Bouncing Back

Mind-Body Resources for Resilience and Well-Being Linda Graham, MFT [email protected]

www.lindagraham-mft.net

415-924-7765

All the world is full of suffering.

It is also full of overcoming.

- Helen Keller

Factors of Resilience

 Hardiness  Determination, grit, capacities to last, endure, to persevere and follow through  Flexibility  Adaptability, capacity to shift gears  Coping  Face and deal with disappointments, difficulties, even disasters

6 C’s of Coping

 Calm  Compassion  Clarity  Connections to Resources  Competence  Courage

Calm

 Manage disruptive emotions  Tolerate distress  Down-regulate stress to return to baseline equilibrium

Compassion

Respond to pain and suffering with open heart, interested mind, and willingness to help Keeps brain open to coping and learning

Clarity

 Focused attention on present moment experience  See clearly what’s happening and reactions to what’s happening  Improves cognitive functioning  Self-awareness, self-reflection  Shifting perspectives  Discerning options  Choose wise actions

Connections to Resources

 People, Places Practices  Counter-balance brain’s negativity bias  Strengthen inner secure base  Access resources

Competence

 Empowerment and mastery from changing old coping strategies, learning new ones  Embodying, “I am somebody who CAN do this.”

Courage

 Using signal anxiety as cue to:  Try something new  Take risks  Move resilience beyond personal self

Modern Brain Science

The field of neuroscience is so new, we must be comfortable not only venturing into the unknown but into error.

- Richard Mendius, M.D.

Neuroscience of Resilience

 Neuroscience technology is 20 years old  Meditation improves attention and impulse control; shifts mood and perspective; promotes health  Oxytocin can calm a panic attack in less than a minute  Kindness and comfort, early on, protects against later stress, trauma, psychopathology

Neuroplasticity

 Greatest discovery of modern neuroscience  Growing new neurons  Strengthening synaptic connections  Myelinating pathways – faster processing  Creating and altering brain structure and circuitry  Organizing and re-organizing functions of brain structures  The brain changes itself - lifelong

The brain is shaped by experience. And because we have a choice about what experiences we want to use to shape our brain, we have a responsibility to choose the experiences that will shape the brain toward the wise and the wholesome.

- Richard J. Davidson, PhD

Mechanisms of Brain Change

 Conditioning  New Conditioning  Re-Conditioning  De-Conditioning

Conditioning

 Experience causes neurons to fire  Repeated experiences, repeated neural firings  Neurons that fire together wire together  Strengthen synaptic connections  Connections stabilize into neural pathways  Conditioning is neutral, wires positive and negative

Attachment Styles - Secure

 Parenting is attuned, empathic, responsive, comforting, soothing, helpful  Attachment develops safety and trust, and inner secure base  Stable and flexible focus and functioning  Open to learning  inner secure base provides buffer against stress, trauma, and psychopathology

Insecure-Avoidant

 Parenting is indifferent, neglectful, or critical, rejecting  Attachment is compulsively self-reliant  Stable, but not flexible  Focus on self or world, not others or emotions  Rigid, defensive, not open to learning  Neural cement

Insecure-Anxious

 Parenting is inconsistent, unpredictable  Attachment is compulsive caregiving  Flexible, but not stable  Focus on other, not on self-world,  Less able to retain learning  Neural swamp

Disorganized

 Parenting is frightening or abusive, or parent is “checked out,” not “there”  Attachment is fright without solution  Lack of focus  Moments of dissociation  Compartmentalization of trauma

Pre-Frontal Cortex

 Development kindled in relationships  Executive center of higher brain   Analysis, planning, judgment, impulse control  Evolved most recently – makes us human Matures the latest – 25 years of age  Most integrative structure of brain  Evolutionary masterpiece  CEO of resilience

Functions of Pre-Frontal Cortex

 Regulate body and nervous system  Quell fear response of amygdala  Manage emotions  Attunement – felt sense of feelings  Empathy – making sense of expereince  Insight and self-knowing  Response flexibility

Evolutionary legacy Genetic templates Family of origin conditioning Norms-expectations of culture-society Who we are and how we cope….

…is not our fault.

- Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind

 Given neuroplasticity  And choices of self-directed neuroplasticity  Who we are and how we cope…  …is our responsibility  - Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind

New Conditioning

 Choose new experiences  Gratitude practice, listening skills, focusing attention, self-compassion, self-acceptance  Create new learning, new memory  Encode new wiring; install new pattern of response  Antidote negativity bias, change ANTs to PATs, skills of emotional and relational intelligence

Re-conditioning

 Memory de-consolidation – re-consolidation  “Light up” neural networks  Juxtapose old negative with new positive  Neurons fall apart, rewire  New rewires old

Modes of Processing

 Focused Attention  Tasks and details  Deliberate, guided change  New conditioning and re-conditioning  De-focused Attention  Default network  Mental play space – random change  De-conditioning

De-Conditioning

 Default network  De-focusing, loosens grip of attention  Creates mental play space, free association  Can drop into worry, rumination  Plane of open possibilities  Brain makes new links, associations  New insights, aha!s, new behaviors

Practices to Accelerate Brain Change

 Presence – primes receptivity of brain  Intention/choice – activates plasticity  Perseverance – creates and installs change

Mindfulness and Compassion

Awareness of what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening) Acceptance of what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening) Attention circuit and resonance circuit Two most powerful agents of brain change known to science; both foster response flexibility

Boundin’ video

6 C’s of Coping

 Calm  Compassion  Clarity  Connections to Resources  Competence  Courage

Calm

 Manage disruptive emotions  Tolerate distress  Down-regulate stress to return to baseline equilibrium

Window of Tolerance

 SNS – explore, play, create, produce…. OR Fight-flight-freeze      Baseline physiological equilibrium Calm and relaxed, engaged and alert WINDOW OF TOLERANCE Relational and resilient Equanimity  PNS – inner peace, serenity…. OR Numb out, collapse

Hand on the Heart

 Touch – oxytocin – safety and trust  Deep breathing – parasympathetic  Breathing ease into heart center  Brakes on survival responses  Coherent heart rate  Being loved and cherished  Oxytocin – direct and immediate antidote to stress hormone cortisol

Touch

 Hand on heart, hand on cheek  Head rubs, foot rubs  Massage back of neck  Hold thumb as “inner child”  Hugs – 20 second full bodied

Calm through the Body

 Hand on the Heart  Body Scan  Progressive Muscle Relaxation  Movement Opposite  Power Posing

Compassion

 Respond to pain and suffering with open heart, interested mind, willingness to help  Mindful Self-Compassion:  Keep heart open and mind engaged when dealing with difficult events and difficult emotions that arise in response to events  Practice not to feel better but because we feel bad

Self-Compassion

 Powerful and immediate antidote to self-criticism, self loathing  More effective in restoring well-being than self-esteem  Practice not to feel better but because we feel bad  Treat ourselves with care and understanding rather than harsh judgment  Putting own oxygen mask on first when other people are not around  Compassion leads to calm leads to clarity  Emotional support needed for change and growth

Self-Compassion Break

 Notice-recognize: this is a moment of suffering  Ouch! This hurts! This is hard!

 Pause, breathe, hand on heart or cheek  Oh sweetheart!

 Self-empathy  I care about my own suffering, me as experiencer  Drop into calm; hold moment with awareness; breathe in compassion and care  May I meet this moment fully; may I meet it as a friend

Self-Compassion Break, cont.

 My pain is the pain; I’m not the only one  Kindness to self: May I be safe; May I be peaceful; May I be free of fear; May I be free of shame; May I accept myself just as I am; May I know this, too, will pass; May I know I can be skillful here  Choose wisely: re-direct, shift the channel; practice gratitude, metta; share pain with caring other; notice coping and easing of suffering

Mindfulness

Focused attention on present moment experience without judgment or resistance.

- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness Comes to the West

 Mindful schools  Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction  Business – 2014 World Economic Forum  Government – Tim Ryan in Congress  Military – post-traumatic stress  Sports – peak performance  Cover of Time magazine, February 3, 2014

Mindfulness

 Pause, become present  Notice and name  Step back, dis-entangle, reflect  Catch the moment; make a choice  Shift perspectives; shift states  Discern options  Choose wisely – let go of unwholesome, cultivate wholesome

Video – The Fly by Hanjin Song

Between a stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. The last of human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.

- Viktor Frankl

Autobiography in Five Short

I

Chapters – Portia Nelson

I walk down the street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in.

I am lost…I am helpless It isn’t my fault.

It takes me forever to find a way out.

II I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I pretend I don’t see it.

I fall in again.

I can’t believe I’m in the same place But, it isn’t my fault.

It still takes a long time to get out.

III I walk down the same street.

There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I see it is there.

I still fall in…it’s a habit My eyes are open, I know where I am.

It is my fault.

I get out immediately.

IV I walk down the same street There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.

I walk around it.

V I walk down another street.

-Portia Nelson

Connections to Resources

 People  Love guards the heart from the abyss. - Mozart  Places  …I rest in the grace of the world…. – Berry  Practices  As an irrigator guides water to his field, as an archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves wood, the wise shape their lives. - Buddha

Positive Emotions-Behaviors

 Brain hard-wired to notice and remember negative and intense more than positive and subtle; how we survive as individuals and as a species  Leads to tendency to avoid experience  Positive emotions activate “left shift,” brain is more open to approaching experience, learning, and action

Positive Emotions

 Less stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness  More friendships, social support, collaboration  Shift in perspectives, more optimism  More creativity, productivity  Better health, better sleep  Live on average 7-9 years longer  Resilience is direct outcome

Gratitude

 2-minute free write  Gratitude journal  Gratitude buddy  Carry love and appreciation in your wallet

Take in the Good

 Notice: in the moment or in memory  Enrich: the intensity, duration, novelty, personal relevance, multi-modality  Absorb: savor 10-20-30 seconds, felt sense in body

Circle of Support

 Call to mind people who have been supportive of you; who have “had your back”  Currently, in the past, in imagination  Imagine them gathered around you, or behind you, lending you their faith in you, and their strengths in coping  Imagine your circle of support present with you as you face difficult people or situations

Positivity Portfolio

 Ask 10 friends to send cards or e-mails expressing appreciation of you  Assemble phrases on piece of paper  Tape to bathroom mirror or computer monitor, carry in wallet or purse  Read phrases 3 times a day for 30 days  Savor and appreciate

True Other to the True Self

The roots of resilience are to be found in the felt sense of being held in the mind and heart of an empathic, attuned, and self-possessed other.

- Diana Fosha, PhD To see and be seen: that is the question, and that is the answer.

- Ken Benau, PhD

Shame De-Rails Resilience

Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.

Shame erodes the part of ourselves that believes we are capable of change. We cannot change and grow when we are in shame, and we can’t use shame to change ourselves or others.

- Brene Brown, PhD

Reconditioning

 Anchor in present moment awareness  Resource with acceptance and goodness  Start with small negative memory  “Light up the networks”  Evoke positive memory that contradicts or disconfirms  Simultaneous dual awareness (or toggle)  Refresh and strengthen positive  Let go of negative  Rest in, savor positive  Reflect on shifts in perspective

Wished for Outcome

 Evoke memory of what did happen  Imagine new behaviors, new players, new resolution  Hold new outcome in awareness, strengthening and refreshing  Notice shift in perspective of experience, of self

Relational Intelligence

 Setting limits and boundaries  Negotiating change  Resolving conflicts  Repairing ruptures  Forgiveness

Competence

 Empowerment and mastery from changing old coping strategies, learning new ones  Embodying, “I am somebody who CAN do this.”

Find the Gift in the Mistake

 Regrettable Moment – Teachable Moment  What’s Right with this Wrong?

 What’s the Lesson?

 What’s the Cue to Act Differently?

 Find the Gift in the Mistake

Coherent Narrative

 This is what happened.

 This is what I did.

 This has been the cost.

 This is what I learned.

 This is what I would do differently going forward.

Courage

A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

- Grace Hopper Yes, risk-taking is inherently failure-prone.

Otherwise, it would be called sure thing-taking - Tim McMahon

Do One Scary Thing a Day

 Venture into New or Unknown  Somatic marker of “Uh, oh”  Dopamine disrupted  Cross threshold into new  Satisfaction, mastery  Dopamine restored

There is a natural and inviolable tendency in things to bloom into whatever they truly are in the core of their being.

All we have to do is align ourselves with what wants to happen naturally and put in the effort that is our part in helping it happen.

- David Richo

Bouncing Back

The Neuroscience of Resilience and Well-Being Linda Graham, MFT [email protected]

www.lindagraham-mft.net

415-924-7765