You are Much More than What Happened to You!
Do you play out a scenario out in your mind a million times? Do you create ways to respond differently to the scenario, but no matter how hard you try, you still feel the hard feelings. If so, you’re not alone! If you’re human and living in the twenty first century, you've seen some s@#* and your body and nervous system is to trying to work through it.
If you’re anything like me, paying attention to the over arching cultural messages we get about therapy, healing, and self-care, you’re bombarded with conflicting messages. You might be left confused. You might see messages, “SuperMom” and in the same breath “Self-Care-put your needs first'“. One part of you that wants to heal is fighting with the part that wants to push through it and follow your social role. You may feel guilty for taking time for yourself and at the same time feel like you’re dropping the ball on being a mom. The end result, you tend to put the blame on yourself for feeling so anxious, on edge, tired, and feeling sad. We tend to think, oh it’s ‘us’. You might say, “Well, what is the common denominator, is me”.
You tend to go deeper into a self-blame cycle and then work harder, but then feel exhausted and back to where you feel you started. There is a fine line. I believe in taking personal responsibility for your life and healing, and it’s crucial to look at how your body, brain, and nervous system is naturally adjusting to situation and environment. Our brains are wired funny sometimes and organizes experiences, feelings, and sensations in a wonky way. For example, if we experience something that makes us scared either physically, emotionally, or psychologically, your our brain stores all of the information in different spots like (BCDA) versus storing it (ABCD). For more great information on mental health and how brain works please check out Carissa Weber’s blog, thatdarnamydala. The disorganized storage pattern may cause you to feel disconnected and stuck in a loop.
The stuck brain loop is extremely frustrating, for many of us. I need to geek out a second with you all. Your brain, body, and nervous system work together like a beautiful orchestra. Each naturally knowing what to do and support each other to make the unique song that’s you. But when the brain stored experiences in a disorganized way, the brain is not talking to the body, the body is not sending the right signals, and your nervous system is playing everything at 10x the speed. Your song might sound very different. And this particular song does not define you or is even you. It’s how your body, brain, and nervous system is responding to what happened to you.
The one thing I wish my clients knew about themselves is that you are not your song. Actually you are much more than that. You’re brave courageous, a cycle breaker, self-healer, and absolutely beautiful. After 11 years as working as a therapist (LMFT) and registered expressive arts therapist the one thing I continually see is that my clients confuse the the current song with who they are. In therapy, I help them reorganize how their brain stored the hard event so that their brain, body, and nervous system can naturally and organically make a new song. That is when my client taps into who they really are and see that they are MUCH more than the one single song loop.
