Compass Family Counseling

12/23/2025

DBT teaches people to accept their thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and the techniques to change them - it's based on CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)

12/18/2025

Why Family Gatherings Trigger Instant Emotional Reactions
~ Dr. Tracey Marks

🎄 You walk into a holiday gathering feeling calm and centered.
Thirty minutes later, one comment sends you from zero to 100 😤—and you're suddenly defending yourself like you're fifteen again.

🧠 That instant hijacking isn't oversensitivity.
It's your brain's emotional memory system doing exactly what it was designed to do.

🎥 In this video (posted in 1st comment), I break down the neuroscience of family triggers and share four steps to create an emotional pause button ⏸️ before your next gathering.

❓ Why This Happens

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Your family knows exactly how to activate your emotional responses because they were there when those neural pathways were being formed.

🧩 During childhood and adolescence, your brain was learning which situations felt safe and which felt threatening. Your family members’ voices, facial expressions, and behavioral patterns became deeply encoded in your emotional memory system.

🧠 Two brain structures work together to create these instant reactions:

🚨 Amygdala: tags experiences with threat or safety

🗂️ Hippocampus: adds context, linking emotions to people, smells, and environments

🏠 When you walk into your parents’ house and smell that familiar food or hear that same dismissive tone, your brain doesn’t register today.
Instead, it retrieves a snapshot from years ago 📸 and recreates the same stress response you felt back then.

🔁 This is called state-dependent memory, and it explains why your body reacts before you’ve had time to think.

💡 You’re not regressing.
Your brain is replaying an old protective program.

🛑 How to Interrupt the Pattern

The key is creating space between the trigger and your reaction. Here are four brain-based steps:

1️⃣ Build emotional awareness
Name the specific emotion you feel—not just “bad” or “upset.”
🔬 Research shows that affect labeling activates your prefrontal cortex and calms your amygdala in real time.

2️⃣ Ground your body
Use a physiological reset:
🌬️ Inhale for 4 → hold for 2 → exhale for 6
The extended exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system—your built-in calm switch.

3️⃣ Reframe the story
When your amygdala shouts attack 🚨, your prefrontal cortex can pause and reframe:
🧠 “They’re expressing their own anxiety”
🧠 “This reflects their discomfort, not my worth”

4️⃣ Recover and reset
Instead of judging yourself for reacting, celebrate recovering 🎯
Ask: What did I notice, and how did I return to calm?
Each trigger becomes brain training.

🔄 What Changes

🌱 Family dynamics might not shift overnight—but your neural response patterns can.

Every pause, emotion label, or reframe strengthens new pathways 🛤️.

🎯 The goal isn’t to never feel triggered.
It’s to develop a stress response that gives you choice instead of defaulting to old patterns.

💬 How do you create space between emotional triggers and your reactions during high-stress family gatherings?

👩‍⚕️ Dr. Tracey Marks is a psychiatrist and mental health educator who helps professionals understand their minds through science-based insights.

05/09/2025

"The secret to winning is learning how to lose. That is, learning to bounce back from failure and disappointment—undeterred—and continuing to steadily march toward your potential. Your response to failure determines your capacity for success." James Clear

As a counselor, I’ve seen how resilience transforms lives. Growth doesn’t come from never falling—it comes from getting back up, again and again, with compassion for yourself and clarity about your purpose. You’re not defined by your setbacks. You’re shaped by how you rise from them.

03/28/2025

Best advice for today from the wise James Clear:

"Take all the energy you spend on...

worrying about the past ⏳🌈
worrying about the future 🌠🔮
worrying about what others think 🗣️💭
worrying about if you might fail 🚫😟
.. and channel that energy into one useful action within your control." ⚡️💪🌟

Happy Friday!

03/03/2025

"What if everything goes wrong and I can't handle it?" 😟

Who hasn't been crushed by fear in some way, self-doubt that stops you in your tracks? The belief that fear must be a sign you should stay still nestled tight in your comfort zone. If you're human, you've been there!

Here's a simple reframe to talk back to your fear:

"I acknowledge my fear of things going wrong, but I have handled difficult situations before and have the strength and resources to manage challenges. Instead of focusing on what might go wrong, I can focus on what I can control and prepare for. I trust in my ability to adapt and find solutions, knowing that occasional setbacks are opportunities for growth."🌟

Additional Tips for Reframing:

Shift Focus to Strengths: Focus on your strengths and past successes to build confidence 💪

Emphasize Control: Identify aspects of your situation you can control or influence 🎯 Focus on the facts, but also your ability to manage your emotional response.

Resilience: You have the resilience to cope with difficulties, even if things don't go 100% as planned 🌈

Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness practices help you stay present and reduce anxiety about future uncertainties. Take a moment to notice 5 things you can see around you, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can touch or feel, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste 🧘‍♀️

You Got This! 🌟

Positively Present

12/15/2024

Came across this gem of a post this morning. Couldn't NOT share - so much info right here. Use it as a guide for the holidays and maybe even carry into everyday life. Holiday cheers!

While the Christmas season can bring joy and laughter, it can also bring loads of stress. Get ahead of the season with these holiday stress-reducing tactics.

07/19/2024

This self-guided program equips caregivers and students with realistic and effective solutions to the specific academic and behavioral challenges associated with ADHD in the classroom while educating them about the sometimes surprising ways ADHD manifests.

02/02/2024

“People with inattentive ADHD are not lazy, stupid, unwilling, or oppositional. They have a biologically based challenge with attending to the task at hand, and their brains tire more quickly.”

01/02/2024

My hopes for you in the new year! 🎉 Thank you for all you’ve done to make 2023 a great year for me. It’s been a long time since I looked back on a year and felt happiness, and I owe a lot of that to you.

Thank you for supporting my work, for leaving such kind and encouraging comments, and for simply being here. You inspire me to keep doing what I do and I’m so grateful for you, always. 🩷

11/21/2023

Everyone can play a role in su***de prevention. Some warning signs may help you determine if someone in your life is at risk for su***de.

💚 Know the warning signs
💚 Seek help by calling the 988 Su***de & Crisis Lifeline (988)

03/31/2023

Photo from intensive heart-centered hypnotherapy training last week. What an incredible modality and group! We were honored to meet and learn from Diane Zimberoff, the co-founder of The Wellness Institute.

Practiced at the Cleveland Clinic, "heart-centered hypnotherapy is a form of psychotherapy in which the patient is placed in a hypnotic, altered state of consciousness for the purpose of re-working or re-framing unhealthy behaviors. It allows for deep healing to take place because of the emotional release and the level of insight that can be attained."

06/07/2022

💙🤍💚