Yay Neuroplasticity

Sometimes it’s hard to *feel* grateful. Especially when you’re healing.

I’m going to say it: sometimes life sucks. It’s painful and awful and not fun at all. And you can train yourself to be grateful at any moment.

Learning to find the good at any moment and not let your emotional state be dictated by external circumstances can become a kind of superpower.

I remember when I had been bedridden for 13 years, in excruciating physical, mental, and emotional pain with no end in sight. It would have been very easy to lose myself in the Pit of Despair. And to be honest, sometimes I did. At that time I could not read, but I heard about a book written by a concentration camp survivor who learned to enjoy life in the camp. Although I was not in a concentration camp, I could relate to being trapped in hell with seemingly no way out.

What were my options? Lose myself in the Pit of Despair or find a way to be grateful. I didn’t feel grateful at first, but like so many things, the more I practiced, the easier it got, and the more things I found to be grateful for.

The brain has a natural negativity bias. If you’re going through hell, your brain wants to find more hell to focus on. If you are aware of this, you can do something about it! Your brain may want to focus on hell, but that doesn’t mean you have to continue focusing on it. Doesn’t matter how small, the second you start changing your focus, you are changing your neural pathways. Change what you focus on and change your physiology.

Become a super sifter by practicing gratitude and sifting for sunshine!

Our brains are wired to find the easiest option and keep us alive. When something is unpleasant, the natural instinct is to run away and/or avoid it.

During the rewiring process, the ebb is an unavoidable part of the healing process as the brain recalibrates and gets used to finding safety using the new neural pathways. With expansion comes contraction.

Carl Jung famously said, “What we resist persists” and this could not be truer for the rewiring process.

Bison have an interesting natural instinct regarding storms. When bison sense a storm approaching, they don’t avoid it or run in a different direction like cows - they actually run full speed into it! What if we approached the ebb like bison in a storm?

Ebbs will always come in life - even when you’ve healed all symptoms, life happens. What if we shifted the goal of healing from “fixing” to increasing our capacity so that we know without a shadow of a doubt that we can handle anything?

When you’re going through an ebb, there are 4 important things to remember:

1. Don’t fear the ebb. Embrace it. Know that it is a normal part of the healing process and as long as you keep practicing you’re not going backward.

2. Remember that this is not the same as it was before, even though this feels the same as those other treatments you’ve placed your hope in, only to be met with that sinking feeling of losing it all after it didn’t work. *It’s not the same.* You haven’t lost your hard work and your progress, nor the new neural pathways you’ve created. The new pathways are simply not as strong as the old ones yet. The more you practice, the stronger they will become.

3. Protect your hope at all costs. Keep practicing. Regulate by intentionally DOSEing and swing that pendulum to the side of laughter, joy, and calm. Joy is a skill - the more you practice, the easier it gets.

4. It’s natural for the window of tolerance to shrink during an ebb. Have grace and compassion for yourself and adjust to this temporary state. This too shall pass.

The storm is coming in any case. Be the buffalo: run into the storm.

Hey lovelies! Sorry I disappeared the last few weeks. Life got super real and I've been focused on supporting myself through it. I'm going to go into this below, so please be aware and adjust for your window of tolerance. Not sharing details, just the events in the first paragraph below.






A couple of weeks ago, I moved cross country, my cousin died from su***de, and two days after I moved into my new place, someone hit my car, lied, and blamed me. I ended up in the ER from a concussion and whiplash, had to get an attorney, plus many doctor visits, etc. It's been hard.

I wanted to be open about this because although I'm known as the neuroplasticity play/whimsy/joy coach, my life isn't always sunshine and rainbows. The s**t can get real, but my nervous/limbic systems are able to rise to the challenge, and remain regulated in the midst of hard things, while I continue living an authentic life. This is my goal for everyone I work with - to increase capacity through joy and play, so you can embrace the fullness of life, whatever that looks like!

If all of this had happened a few years ago, I highly doubt I would be in this regulated place. How did I do this? By first prioritizing play, joy, and whimsy to regulate my nervous and limbic systems. And then slowly proving to myself that life is safe! For the limbic and nervous systems, play = safety. If you can play, you must be safe!

I challenge you to saturate your brain with joy, practice a baseline of play, and see what happens to your body! If play and joy are skills to be practiced and learned, how can you practice these today?

Here's World Kindness Day Part 2!

(FB doesn't allow both video and still images in a post).

If you're feeling wobbly today, may this post be the glimmer of hope that reminds you that YOU CAN DO THIS!

During the wobbles, sometimes it can be challenging to see a path forward, so here are five ways that will help you recalibrate.

1. Set smaller, more manageable goals. As my idols, Bob Wiley and Dr. Leo Marvin say in What About Bob, baby steps. Make it doable for yourself and your window of tolerance. Slow and steady wins the race.

2. Get clear about why you want to heal and transform. What will your life look like? What will you gain by continuing forward?

3. Remember your heroes. If they can do it, so can you. As someone who made it out of a lifetime of hell, my nervous system and limbic system are not special. I healed because the brain and body are designed to be able to heal. If I can do this, so can you.

4. Remember what you've already made it through. Yes, healing can be challenging. But you've already made it through the impossible. Most people would not have survived, but YOU HAVE. Keep going!

5. It's a cliche for a reason. This too shall pass. Even if it's lasted decades, it really will pass.

Hey all you radiant self-healers! Guess what! There's a new Yay! Neuroplasticity Community FB group and you're invited!!!!!! This is a one stop shop for rewiring resources, free parties, play inspiration, coaching tips, community and more! You ready to party AND heal?! HECK YES!🥳🥳🧠

https://www.facebook.com/groups/yayneuroplasticity

💃Dance is more than just a fun activity - it has a profound neurological impact, especially during the rewiring process.

🕺For many years, I did not dance at all. Yeah, I know, hard to believe. I was bedridden, in excruciating pain, could not remember one time in my life where I felt authentic joy, and my one form of movement each day was to literally crawl to the bathroom. When you’re just trying to survive from moment to moment, things like dancing and joy go to the very bottom of the priorities list.

💃When I started brain retraining, I saw results quickly. But when I found myself in a significant ebb and my window of tolerance naturally decreased, I panicked. I tried everything to get back to where I was, in fear of losing everything I had worked so hard for yet again (I didn’t understand that the “ups and downs” are a natural part of the healing process as it takes time to solidify the new neural pathways). The last thing left to try was DOSE (dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins) and incorporating those feel good chemicals.

🕺Here's where I got stuck. How on earth could I DOSE when I was writhing in agony? There certainly wasn’t anything fun about this situation. I was willing to try dancing, but I could barely move a muscle. How could I adjust for my window of tolerance?

💃Where there’s a will, there’s a way!

🕺I started by dancing with one finger. I drew a little face on my pointer finger, named her Cecelia, and let her rip! And let me tell you, Cecelia knows how to boogie!

💃Starting with one finger, I trained my body and nervous system to feel safe with movement, and eventually, to feel safe moving my entire body!

🕺For people recovering from limbic system dysfunction, fun does not always feel natural or even enjoyable. Fun, play, joy can all be learned skills and for someone rewiring, are vital to recovery. What if play is the magical portal of healing that you’ve been looking for AND what if stepping through that portal can be learned?

💃Guess what? It is and you can!

🕺My challenge for you is to practice dancing like nobody's watching! If play is the portal of healing, how can you step through the portal today? What have you got to lose?!

💃Feeling like you could use a little more support? Schedule a free 1:1 coaching consult or join the waitlist for my group play coaching starting this Fall! Leave a comment or DM for more info:)

It's easy to fall into “I’ll be happy when syndrome” - believing you’ll be content when you arrive at that dream destination. It’s easy to become so focused on what’s to come that you lose sight of the here and now, especially once you realize that you actually can create your reality! Raise your hand if you’ve done this (I’m raising both hands right now).

One of my favorite parts of the rewiring process is the reinvigoration of hope! Hope begins to build and you start dreaming of what could be. But how can you radically accept yourself when you see the potential, but you’re not there yet?How can you radically accept yourself when you are in the inbetween?

Self-acceptance is a learned skill. Like any goal, start by creating a smaller, more reasonable goal so it’s more attainable, then build on that success.

Here are 3 things you can do to start making peace with who you are:

Make a running list of your best characteristics. Look up “best human traits” and write down whatever resonates. If nothing clicks, ask someone else what they see in you. At certain stages it may be easier to believe another’s voice rather than your own.
Baby step your affirmations. Instead of going from “I hate myself” to “I am wildly in love with myself” try “I am learning to accept myself. It’s okay if it doesn’t feel natural right now. I am cultivating a lifestyle of radical self-acceptance and it takes practice. What are 3 things I have done well today?”
Some things you can change, others you cannot, and the past is one of the latter. When you are lost in the longing that things you cannot change are different, you are not able to be content with your current circumstances. Recite the Serenity Prayer, or what I’ve nicknamed the Contentment Prayer, when you feel yourself slide into discontentment: “God (or something bigger than myself), grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Many times, the only thing we can actually change is ourselves, so that’s a great place to start!