Holistic Healing with Deborah

Mindfully Observing the Sensation of Pain - Link in Bio

Everything changes, including our sensations of pain. This technique helps to decrease fear of pain as you learn to objectively observe how it changes while learning to feel safe in your body. I hope it helps you.

Inner Wisdom Guided Visualization - Link in Bio

There is great wisdom within each of us. Some people may call this inner wisdom, Spirit, intuition, higher self, or inner voice. It provides us with helpful, positive advice to solve problems and answer lingering questions. Before beginning, it may be helpful to set an intention, such as wanting an answer to a question or problem, or perhaps, see what spontaneously arises during the process.Enjoy!

Often when we feel chronic pain we feel that we are in immediate danger, but we aren’t. "Am I really in danger right now?" is a good question to ask ourselves, kind of like a reality check for our over-protective brain.

If our brain continues to perceive ourselves in danger, even if the injury is healed, or the car accident is over., the chronic over-firing of pain signals builds new neural pathways in the brain. The brain rewires. Pain becomes a habit of the brain. Pain becomes learned.

But we can unlearn pain! The brain is placid. If we can change our nervous system's response (of dysregulation) and our brain's response of sending pain signals, we can change pain.

How:
1. Check in and ask, “” How am I feeling?"
- If hyper-aroused (fight/flight/freeze), ask: "How can I calm myself or get out that excess energy?"
- If hypo-aroused/crashed, ask: "How can I slowly energize myself? What do I need?"

Because we are retraining our physiology, we have to be gentle and soothing when we come back from a state of overwhelm. We can’t overexercise or we can experience increased pain and Post Exertional Malaise. We have to pace ourselves and balance rest with activities.

*When we regulate our nervous system we can regulate pain.
**The more we can maintain a steady nervous system, the more we tell our brain we are safe, and the more it will turn down the pain ...and hopefully off!

What is one way the brain continues to perceive danger and cause pain?

MEMORIES.
Event/s that caused pain AND the experience of pain can become imprinted under intense experience of stress. This keeps our brain (and nervous system) hypervigilant, always on the lookout for danger. It wants to protect us from occurring again.
This may also be one reason pain persists: because the brain doesn’t forget.

Here's an example:
There was a person who was bitten on the foot by a poisonous snake and nearly died. Traumatic! Years later he gets bit by a harmless spider in the same place and he has full blown pain.
Why? Because The central nervous system froze that memory of the original EXPERIENCE AND the original PAIN in that area and when the same area was triggered by a less severe stimuli, the brain overreacted thinking it needed the same protection.

Example #2 of a stuck experience:
A woman came to me with her neck tensed and stuck in left rotation. Through our work together, we discovered that her body was stuck in the same position as when coming up the stairs and she looked to the left and saw a fire in her house. The emotional trauma from the experience got stuck in her physically.

Example #3:
A woman in a car accident comes to me with her body torqued. We discover her body is frozen in the SAME position of impact when her car was hit.

Solution:
The Body and Nervous System need to feel safe and learn how to fully release the energy and process through the physical and emotional trauma of the experiences.

Why does pain and anxiety persist sometimes?
Because the brain keeps perceiving danger.
But what makes it think it's in continual danger?
How we perceive our daily experiences.

1. Life Stressors: Work, Finances, Bills, Caring for Family, Medical appointments and therapies, Isolation
2. Our Perceptions, Beliefs: "I can't do anything"
3. Catastrophizing Thoughts that lead to Avoidant Behaviors: "My life is over", "I can't be happy until I can live my life Iike I did before"
4. Emotions: Anxiety, Fear of Pain, Fear of Future, Fear of the Unknown, Loneliness, Grief
*5. Memories - We'll learn about this tomorrow!

These all can contribute to a cycle of continual pain. A continual stress response which, overtime, can lead to inflammation, hypersensitivity, and stress hormones causing more pain.

Part of healing is knowing: What is causing my Continued Stress Response?

What are some of your stressors? Comment below
I know mine are trying to keep up with being a mom and endless doctor and treatment appointments.

Know Your Rights! Trauma Informed Care. https://wix.to/JzKuBNh

Holistic Healing with Deborah find your calm Dear Friends, I recently posted this article about Trauma-Informed Care and wanted to share it with you. I hope you take the time to read this. This isn't just for practitioners. It's important for all of us as patients to understand what we should expect in our care from healthcare practitioners. I...

Reboot yourself! Did you know resting 7 mins. after a work out turns back on the parasympathetic system? It takes 7 minutes. Resting after exerting yourself retrains the nervous system to rebalance itself. This is so important when dealing with post exertional malaise issues or recovering from injuries or .

What's an easy technique to reduce anxiety?

As soon as you feel overwhelmed or triggered, you can use the 333 rule to ground yourself back in the present moment. Just look around to identify 3 objects and 3 sounds, then move 3 body parts.

This strategy helps you refocus on the now and recenter in your body when you feel anxiety, nervous, or overwhelmed.

Every journey begins with a single step into the unknown.
Embrace the path ahead with courage, for with each step, you are closer to the beauty that awaits.

Want to learn more?
Check out my new blog post and stop that pain in the neck! Link in bio

Want to know more?
Visit my blog. Link in bio or at https://www.holistichealingwithdeborah.com

Self-love is the art of cherishing yourself unconditionally, free from attachments to “What if I had…” or “If only I was…”.

It transcends the confines of goals and comparisons. True self-love shields you against the erosions of pain, illness, and anxiety, allowing your essence to flourish undeterred. 🌟💕

Check out my blog post https://wix.to/4uvEsya

Quick & Calming Breathing Techniques Our nervous system is in a continual state of internal contraction and expansion. In contraction, our body up-regulates into sympathetic response, with blood rushing to muscles to energize and mobilize us. Then, in expansion our body down-regulates into a parasympathetic, restful state. This is an a...

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So often when I ask myself a question, I listen for the answer in a rushed way, only giving myself about 15 seconds to hear the answer. And I often don't get a good answer. Why? Because I don't give myself the time to pause quietly and listen.

What if I gave myself 5 mins more to stop and listen to what my inner wisdom is trying to tell me?

Five mins doesn't seem like that much, but it takes practice and training to pause for that amount of time in this rushed & hectic world. How much more would I experience and learn from myself if I gave myself just 5 more minutes of pause?

Today, I wish all of you time to hear and listen to your magnificent wisdom.

Coming in September on Zoom! Link in Bio to Register.

In this 8-week program, we explore Mindfulness, Compassion, and Somatic practices to fuel our own inner strengths, capacities, and possibilities. The gentle mind-body-spirit skills we develop support us to:

-Understand the science of pain
-Learn how to stop our emotions from becoming "hijaked"
-Practice techniques to down-regulate our nervous system
-Decrease fear of pain and find comfort in the body
-Learn to use our body as a doorway to tap into our inner wisdom
-Learn tools to cope with the emotional turmoil pain can cause
-Build more inner resources & action plans to find calm in the storm
-Experience your healing power as individuals & as a group

The C.A.M.P. program is a small group that creates a safe and supportive community in which we feel empowered to share the realities of experiencing an invisible illness. The C.A.M.P. community setting is a salve for the fear and distress we experience living with pain.

Come join us at C.A.M.P.! LINK IN BIO to learn more and REGISTER Here
Space is limited.

Testimonials:
“Sooooo good! This class is full of so much useful information about pain and strategies to help us both manage and alleviate our pain experience. The leaders are compassionate and caring and have a great deal to offer. So very worthwhile.” (J)

“I enjoyed being part of this wonderful group and it was always a pleasure to share my experiences and listen to others, as I learned a lot from everybody. Even though we experience pain differently, we all learned to use the tools to make pain work together with us and not see pain as our enemy, as something to be afraid of.” (D.)

“I really enjoyed this. I am also doing a MBSR course and I felt this was much more accessible. Time limit was the perfect amount; presentation of experiences are abundant; discussions being optional meant I felt more safety with the group and engagement.”

New Blog Post.
How we can change our health and wellbeing.

BodyMind Mapping The other day, a client came in to see me with complaints of shoulder and low back pain. Instead of performing manual therapy to relieve her pain, I took another approach that I am going to call BodyMind Mapping. I asked her to write a list of five ‘negative’ thought statements she most often ha...

Too many times I work with people who are in perpetual motion, including athletes and workaholics, who go, go, go, push, push, push. This sympathetic overdrive and can leave us stuck in a sympathetic state, which may later lead to adrenal burn out, injuries, and/or inflammation. That's when people come to me.

We need to offer our body just as much rest as activity so that it doesn't lose its ability to rebalance itself. The body naturally moves between sympathetic to parasympathetic states, but not if we tip the scales too far and for too long in a sympathetic direction. If we do, we need to retrain our nervous system how to calm itself.

Focused breathing, listening to music, guided imagery, meditation, or whatever brings a sense of calmness and rest turns on the rest and heal state of the body. Another way is to go into a Savasana pose for 7-10 minutes after a workout or a stressful situation to give the body/Nervous system time to rebalance itself back into feeling the calm.

NAME the emotion you're feeling
TAME it with a soothing breath: inhale for 4 & exhale through pursed lips for 8
REFRAME your self-talk with self-compassion

So excited. Yesterday was the first day of our Pilot Program on zoom and we got great feedback!. And we already have a waitlist started!

My colleague, Elise Brenner, and I talked about and guided practices in Ways to Resource Ourselves.

First Essential Resource: Centering & Finding Comfort in the Body
Second Essential Resource: The Breath.
Third Essential Resource: Cognitive Knowledge. Learning about pain science. Knowledge is Power!
Fourth Essential Resource: Embodied Knowledge.

Class 2 will be about:
Fifth Essential Resource: Down-regulating the Nervous System.
Trauma & Window of Tolerance
Finding Pleasant Sensations Within
Body Awareness Through Postures

So thankful for those who are participating with us and helping to make this dream a reality.

March 15 is International Long COVID Awareness Day On March 15, we will be observing International Long COVID Awareness Day, which serves to recognize the countless Americans who have been affected by long COVID.

1. Sit comfortably.
2. Place a finger in each ear.
3. Breathe in through your nose.
4. Hum softly as you breathe out.

Humming is a great technique. It stimulates the , lowers heart rate, induces , and enhances