I know we therapists talk about feelings a lot, but there's a reason! Did you know that just putting a name or label to what you are feeling reduces the activity in the emotion center of your brain? Sounds like magic! But it’s just user-friendly brain science. Maybe you’ve heard the phrase "What's mentionable is manageable." Drs. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson boiled down this complicated neurobiological process to a strategy they called Name...
What to do when life is hard
As I have been connecting with people lately, one theme keeps coming up... Life is hard right now. There’s an exercise I have been doing in workshops lately that has been really meaningful - and it changes your brain chemistry! If at all possible, will you pause with me for 3 minutes? [smartslider3 slider="1"] If that’s all you have time for, keep going with your day knowing that you just activated the caregiving part of...
Imagine with Hope
We are talking all month long about nurturing the upstairs brain. This week, we have been focusing on our thought life. It’s a funny thing to talk about nurturing the brain by using our brain differently, but since all our thoughts, feelings, and behavior comes from the brain, we need to think about our thoughts. Picture books can be surprisingly helpful in that effort… “You look a little worried, kiddo,” Zoey’s mom said, giving her...
How Do I Hug my Brain?
Is your brain tired? Mine is! We thought 2021 was going to be better than the infamous 2020, but it was rough!! Now here we are just a few days into 2022, and I’m sitting (all masked up) in the doctor’s office waiting for chest x-ray results. I hope your year is off to a better start, but it seems like everywhere I turn, folks are dealing with really heavy stuff. I’ve been thinking about...