How to activate our social engagement nerve via our senses

We have a nerve called the “smart vagus”, which helps us to self regulate and connect with others. Without this complex engagement nerve we would simply run away or fight other people. Imagine that for a second – we basically would become extinct real quick as we couldn’t handle getting close to anyone!

Our inner ear, face muscles, eyes, mouth, throat and vocal cords  are all connected to our heart, lungs, throat and digestive system and tell them to stay calm so we can stay close and connected with a person without having to go into fight or flight.

When we engage our senses and look around us, listen to sounds or voices, speak or sing, feel a smile on our lips and our cheeks we are activating our smart vagus and can relax into staying close and connected with others. A good life starts with staying close to good people around us.

So get out and engage and nourish your senses J

Why nourishing your own senses as therapist is important

When I work with a client I try to work with all senses, especially when using visualization – the experience then becomes real and so the brain can build a strong new neural connection that serves the person on a higher and much more positive level.

And so that I can do this work with creativity and light humor (especially when working on dark and deep trauma) it is important that I make sure I nourish my own senses every day. I love looking at shapes and nature around me,  I discover new amazing sights every day, allow pleasant sound waves to tickle my ear, touch surfaces and give hugs, tease my taste buds, enjoy moving every joint and muscle in my body via yoga, stretch my arms out wide to take in the sky, breath and spaciousness around me, sing and dance and close my eyes to track sensations inside my body. All this gets me away from the to-do-lists in my head, I connect via my heart with my surroundings  and I find myself playing and enjoying life.

Here is my poem to encourage you to play:

I venture out to play

creating a feast for my senses

My fingers brushed by the wind

while hands delight in shapes of stone

and eyes eagerly following every form

My feet in softness and warmth

leave footsteps of deep behind

Sound waves are tickling my hair

and water cascading over rocks

transforms my belly into an ecstasy of joy

I reach out and my eyes touch endless space

                                                By Barbara Schmidt

Gratefulness

James and Denise Blackwell have been so welcoming and nice to me and they even put an add for me into the local Denmark paper. Have now officially two days in Albany and two in Denmark for my new practice. Very happy and so grateful! Still taking it all in bit by bit. Thank you!

Building new neural connections in your brain with corrective embodied experiences

What I love about my work these days is providing corrective experiences for my clients. Grieving about what has gone wrong in life or has been missing and neglected is a part of counselling, but it is also necessary to make use of the plasticity of our brain: 

Our brain can build new neural connections throughout life, especially in times of transitions (becoming a parent, puberty, moving to a new location, changes in life) and so it is really important to give my clients new positive experiences so the brain can build these new positive pathways. Otherwise one follows the old negative "highways" in the brain that always lead to worrying, fear, tension, depression and anxiety.

 It starts for my clients with feeling save in counselling sessions with me as their therapist (trust your gut instincts as a client and don't continue therapy if you don't "click" with your therapist), being in a carefully created beautiful environment, helping the discovery of resources in themselves and around them and creating or remembering safe places and supportive people in their lives. I assist remembering these with all senses so it can become a lived and embodied experience that can be taken back into every day life. Here I often use simple techniques I learnt in EMDR which strengthens the new pathways immediately. Once the new neural pathway has been created my clients are encouraged to start using this new pathway as often as possible between sessions so that an alternative inviting road can be created in addition to the good old negative highways in our brain. In the beginning the new pathway will be thin like a path only trodden once, but when you start walking down that new lane more often it will become a visible track. And the more you use it, the bigger and wider and easier to walk it will become until one day the old highways are no longer attractive. Life is so much better when you can travel on new nourishing routes. Save and happier travels!

Why we have information missing after trauma and how to recall it savely by going very slow

In trauma everything happens very quickly. So fast indeed, that our brain can’t store all the information correctly: Missing pieces, incorrect facts and confusion result in incoherence in the story and we often draw conclusions that can have a very limiting and negative effect on the rest our of our life.

The good news is, that all the information necessary for healing is stored in the body and can be gently accessed with a therapist who is trained to work with sensations. And instead of going fast in therapy it’s necessary to go very slow when tracking these sensations. The slower, the faster is the healing in the end. This is something that still amazes me, but has been confirmed over and over again with my clients.

If the information emerges slowly, the brain is given a chance to store it correctly this time, new meaning can be added to our story and instead of feeling like a victim we come out feeling powerful and in charge of our lives. I would like to celebrate this with a photo from artist and writer Leunig:

Avoiding re-traumatization

I have been noticing that for many traumatized clients talking about the event actually deepens trauma and further cements it into their system.  If the intense physical reactions locked in our body after an event aren’t discharged clients can become stuck in a vicious cycle of fight, flight or freeze upheld by the reptilian brain. Instead of re-traumatizing a client by urging them to follow overwhelming details of their story, I listen and watch for what the body needs to do to move out of the state of shock and distress. With the right gentle support our body can be coaxed back to its natural self-regulation and balance, making use of the nervous systems natural resilience.