Tara Kreider Psychotherapy

08/03/2022

Wellness Wednesday featuring well-being practices for times of stress 🌼 Connecting with others through seeking support and connecting with yourself by welcoming your feelings are only some of the great reminders offered by this resource.

07/15/2022

Another Trauma-informed Tuesday post, with tips from The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) about creating supportive environments when scary things happen!

07/15/2022

Starting tomorrow, simply calling or texting 988 or chatting http://988Lifeline.org will connect you to compassionate care and support for mental health-related distress.

02/24/2022

01/06/2022

This meditation invites us to imagine a clenched fist relaxing open, and explores this in releasing contractions in the body.

12/25/2021

It’s ok to not be ok. If you need someone to talk to, you can text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the United States, anytime. Crisis Text Line is available for any crisis. A live, trained Crisis Counselor receives the text and responds, all from a secure online platform.

08/21/2021

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For an embodied experience of healing, we need to put the needs of our nervous system at the center of our transformational journey. ⁣
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The cycle of experience from a nervous system perspective is activation and deactivation. Trauma, at its core, is an experience of ongoing survival activation. It is the impaired ability of the nervous system to fully digest and integrate that leads to disconnection and fragmentation. ⁣
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To make your healing journey progress and to embody what you know is key to support your nervous system to recover the capacity of spontaneous and natural deactivation. ⁣
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HOW TO OFFER THIS SUPPORT⁣
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An empowering way to support your nervous system to restore this capacity of deactivation is to notice⁣
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1. What is too much (stimulation, habitual and unconscious living, boundary violation, control, rigidity, intensity...)⁣
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and ⁣
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2. What is too little (attunement, presence, connection, support, consistency, awareness, inner nurturance, embodied boundaries, curiosity) ⁣
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To deactivate doesn't necessarily mean focusing on releasing or integrating or processing. The nervous system struggles because some basic and initial conditions are not met. Restoring or developing these initial conditions will naturally support the nervous system to deactivate. ⁣Decrease what is too much and increase what is too little. Simplify.
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Love,⁣
Ally

08/09/2021

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We call this grounding. It’s a tried and true, neuroscience- based way of helping us be in the present when we otherwise feel overwhelmed, dissociative, or start past or future tripping and feel unable to come back. The reason this works is because our senses are embodied, and live in the present, and can always tether us back to the here and now even when our mind wants to go there and then. This particular strategy (5.4.3.2.1) can be a great way to self regulate if you have a paradoxical-reaction to mindfulness or deep breathing (that is what happens when that work to calm others send you into more panic or a shut down state)- this can orient you to the present without taking you into further distressing internal states. Learning how to manage our emotional landscape through using tools like this is part of how we heal, and stretch our capacity of what we can tolerate while also learning how to take care of ourselves, that means no matter where we go we can bring a caregiver with us (Because it is us) ✨

(this image comes from a project and I partnered on called “Bloom” which is a series of evidence based self regulation tools in the form of a card deck- all profits to charity. Check it out at bloom-deck.com)

08/09/2021

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Have you ever noticed how easy it is to locate discomfort in your body or immediate environment (red vortex)? This is part of our survival physiology. Notice threat... orient towards it...is an action needed???

Resourcing explores a felt sense of neutrality or okayness (blue vortex), no matter how small. Staying with these felt senses can be really challenging, yet is imperative to restoring regulation to the nervous system, and cultivating the capacity to experience ease in life.

What are the resources in your life that bring a sense of okayness or even pleasure?




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08/09/2021

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