Body and Mindfully Healthy

12/01/2025

Most of us were taught to avoid mistakes at all costs. But Brené Brown reminds us that healing often asks for the opposite and to have “the courage to be average for a moment.”

Why?

Because every time you let yourself be imperfect, you’re teaching your nervous system that:
✨ It’s safe to rest
✨ It’s safe to be real
✨ It’s safe to be human

Perfectionism keeps you in survival mode...hypervigilant, tense, and afraid of getting it wrong. But small, intentional acts of imperfection help you build tolerance for flexibility, creativity, and self-kindness.

✨ Try This This Week:
✔️ Send the email without rereading it five times. Your worth isn’t measured by flawless sentences.
✔️ Leave one task unfinished so you can rest. Rest is a requirement, not a reward.
✔️ Post something real, not curated, not polished. Authenticity connects far more than perfection ever will.

Each tiny act rewires your brain and body to feel safe releasing control. That’s where true growth begins.

Because letting go of perfection is not failing, it’s healing. 💛

11/30/2025

We’re often taught that success means constant achievement, productivity, and meeting everyone else’s expectations. But success rooted in perfectionism doesn’t lead to joy, it leads to exhaustion.

✨ Real fulfillment comes from authenticity, not approval. When your goals align with your values, your energy becomes sustainable. When your choices reflect who you are, not who you’re trying to impress, life starts to feel lighter and more meaningful.

Ask yourself:
✨ “Am I chasing approval or alignment?”
✨ “Is this task about proving or creating?”

These questions help you realign with purpose instead of pressure.
🌱 Let purpose, not perfection, be the measure of success.

Your worth isn’t defined by outcomes, performance, or productivity. True success is living in a way that feels honest, grounded, and aligned with your mental and emotional well-being.

11/29/2025

Perfectionism tells us to hide the messy parts of our story. But Brené Brown’s research reminds us that vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s the birthplace of courage, creativity, and connection.

When we armor up with “I’m fine,” we protect ourselves from judgment…but we also block ourselves from being fully known, fully supported, and fully loved.

Here’s the truth: You don’t build belonging by being perfect. You build belonging by being real.

Putting into Practice: Journal about one truth you’d usually hide behind “I’m fine.” It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be honest.
✔️ “I’m overwhelmed.”
✔️ “I need a break.”
✔️ “I’m proud of myself.”
✔️ “I could use some help.”

Every moment of vulnerability is a step toward deeper connection with others and with yourself.

11/28/2025

If you grew up believing that being hard on yourself would make you better, you’re not alone. But research from Dr. Kristin Neff, the pioneer of self-compassion science, shows the opposite is true:

✨ Self-compassion fuels growth. Self-criticism fuels shame and burnout.
Perfectionists often think, “If I’m tough enough on myself, I’ll stay motivated.” But harsh inner talk activates the threat system in your brain, which increases anxiety, decreases focus, and actually blocks healthy change.

Self-compassion, on the other hand, activates the care system, which is the part of the brain that encourages resilience, emotional regulation, and long-term motivation.

💛 Self-Compassion Isn’t Coddling. It’s Courage.

It means you’re willing to treat yourself like a human being instead of a machine.
It means you’re allowed to learn, rest, try again, and grow without punishment. You can hold yourself accountable while also not shaming or berating yourself. You don’t shame your way into healing. You support your way into it.

✨ A Small Practice to Try: Next time you make a mistake or feel like you “messed up,” pause and ask yourself: “What would I say to a close friend in this moment?” Then offer yourself that same kindness. This shift might feel small, but it has the power to transform the way you move through the world.

11/27/2025

Holidays and family gatherings can trigger perfectionism. Perfectionism is not the pursuit of excellence. It’s the fear of shame. And according to Brené Brown’s research, perfectionism is not a personality trait to be proud of… it’s a coping strategy we learn to protect ourselves.

✨ Perfectionism says: “If I do everything perfectly, look perfect, and don’t make mistakes, I won’t be judged, rejected, or hurt.”

But here’s the truth:

Perfectionism doesn’t protect you.
It isolates you.
It keeps you performing instead of connecting.
It keeps you exhausted instead of empowered.
It keeps you chasing approval instead of living authentically.

Instead of telling yourself:

❌ “I must get it right.” or "I have to be perfect."

Try:
✔️ “I can learn as I go.”
✔️ “Mistakes mean I’m human.”
✔️ “Progress matters more than perfection.”

This shift isn’t lowering your standards. It’s releasing the shame that keeps you stuck.

When you catch yourself spiraling into perfectionism, ask: “What am I trying to protect myself from right now?” You’ll be surprised how often the answer is fear of judgment, not a need to be perfect.

11/24/2025

Trauma healing isn't just about relief; it's about reclaiming the self.

Dive into the details here: https://wix.to/UewCWl1

Trauma healing is not only about symptom relief. It’s about reclaiming the self. This article explores a recent presentation for the Virginia Counselors Association (VCA): how EMDR therapy helps survivors reconstruct identity and move toward post-traumatic growth.

11/23/2025

Healing from trauma is not about going back. You can’t return to the version of you that existed before the pain and you’re not supposed to.

Healing is about becoming.

Becoming whole, after years of feeling fragmented.
Becoming free, after living in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.
Becoming grounded, after surviving in survival mode far too long.
Becoming you, the version that was buried, silenced, or overshadowed by what happened.

Trauma may have shaped parts of your story, but it does not get the final say.

Healing invites you to:

✨ Reclaim your voice
✨ Rebuild your identity
✨ Restore your sense of worth
✨ Rewrite the beliefs that trauma planted
✨ Remember your strength
✨ Reconnect with your authentic self

And you don’t have to do it alone.

Therapy (EMDR, somatic work, parts work, attachment repair, and more) creates a safe space to process what happened and discover who you’re becoming on the other side of it.

Because healing is not about returning to a “before.” It’s about rising into an after that is more aligned, more empowered, and more whole than anything you’ve ever known.

11/22/2025

Want to dive deeper into trauma, identity reconstruction, and the science behind healing?

These are a few of my go-to books. The ones I return to again and again when I’m teaching, supervising, or doing my own clinical consultation work. Each of these resources offers a different lens on trauma: how it shapes the brain, how it fragments identity, and how we can help clients reintegrate into wholeness.

If you’re an EMDR therapist, trauma-informed clinician, or simply someone curious about the healing process… these are foundational.

Here’s why I recommend each one:

📘 Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy by Francine Shapiro. The essential guide to EMDR’s eight-phase model and the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) framework. If you want to understand how EMDR reprocesses trauma and shifts identity-level beliefs, start here.

📗 Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. A classic. Herman outlines the stages of trauma recovery (safety, remembrance, and reconnection) and explains why identity work is central to healing. Needed reading for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of complex trauma.

📕 The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. A powerful exploration of how trauma lives in the body. Van der Kolk breaks down neurobiology in a way that makes sense for clinicians and survivors alike, emphasizing somatic therapy, EMDR, and the role of the nervous system in healing.

📙 Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher. If you work with dissociation, parts, or identity fragmentation, this is gold. Fisher integrates structural dissociation theory with sensorimotor psychotherapy to help clients understand their “parts” with compassion instead of shame.

📒 The Developing Mind by Dan Siegel. A deep dive into neuroplasticity, attachment, integration, and how the mind develops through relationships.
Siegel’s concept of “integration” maps beautifully onto identity reconstruction and EMDR’s work with adaptive belief systems.

These books remind us that trauma isn’t just about what happened.

It’s about how those experiences change the way we see the world and ourselves.

And more importantly: how healing helps us reclaim who we’re becoming.

11/21/2025

Healing often means grieving who you had to be...the version of you that learned to stay small, stay quiet, stay alert, stay pleasing, stay invisible…the version that carried the weight of survival on their shoulders.

That self wasn’t weak. They were wise. They were resourceful. They kept you alive. But healing invites a new chapter. A version of you who no longer needs those same survival strategies. A version who gets to grow, rest, expand, and choose. A version who is safe enough to exist without armor.

And that transition, between who you were forced to become and who you’re finally allowed to become, is sacred, uncomfortable, disorienting, and profoundly human.

As therapists, our job isn’t to rush clients through this “in-between,” or push them into a new identity before they’re ready. Our job is to hold space for the unfolding. To normalize the confusion. To witness the shifts. To honor the grief and the emergence. Because stepping into who you are outside of the trauma isn’t instant. It’s slow, nonlinear, and deeply embodied. It’s the process of gathering the fragmented parts of the self and weaving them back into someone whole, grounded in their values, and real.

To every client walking through that in-between space:

You’re not lost.

You’re becoming.

11/20/2025

What is psychoeducation?

Psychoeducation gives clients the information and the language for what they’ve lived through...and language is powerful.

It restores clarity where chaos once lived. It replaces self-blame with understanding. And it helps clients make sense of reactions that once felt “crazy,” “dramatic,” or “too much.”

When we teach clients how trauma works, something shifts. Shame loosens. Compassion grows. And suddenly, the things they once judged about themselves start to make perfect sense.

Psychoeducation helps clients understand:

🧠 “My reactions make sense.”
Trauma changes the brain. Hypervigilance, emotional numbing, shutting down, people-pleasing. These are survival responses, not personality defects.

💛 “My body was trying to protect me.”
Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn are instinctive safety systems located in the limbic system. Their body wasn’t betraying them… it was saving them.

🌿 “I can learn new ways to feel safe.”
The same brain that adapted to survive can adapt to heal. Neuroplasticity means safety, connection, and regulation can be relearned and strengthened.

When clients understand their trauma responses, they begin to:
✨ Externalize shame
✨ Feel less “broken” and more human
✨ Build self-compassion
✨ Reclaim their agency in the healing process

Psychoeducation isn’t just information, but empowerment. It turns confusion into clarity, and fear into understanding. It gives clients a roadmap so they no longer feel lost inside their own nervous system.

11/19/2025

Healing from trauma isn’t about just reducing anxiety or flashbacks.

Those matter, but they’re only the surface layers of the work. The deeper transformation begins when we address the identity wounds beneath the symptoms:

the shame,
the self-blame,
the lost sense of worth,
the belief that “I’ll never be the same.”

And here’s the truth many survivors don’t realize at first:

You’re not meant to be the same.

You’re meant to become.

This is where Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) emerges, not by ignoring pain, but by integrating it, making meaning from it, and allowing it to shape a stronger, wiser, more authentic version of yourself.

PTG can look like:
✨ A deeper appreciation for life
✨ Stronger, healthier boundaries
✨ Greater compassion toward yourself and others
✨ More meaningful relationships
✨ A clearer sense of purpose
✨ A newfound inner strength you didn’t know you had

PTG doesn’t mean the trauma was “good.”

It means you are powerful enough to grow in ways you never asked for, but deeply deserve. In trauma-informed therapy, clients begin to see themselves not as broken, but as becoming. Becoming whole. Becoming grounded.

Becoming who they were always meant to be.

Growth isn’t the absence of pain. It’s the presence of integration, self-compassion, and reclaimed identity.

11/18/2025

EMDR therapy doesn’t just process trauma. It helps rewrite the story of who we believe we are.

By reprocessing overwhelming or painful experiences, clients shift from beliefs like “I’m powerless” or “I’m unlovable” to grounded truths like “I am capable,” “I am worthy,” and “I am enough.”

But EMDR isn’t the only trauma therapy that supports this kind of identity-level healing. Several trauma-informed approaches help reconnect the fragmented self, integrate past experiences, and support post-traumatic growth:

✨ EMDR Therapy: Reprocesses traumatic memories, installs adaptive beliefs, and helps clients integrate the past with the present.
✨ Internal Family Systems (IFS): Helps clients connect with and compassionately integrate “parts” of themselves that developed in response to trauma.
✨ Somatic Experiencing (SE): Releases stored survival energy in the body and restores a felt sense of safety, strength, and wholeness.
✨ Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT): Supports cognitive restructuring, helping clients challenge shame-based narratives and build new schemas of self-worth.
✨ Attachment-Based Therapies: Heal relational wounds, allowing clients to form identities rooted in connection rather than fear or abandonment.
✨ Narrative Therapy: Empowers clients to re-author their stories, separating who they are from what they experienced.

Across these models, the theme is the same:

Trauma may shape us, but it does not have to define us.

Healing rewrites the internal narrative... turning survival stories into stories of strength, resilience, and self-discovery.