 1x/week for 6 months vs 3 hrs of teens 2x/week for 3 months) This is often why I often encourage weekly sessions for the consistency and constancy it provides to relearn and unlearn.

-Novelty: this is why trauma is so significant in its impact even if it is a single incident. The brain is not familiar therefore it pays attention evaluating whether it is safe or not.

-Focal Attention: “Where attention goes, neurons fire, and where neurons fire, they wire.”-Dan Siegel; this is an effective way in changing the brain. This is a crucial contribution of therapy in helping change the brain. Repeated experiences of attention through empathy over time changes the brain.

-Unlearning old way: the brain takes the past of least resistance which means it will choose neuronal networks that are familiar even they are not helpful. Bringing awareness and insight into these old ways/familiar patterns offers a chance to choose a different way that is more beneficial.

-Sleep, exercise: cannot be minimized how important these are to brain health!

When the brain’s two hemispheres (left: logic, literal and right: whole picture-context, senses emotion and body info) works together, it allows differences to be honored while also promoting connection. If not, we are totally disconnected from ourselves (body and emotion) or overly flooded.

Integration is important because without it we are disintegrated and experience the world with chaos or rigidity. When we are integrated, we are Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized, Stable (FACES) which is a good definitely of mental health. These are things that I seek to help build for my clients in their daily lives.

The wonderful thing about learning about how our brains work is that we can identify things we can improve upon and know it is possible! Nothing is sealed in stone.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

from The Peace of Wild Things And Other Poems (Penguin, 2018)

The Only Life You Could Save

The Journey

Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice-

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations-

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already Late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do-

determined to save

the only life you could save.

Our Work

Yes! No!

Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth. I think serenity is not something you just find in the world, like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like small dark lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not In haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out

Yes! No! The

swan, for all his pomp, his robes of glass and petals, wants only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

---

“What do you notice?” “What is/was that like for you?” “What is happening right now as you share this?” Our inner world tells us much and insight allows us to know ourselves and this awareness creates the ability to make choices. This work is endless because we have much to see and hear and learn and understand. This work is proper because it brings us home.

Our Ladder

“State creates Story.” -Dr. Stephen Porges

Over the last several years, I have begun to educate my clients on Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory. This theory shows how our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) shapes our experiences of safety and impacts our ability for connection. Having this information through mindful attunement to our bodies allows us to be active in our Nervous System response to situations which allows us to feel empowered.

A ladder is a helpful picture for the daily movements our ANS makes. The top of the ladder is when we feel safety and connection. If we experience something threatening like a frown on a stranger’s face, we may move down the ladder to a “mobilized” state. The goal of our ANS is to get back to safety so we may flee the situation by avoiding the stranger or become aggressive and frown back so they know not to continue their “threatening” behavior. If we do not feel like those actions have brought us back to feeling safe (the top of the ladder), we move further down into an “immobilized” state which might involve freezing. Each part of the ladder requires different responses to get back to the top.

Stories of who we are and how the world works begins in the ANS. We take in information from our environment through our body and then our brain which translates/encodes the information into beliefs.

information from environment —> body —> brain —> beliefs

If we bring in information that seems threatening, the message/belief is “I am unsafe” “I am in danger”. If we have information that tells us there is no threat, the message/belief is “I am safe” “I can be at ease”. As Dr. Porges teaches, “State creates story.”

Sometimes we may interpret information as dangerous when it is not because of previous experiences and trauma. We may become hypervigilant and be primed to see things that are dangerous when they aren’t. Our brain and NS job will always be to keep us safe. When our safety has been threatened, our NS response to keep us safe may unintentionally negatively impact our sense of being in the world and with other people.

There is hope! We can work with our nervous system to bring it back to feeling safe (getting back to the top of the ladder) so we can evaluate situations and people with more accuracy and trust we have the capability and capacity to care for and protect ourselves while being in the world and in relationships.

Radical Acceptance

“Reality is your friend and sometimes your friend is ugly.” My friend Jeremy says this often. Sometimes reality suits us and other times it’s a nightmare. One of the most impactful skills in my own life and the lives of my clients is learning to radically accept what is happening. (The following is from a training I attended led by Lane Pederson, Psy.D, LP, DBTC)

We all have choices to make when life is painful including:

• Change painful situations when you can

• Shift your perspective of the situation

• Radically accept the situation

• Continue to suffer

What does it look like to radically accept? You have a choice (taking responsibility for your situation even if you did not cause/create it) to meet reality exactly where its at. Acceptance does NOT mean I have to 1) like the situation or 2) agree with it. It means I do not fight reality.

Radical Acceptance:

• Freedom from suffering requires acceptance of “what is”

• Acceptance may still mean tolerating pain

• Acceptance frees psychological and emotional resources to move forward

If we refuse to accept reality, we expend much energy in our resistance. Acceptance is about empowerment to free up psychological resources in order to heal. The gift we can all give to ourselves.

You Can Do Hard Things

One of the components of DBT is distress tolerance. All of us have a range of what we feel we can or cannot tolerate, when we have reached or passed our internal threshold. As an introvert, my threshold for being around people is less than an extravert’s. These are helpful to know so that I can better care for myself as I interact with the world around me. Another area of learning tolerance is when we feel distress. Sometimes the pain can feel so intolerable that we resort to unhelpful ways of coping.

We are all doing our best and we can all do better. We offer ourselves compassion that we are doing the best with what we have and where we are AND that we are responsible for solving problems in our lives (even if we did not create them).

Life isn’t pain free (unfortunately). Pain and discomfort are a part of life (unfortunately). A necessary skill as we move through life is learning to be with something uncomfortable without changing it. In an age of high speed and instant gratification, we struggle with our ability to sit with (tolerate) discomfort.

Distress tolerance teaches:

• Ability to tolerate painful emotion

• Distraction without avoiding

• Pathways to other skills

• Action instead of reaction

• Managing crisis without making it worse

Tolerating pain and discomfort allows you to learn what you’re truly capable of, to experience empowerment and to see your own agency impact your life.

You've Got Skills

One life on this earth is all we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.

-Frederich Buechner

There are many reasons to begin therapy. I do think for most people the core reasoning is that they want more from life and for themselves. And even if they may not be able to articulate it, I find that along the journey, it is something they move towards. There are many things within and without our jurisdiction that may thwart this desire and cause us to feel stuck.

Often times in order to do the deeper work of healing, a client may need to grow their internal resources by adding more to their toolkit. For this, I have enjoyed referring clients to Jennifer Wu, LCSW to gain the skills to help them become unstuck and bring those skills into our sessions to do deeper work. It’s been a very rewarding collaboration and our clients have benefitted greatly.

Jennifer specializes in Dialetical Behavior Therapy (DBT) which helps clients learn skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance (managing crisis and stress in life without making it worse), emotional regulation (helping clients balance and regulate their emotions, skills to increase positive emotion) and interpersonal effectiveness (self respect, building relationships, learning to become appropriately assertive to get needs and wants met without demanding). These skills grow inner confidence and security that empowers one to move about the world trusting their own ability and capacity to figure it out.

In future posts, I’ll describe a bit more of these different aspects of DBT.