Lindsay Braman’s Post

Embrace the power of pause.   Sometimes - especially in this season- it can be easy to forget the simple mindfulness of taking a deep breath.  I drew this little purple sticker for my patrons as a reminder to take moments for rest- and I just released the vinyl sticker version to the public in my online store! https://lnkd.in/etQX83fZ Let it be a reminder to breathe or a symbol of your resilience and a prompt to reconnect with your #innercalm. Stick it somewhere you'll see often and remember: Your breath is your anchor to your body. #MindfulMoments #MentalHealthMatters

This little worksheet and sticker-sheet inspo page are a fun, playful invitation to imagine and name needs, desires, and goals without the intensity that can come with naming directly.

I'm never going to be one of those therapists on social media that claim we just need to tell our emotions they are lying or tell our brain that it can't be trusted because it's broken. The signals we are getting are meaningful. What do they mean and why are they there? I think entering a conversation with our thoughts/feelings that invites their voice and ALSO holds a capacity to push back and challenge those thought/feelings with kind curiousity is how brains grow deep roots for sustainable recovery. Muscles never grow if they are never challenged, and brains are the same way. Whether it's working through the confusion of learning a new concept at work or school, challenging ourselves to consider the views of people we disagree with, or getting curious about our own (often negative) beliefs about self & others, brains change through permission to be curious, commitment to experimenting with new ways of thinking (even it it's uncomfortable) and through connection with other humans who can help us practice new learning in emotional and embodied ways. #psychologyart #studyblr #therapymemes #counselingworks#raisingstronggirls #neuroscience #psychologyfacts

Everyone knows someone who jumps into a fight response with little provocation, but most of us have the capacity to respond with a fight response if the right buttons are pushed.   Usually, the fight response is easy to recognize: raised voices, hot tempers, and even physical altercations. But a fight response can manifest in other ways too: frantically googling something to prove a point, getting a little rush of #adrenaline while writing a #passiveaggressivenote, chasing a shoplifter from our business, or responding to a perceived slight with a #sarcastic remark. This week we’re talking about stress responses: what it’s like to be in a body experiencing fight, flight, fawn, or freeze, and how to care well for ourselves and others when we’re so far outside our window of tolerance that we’re having an acute stress response. Today I’m focusing in on the fight response.   The fight response in relationships is marked by expressing anger and frustration openly, becoming defensive as a way to avoid engaging vulnerability in conflict, and sometimes even instigating conflict to avoid uncertainty.   How to be in a relationship with a person who FIGHTS:   • Avoid escalating conflict alongside them. • Take breaks. Let them get regulated, and then reengage. • Express yourself using #nonviolentcommunication. • Acknowledge their #emotions and #perspectives, & set boundaries for how you're treated.   Need a tool for this journey? My new Flight, Flight, Freeze Embodied Wheel can help you recognize when your body is moving into a stress response so that you can ground, soothe, and re-engage. Get it through my patreon or website.

This week we’re talking about stress responses, what it’s like to be in a body experiencing fight, flight, fawn, or freeze, and how to care well for ourselves and others when we’re so far outside our window of tolerance that we’re having an acute stress response. Let’s start with fawn:   The fawn response is a common reaction to stress, it’s most common for people who’ve experienced complex, inescapable trauma in the past. Not to be confused with freeze (which is inactive) fawning is active – it involves attuning to the threat and figuring out what will appease or neutralize it. The "fawn" response usually gets simplified to #peoplepleasing, conflict avoidance, and neglecting one's own needs, but there are more specific markers we might look out for if we suspect we might be prone to respond to stress by moving into the fawn state. Here are a few examples:   1️ Habitually finding yourself in caretaking roles. 2. Always going with the flow. 3. Saying "yes" even when we don't want to. 4. Participate without enjoyment. 5. Placating others to avoid conflict.   If you’re in a relationship with someone who tends to respond to intense stress by fawning, you might notice that their avoidance of conflict leaves issues unresolved and potential for growing intimacy unrealized. Help them learn that your relationship is a #safeplace for engaging conflict through the following:    Invite them to name their own needs and wants.  Avoid the temptation to benefit from their compliance.  Be curious about what they're feeling & invite #honesty.  Let them know that your love & care are not contingent on their actions or pleasing others.   Need a tool for this journey? My new Flight, Flight, Freeze Embodied Wheel can help you recognize when your body is moving into a stress response so that you can ground, soothe, and re-engage. Get it through my patreon or website.

One common way that we respond to stressors is through flight. You probably think of a flight response looking like this bear booking it for the hills - but many times the flight response can be more subtle: fleeing can look like avoiding (pretending you aren’t bothered), delaying (promising to have an important conversation “later”), or distracting ourselves from engaging with conflict. People who have a sensitive flight response might be known for dramatically storming out during arguments OR quietly slipping away when frustrated OR quietly escaping conflict through fleeing to screens, media, exercise, food, or physical intimacy. Flight can also look like detaching or dissociating from emotions in order to deal with a threat (although this can quickly blur the line between a flight response and a freeze response)   This week we’re talking about stress responses: what it’s like to be in a body experiencing fight, flight, fawn, or freeze, and how to care well for ourselves and others when we’re so far outside our window of tolerance that we’re having an acute stress response. Today I’m focusing in on the flight response.   Showing up emotionally to engage healthy conflict with presence and vulnerability is key to growing deep, #satisfyingrelationships. However, when we have a small window of tolerance, we may feel the pull to run not just when we’re facing down a life threatening foe, but also when faced with good, generative conflict.   We can grow our window of tolerance and stay engaged longer by recognizing how the flight response shows up in our body and practicing how to ground, #selfsoothe, regulate, and re-engage with the root of the stress. If you or your partner defaults to flight, here’s how to expand the window of tolerance and stay engaged a little longer:   • Set ground rules, like "It's okay to go cool off, as long as you tell me & I know when you're returning." • Be a #safeperson with whom they can learn to stay present. • Don't push them, but do set boundaries around their avoidance of important conversations. (example “We have to talk about this problem, but you can choose where we have the conversations”)   Need a tool for this journey? My new Flight, Flight, Freeze Embodied Wheel can help you recognize when your body is moving into a stress response so that you can ground, soothe, and re-engage. Get it through my patreon or website.

Learning about fight, flight, fawn, and freeze can be helpful, but learning how these responses manifest in our particular bodies is where the magic really starts. When we understand how fight, flight, freeze, or fawn show up for us, we can develop an internal template to refer back to in moments where we are feeling a lot of #emotion (or beginning to shut down and feeling no emotion at all) that alerts us when it’s time take steps to soothe our #nervoussystem and return to our window of tolerance.   No one has an innate ability to pause during a conflict and reflect “Gosh, I think I might be moving into a freeze response.” Instead, this realization tends to be something we recognize as we reflect on an experience later. Growing the capacity to check in with ourselves and notice, in the moment, when we are slipping into a #fightorflight response is one key to learning how to self-soothe, expand our #windowoftolerance, grow emotionally, and build #healthyrelationships.   That’s where my new #emotionwheel comes in: it’s a tool specifically for helping us recognize when we are moving out of our window of tolerance (where we can listen, learn, and respond thoughtfully) and into a reaction state.   Like the Emotion Sensation Wheel, the Fight, Flight, & Freeze Embodied Wheel is a tool to prompt conversations and build awareness by showing how each of these responses *tends* to show up through physical sensations. It's not prescriptive- it's a conversation starter. It's meant to teach, to stir, and to prompt conversations that build awareness, connection, and #embodied experience through #somatic awareness. Download a digital copy of this art via patreon.com/lindsaybraman or through my website. 

An essential reminder that should be on every bulletin board: self-care without self-compassion is hollow. Good self-care requires self-compassion – or at the least, neutrality towards self. Compassion (or neutrality) allows us to be where we are when we are there and actually get the benefits of the self-care choices we make. This is an illustrated version of a quote by Bethany Hiser https://lnkd.in/eqGANJRj

It's not just negative feelings that can prompt a relapse- positive emotions can, too. Whether the addictive behavior is substance use, self harm, gambling, shopping, or something else, relapse prevention involves understanding that triggers can come from unexpected directions. Understand how expanding our capacity to feel, process, and cope with a wide range of #emotions can help #relapseprevention and thriving in #soberlife In order to help this resource be helpful to folks in many types of #recovery I've released this #mentalhealthart in formats tweaked slightly for #SUD and behavior-based addictions. Patreons can also download this art reimagined into a worksheet to help people learn to identify positive and negative triggers. #addictionrecovery

We tend to think of psychological trauma as something in the past, but a key marker of trauma is that it, in fact, will not stay in the past. Through narrative memories, body-based memories, enactments, flashbacks, and other trauma symptoms, unresolved trauma invades the present - and even spills into the future. As I thought about this concept, the image that came to mind was that of paper folded into a simple origami shape. I imagined how folds meeting at a central point illustrate the way that a traumatic moment has the ability to blur past, present, and future.  See all panels of the full illustration (or download a copy for yourself) via the link in my profile.