Stress Hijacks Your Brain
Have you ever had moments when you reactively did or said something that FELT right in the moment, but some time later, you looked back and thought, “Why did I do that?”
For example,
A miscommunication with a friend spiraled out of control and became a painful two weeks of silence
You keep procrastinating with a project, even though you know a lot is on the line and you can’t afford to screw it up
The last thing you need as a person with social anxiety is to blush and word-fumble, but you just can’t stop
Sound familiar?
As a therapist, I see so many people who battle with anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, and emotional reactivity that often make already stressful life or relationship issues even messier.
When we’re overloaded by stress, we accumulate our emotions in our brain like unfinished leftover meals. In the moment, it’s easier to unconsciously try to save our emotions for later processing.
Of course, we rarely get around to actually doing that. We soon forget that we have leftovers to finish, only to rediscover them when things start to stink and find that it’s morphed into something unrecognizable. By then, it’s a real mess.
The good news? Brainspotting is a great resource to help you do a deep clean and get unstuck from the emotional reactivity that leads to self-sabotaging behaviors.
Brainspotting & EMDR
I am a Certified Brainspotting Therapist.
Completed Phases 1, 2, and 3 & Expansion training
I am also trained in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reproressing) Trauma Therapy.
Brainspotting soothes emotional reactivity
Brainspotting is great if you:
Wrestle with BIG emotions (anxiety, guilt, shame, anger)
Shut down emotionally and check out of life and relationships (numbness)
Get triggered easily and do things you later regret
React to situations with FIGHT, FLIGHT, or FREEZE
Feel confused, scared, and ashamed about how you react
The good news is that your body already knows how to heal itself. It just needs a boost to restart.
As a Certified Brainspotting Therapist, I can help you declutter all the emotional STUFF that’s clogging up your head space so that you can be fully present to enjoy and focus on what really matters to you!
Less Reacting, More Relaxing!
What Brainspotting helps with
Brainspotting channels your body’s natural ability to heal itself from overwhelming or stressful experiences that generate symptoms of anxiety or depression. It leverages your specific eye positions linked to stress memories and lets the body “detox” off the residues.
In other words, I help people:
discover where those leftovers are stored in their brain
process them fully to soothe their body, so that they can
access/utilize healthy coping skills
What’s interesting is that your body knows how to do this on an instinctual level, since where you look affects how you feel.
Consider the “thousand-yard stare”. You may have seen veterans or terminal illness patients stare off blankly into space, detached from what’s happening around them.
They're not really looking AT anything, of course, because their focus is directed inward towards their thoughts, emotions, body sensations, or memories. They’re gazing in a certain direction:
Left vs. middle vs. right
Top vs. middle vs. down
Close vs. far
This is an example of Brainspotting (specifically gazespotting), when the body spontaneously goes into processing mode.
However, the issue is that people can accidentally disconnect from their present, further trigger themselves, and make reactive decisions that feel right in the moment but make matters worse.
For example, someone who was triggered by what a coworker said may ruminate on that throughout the day, get even more angry, ashamed, and confused, then come home and kick the dog.
We often judge and label that person as having “anger issues,” not knowing that this might actually be a trauma response. This doesn’t justify the behavior, but shaming the person doesn’t help them heal and doesn’t serve anyone (not even the dog). If we get to the root cause and heal that directly, then everyone benefits.
How does Brainspotting work?
Processing big emotions can feel lonely, overwhelming, and out of control. Instead of trying to manage your reactivity (and failing), use Brainspotting Therapy to process your pain on purpose with specific eye positions that expedite your emotional processing in a safe, contained space.
Don’t split your attention between sorting your emotions internally while trying not to make a mess externally. This doesn’t work! Instead, direct ALL your focus on your internal processing while I (as the Brainspotting therapist) handle whatever happens on the outside.
No need to worry about messing things up or hurting me, because:
I am devoted to your healing (this is no one space but yours)
I am trained to deal with all that comes up (it’s okay if you don’t know what’s happening)
I’m not scared of big emotions (no need to take care of me).
You focus on taking care of you. I got you covered!
Kick reactivity to the curb!
Schedule your consultation call now!
Join me and Lauren LaSalle as we talk on her podcast The Highly Sensitive Podcast about three ways to calm your nervous system as a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).