We can’t think our way through our mental blocks because when the old brain perceives a threat, it takes control and when it does so it takes the new brain offline. The new brain generally speaking consists of the brain areas at the top and front of the brain and it allows us to think rationally, see new perspectives and be creative about how we might want to respond. Without it we are not in control of our decisions, our past patterns are. The old brain is made up of the brain areas located closer to the base of the skull and it's job is to recognize and react to danger in the present moment, it cannot think long-term. Patterns and coping mechanisms, however unhealthy or self-sabotaging, that have helped us survive in the past are the old brain’s go-to when it perceives a threat. In order to work with the old brain, you need to speak the language of the body, which is the language of movement and the senses, not logic and linguistics. This is also why talk-therapy can often only take us so far.
“But I’m just doing my daily grind, there’s no danger,” you might say. Your old brain does not differentiate between physical, emotional and social danger and depending on your past, it may have learned to perceive danger where there is none. Sometimes the threat is sound or a posture the brain associates with a past trauma, sometimes it is a pattern of interaction or an emotion that it perceives as threatening. Sometimes it might even be the potential of feeling joy or success that is unsafe. Here I talk more about how trauma is held in the body.
It is very common to push ourselves and try to force healing, or work longer hours to achieve a goal. However if there is not safety in the nervous system there are some barriers that will keep coming up. Because our survival brain doesn’t think rationally it can’t “just not worry so much” or “let love in” or “follow your inspiration.” If you are experiencing a big block in your healing or in your goals, the chances are there is a physiologic response happening inside that is making it impossible to move forward without getting shut-down or distracted by a survival response. Avoidance, procrastination, depression, tiredness, pain, restlessness, all of these and many more are signs of your survival brain creating an experience that will stop you from going toward a perceived threat. In order to address this and move forward without suppressing aspects of yourself further or pushing yourself into burnout it is important to discover where in the body the experience of threat is happening and restore safety to it. There are many ways to do this, but it is important to do it gently. In my practice I use simple neuro-somatic exercises designed to strengthen the nervous system’s ability to self-regulate and restore the new brain to control of the situation until this approach becomes the new normal.
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