“When my partner and I get into an argument I just shut down and then they get more and more angry; we never seem to resolve things.”

 

“When faced with a controlling boss I can’t seem to think straight and I feel overwhelmed.”

 

“I find myself yelling at my children when I don’t want to and then I feel terrible about it.”

 

Some of these scenarios might seem familiar to you. 

 

Often these situations don’t make us feel good. It can bring up shame or guilt. Also, sometimes we can be hard on ourselves that we cannot make different choices. Sometimes we are blamed by others for not being able to ‘control’ ourselves. 

 

However, these responses are not always conscious choices. Sometimes, these behaviours are in fact our nervous system reacting to what we see as danger and we go into fight, flight or freeze. 

 

Like other animals, our brain and our nervous system respond to danger – whether it is real or perceived. When we are triggered and are tired, hungry, stressed and/or have a history of trauma, we can get thrown into fight, flight or freeze. It is in these spaces that we ‘react’.

 

What we want to aim for, however, is to ‘respond’. When we are able to respond, our brain is able to filter our raw feelings and make decisions. We are grounded and we are able to listen without blame and defensiveness to our partners, stay present in the moment with our children and we do our best work in the workplace. 

 

Therapy can be helpful to retrain our brain and nervous system to respond differently to triggers. 

 

While talk therapy is useful to an extent, other strategies such as Tapping or Brainspotting, can access the nervous system so that we don’t go into fight, flight or freeze.

 

If you are interested in meeting with me, feel free to reach out (without financial or other obligation) and we can talk about whether this is a good initial match. I can be reached at 416-795