Healing the Worry Treadmill

Do you experience uncontrollable worry? It can feel like running on a treadmill, knowing you are not getting anywhere but for some reason you cannot get off. In addition, are those around you making you feel shamed for worrying? Worry is related to our brain's tendency for what is called The Negativity Bias. Rick Hanson PhD, neuropsychologist, describes this pre-historic tendency as the brain's programmed function to see the negative or the threat in order for the species to survive. In our earliest existence, we needed to watch for any and all threat in order to not be eaten!

Those neurons that fire together in repetition begin to sculpt a brain structure that keeps the blood flowing to this busy part of the brain, the limbic system. Included in the limbic system is the amygdala whose job it is to alert you to danger. The higher brain or the thinking brain (frontal cortex) cannot accurately access danger if the limbic system cannot rest. 

When we live with unresolved trauma or are currently in a persistent and toxic threat/protection cycle, it is almost impossible to make the necessary, even slight, adjustments to our thinking brain. It is NOT a simple matter of "positive thinking." The body's nervous system is stuck in a cycle that revs up the need to survive based upon the negativity bias already programmed into the brain.

How do we heal? How does the cycle settle and allow us to live less constrained by worry and fear?
One key element is healing past traumas. What is a trauma? Anything or event(s) that comes at us too fact, without any preparatory response, or that which is prolonged such as verbal, emotional, spiritual, or physical abuse. The latter is more common and is also called complex trauma because it is not as easily identifiable. Most people have dissociated from complex trauma, leaving scars and old, concrete belief systems about self and the world buried away in the unconscious or non-conscious. 

Techniques I use in healing complex trauma:

• Somatic Experiencing
• Right brain therapies like re-imaging, dreams, art, music, and poetry
• Depth Psychology
• Discovering one's unique Spirituality and Soul

To find out more and to schedule a free 1/2 hour consultation with me, go to www.healinghousesaintpaul.org and use the link to BookFresh for appointment times.

Decide its time to heal the worry treadmill. It is indeed possible.
Laure Schwartz