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Let’s Talk Codependency

October 19, 2022/0 Comments/in Addiction Treatment, Anxiety, depression, Louisville Health and Healing News, Mental Health, Recovery, Relationship Advice/by Louisville Health and Healing

Codependency is a term that refers to a type of imbalanced relationship, specifically when one or more people in a relationship over-rely on each other’s thoughts and feelings to define their own thoughts and feelings.

To understand why codependency occurs, we have to first start by looking at self-regulation. Self-regulation skills are various strategies we have learned to understand and manage our behaviors and reactions to feelings and things happening around us – essentially, how you emotionally regulate your own nervous system.

When we struggle to self-regulate, understandably, our body and mind seeks out something to help manage our emotions. Some people can become overly reliant on others in their efforts to manage their emotions, leading to codependency in their relationships.

So, how can we help each other in a healthy way, in times of distress?

Co-regulation is when a person is able to emotionally self-regulate enough to be able to help another person emotionally regulate – how your nervous system can affect another person’s nervous system. This is often characterized by warm and responsive interactions that provide support to another person.

Co-regulation is highly effective and can look many different ways, but it requires that each person involved knows how to self-regulate. Otherwise, the partnership is imbalanced. The good news is that self-regulation skills can continually be learned and bettered!

If you notice that you often over-rely on others and you would like to improve your self-regulation skills, speak to your therapist! That is a space where your therapist can help you learn new skills and explore what works best for you or what might be inhibiting your ability to use certain self-regulation skills. We are here to support you!

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What Can We Learn From a Dandelion?

October 1, 2022/0 Comments/in Creativity, Louisville Health and Healing News, Mental Health, Spirituality/by Louisville Health and Healing

“Dandelions don’t know whether they are a weed or a brilliance. But each seed can create a field of dandelions…We are invited to be that prolific.” – Adrienne Maree Brown

The plants that we often refer to as weeds are also known as pioneer plants. They are the hardy plants that pave the way towards healing in an area of earth that has been traumatized and wounded. We often see these in our yards and in the cracks of our sidewalks, because in all reality, that is not the way that the earth wants to function.

Weeds, though we may see them as annoying, serve as a reminder that what we like (our pretty landscaped yards, paved driveways, and sidewalks) may not be what is really healthy and healing for the bigger “us” – the earth and world we rest on.

Why does this matter and how does it relate to mental health?

Well, in many ways.

Much like a dandelion, we hold more potential, strength, and capability in our bodies than we may acknowledge or believe. Just as the dandelion blooms and grows and changes into its new puff-ball self, and then waits patiently for a breeze to help it take its next steps – our process of healing and growing may not be straightforward. It might look brilliant and easy for a while, then become difficult, and then perhaps seem to stagnate and annoyingly refuse to budge. Perhaps, the whole time, the ups and downs and all, we were growing towards something – even in the waiting times.

Or maybe like the resilient weed we are a pioneer – paving the way for change and healing in our own lives and in our communities. When met with opposition or hardships, we have the heart and strength to continue forward.

And maybe, like the misunderstood weed, our body and emotions tell us important things about what we need as we are healing and growing. Those things might not always feel good, be easy, or make sense in the moment – but when we attend to them and listen to them, we might be able to heal in new and incredible ways over time.

Or perhaps like the annoying but incredible weeds – we can be more than one thing. Maybe we can be nervous but also sure of our strengths. We can be unkind but also incredibly loving. We can struggle but also survive. Two things can exist at once within us – we can know this and be reassured.

The dandelion weed reminds us that we are invited to be prolific, to be a pioneer, to be resilient, to break down paths and form new ones. You can be many things at once and that’s beautiful.

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The Power of Storytelling: How it changes our brains and hearts

October 1, 2022/0 Comments/in Creativity, Louisville Health and Healing News, Mental Health, Spirituality/by Louisville Health and Healing

Throughout time, storytelling has held significant power and cultural importance. Written and oral storytelling is the means through which generations of wisdom, traditions, practical information, and values have been passed down and preserved over time.

Stories hold incredible power in our lives.

“As far as the brain is concerned, there is an impressive body of evidence to demonstrate how it has evolved over time as essentially a storied organ.”
– Jeffrey A. Kottler

In humans and in primate species, there exists something called mirror neurons. These brain cells are related to empathy, social behavior, and the ability to imitate – they function as a core part of human learning and connection. These neurons allow our brain to imagine physically and emotionally what another person’s experience is like.

Giacomo Rizzolatti, the neurophysiologist that discovered these neurons explains, “We are social beings. Our survival depends on our understanding the actions, intentions, and emotions of others. Mirror neurons allow us to understand other people’s mind, not only through conceptual reasoning but through imitation. Feeling, not thinking.”

We learn through vicarious and empathetic means – through watching others or imagining others’ experiences.

We watch a person enjoy an ice cream on a hot summer day and anticipate that we might enjoy that icy treat too. We imagine and empathize with a friend’s pain when they tell us about the recent loss of their loved one. We read the story of a person that overcame a struggle that we relate to, and feel hope imagining ourselves doing the same.

Stories are so intertwined into the fabric of our daily living, that we don’t often think about the many ways they influence our fears, motivations, interests, goals, relationships, and choices.

Why not purposefully connect with the way that storytelling can be an agent of change in your life and the lives of others? Listen actively to those you love and value – what can you learn from their story, their perspective? In what ways would your story being shared help someone else?

What’s amazing is that not only can we gather power from shared stories, but we can also give ourselves power by taking command of the way we tell our story. You are your own storyteller and protagonist. Reframing, deconstructing, and reconstructing your story can be incredibly empowering.

If you would like to better understand the ways that stories impact you, consider some of these questions:
1. What is a story that you often tell people you are getting to know, when you want them to get to know you better?
2. What is a story or a character that you have or do relate to strongly? This could be a storybook, a movie, a folktale, something you recall from a song, a play, or a story shared by a friend. How do you relate to this story and how has it impacted your life or your perspective?
3. What is an important or meaningful experience in your life that you haven’t been able to form into words or a story, yet?

As you explore your story and storytelling, we are here to support you!

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How Your Nervous System Impacts Your Experiences

October 1, 2022/0 Comments/in Anxiety, depression, Louisville Health and Healing News, Mental Health/by Louisville Health and Healing

Your nervous system is constantly seeking to assess and understand the world around you. It prioritizes keeping you protected.

According to Polyvagal Theory, the nervous system has three pathways – or three states – that each serve different functions to protect us:
1. The Ventral Vagal
2. The Sympathetic
3. The Dorsal Vagal

We move between these three nervous system states throughout our day-to-day life, but getting stuck in any one state can hinder us and result in difficulties. Finding yourself stuck in the sympathetic or dorsal vagal states (the defensive states) can leave us feeling especially disconnected from our goals and the things we enjoy in life.

Let’s take a look at each state and what they do:

The Ventral Vagal State is also known as the Social Engagement system. In this state, we are able to engage socially and coregulate with one another. We are able to operate out of this state when we feel safe, stable, and secure. When we are in this state, we read others’ facial expressions more positively, we hear other human voices better, and we can react – switching between action and calm – more quickly, allowing us to function from a place of flexibility and even creativity!
● When we are in our ventral vagal state, we often feel grounded, curious, calm, connected, and safe.

The Sympathetic State kicks on when the body starts to feel unsafe. This state is a defensive state that mobilizes the body in response to a perceived threat. This mobilization might look like the fight-or-flight response, or an attack/cry-for-help response. Once in this state, it can take our bodies 10-20 minutes to return to balance or our pre-sympathetic state.
● When we are in this state (especially if we find ourselves stuck in this state), we might feel fear, panic, irritation, sensitivity, anger, or rage.

The Dorsal Vagal State is also a defensive state, but unlike the sympathetic state, it seeks to protect the body from a threat through immobilization. This might seem counter-productive. Why stop moving when there’s a threat? This state is utilized to conserve energy and is often the body’s last resort when extreme danger is perceived. This response comes from an old part of the human brain – the dorsal vagus is shared by most animals. We see this state in action when animals “feign death” when attacked or pursued by predators.
● When in this state, we often feel numb, frozen, lethargic, ashamed, and/or dissociative.

It’s important to note that when a person carries a history of trauma, their body has likely learned to operate from its defensive systems, rather than its social engagement system as a means of protecting itself and surviving.

This means someone who has experienced trauma might struggle to connect with others in the ways they would like, might struggle to be curious, engaged, grounded, or calm. They might find themselves hypervigilant and always expecting a threat. Or quickly moving into a complete shut-down, or extreme anic or rage when triggered.

Learning to recognize these different states and responses in yourself and your loved ones can be helpful and healing. Your therapist can help you as you work on identifying what these states look like in your life, when they are triggered, and what strategies are helpful to calm and ground you.

Make use of a classic body hack – your breathing! Through your breath, you can change the activation of your nervous system. Slow deep breathing communicates to our brain that we are safe, which in turn, tells our nervous system to begin to switch to our ventral vagal state.

Try box breathing! Imagine a square…

Breathe in for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, breathe out for 4 counts, and hold for 4 counts. Then repeat as needed.

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