River Psychotherapy LLC

Opening space for self-compassion to enter into the places of suffering.

What’s getting you through right now?

Healing comes from being seen and heard by a compassionate other.

A friendly reminder...

Your body doesn't trust your positive thoughts.

We experience the world first through our senses, this information is then sent to the brain where our mind constructs a narrative to make meaning of our experience.

In fact, approximately 80% of the neurons responsible for our survival are afferent, meaning they carry information toward the brain. I'm not a neuroscientist, but from my cursory understanding, there's a superhighway of information moving from our body to our brain and a winding path moving back to our body.

While this is an over simplification, it may help us understand why our body doesn't trust our positive thoughts nearly as much as our mind trusts our "positive" sensations.

In the words of Deb Dana, our "physiological state creates a psychological story."

This also explains why focusing on positive thoughts is inefficient at best, and in many cases can be dismissive and toxic. Prioritizing positivity gets it backwards — when we feel safe our mind is more likely to construct a positive story not the other way around.

We can't think ourselves out of trauma because our bodies don't care that much about our stories or our thoughts, our bodies simply want to be safe. Trying to convince ourselves that we're safe may result in a compelling story, but our body is not buying our positive thoughts. Our bodies don't speak a verbal language, they communicate in the language of sensation.

This realization has made a huge difference in how I understand and work with trauma.

I'd love to hear if this concept was a light bulb moment for you too.

-Brian

The gift of therapy.

Entering into a shared space with a therapist is all about turning inward - to slow down, be in the present moment, notice what comes up, soften to all feelings, and welcome all parts of ourself so they are seen and heard - on a path toward a beautiful unfolding into our authentic Self.

😭 It’s okay to collapse in grief.
😡 It’s okay to rage against injustice.
😧 It’s okay to be immobilized by loss.
✊ It’s okay to mobilize for a cause.
😶 It’s okay to curl up to protect yourself.
😤 It’s okay to fight to protect others.
🗣️ It’s okay to scream, “How dare you?!”
💭 It’s okay to whisper, “How will we?”
😱 It’s okay to feel what you feel.
😧 It’s okay to not be okay.
💜 It’s okay to do what you need to do.
🤲 It’s okay to be human, however that shows up today.

There’s no correct way to grieve, and there's no shame or judgement in that.

-Brian

Meditation isn’t about eliminating the feelings you’d rather not have. It’s about befriending ALL of yourself, difficult parts included.

"It was not okay."

I still remember the moment when I first heard these words. "It was not okay. What they did was NOT okay."

I already knew that it was not okay, but there was something about hearing someone else say it out loud. I knew it was not okay, but I had spent years trying to convince myself that "it wasn't that bad." Maybe it was somehow my fault. They had some redeeming qualities too, it wasn't like they were a complete monster.

"It was not okay."

The words were spoken with aggression and power in a way that gave my nervous system permission to feel and express the injustice I'd felt for far too long. "It was NOT okay!"

I felt the waves of anger crash against the rocks of reality and I trembled a bit as the truth settled into pools of relief. The aggression in my core felt strong, protective, and safe in this unexpected way. "It was not okay, and it will never happen again." I began to trust my body again.

I no longer needed to convince myself that I was safe. I didn't need a better narrative to replace the old story of powerlessness. My mind already knew that I was an adult, and I had enough resources for it to not happen again. But now, for the first time, my body knew that it could do what needed to be done and I could say what needed to be said. Inside this powerful aggression, I began to trust myself and feel safe.

As you think about the thing that was not okay in your life, perhaps you too can imagine what it would be like to hear, to say, and to believe "it was not okay." If you were to tell me what happened, I would offer you the same gift that was given to me, an emphatic "It was NOT okay!"

Perhaps your mind would try to find some form of control in a narrative that sought to rationalize, understand, or even offer compassion to the person who harmed you. I've been there inside that story too. I've discovered that unless you feel safe first, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness often function as powerless forms of please/appease.

Feeling safe is SO important, and safety is often the result of moving into and through the powerful activated state of fight/flight.

Unless we feel safe, it's nearly impossible to connect with others in any meaningful way because our nervous system prioritizes our survival. The person who harmed you may have been reenacting their own unresolved trauma. None of that changes the fact that what they did was not okay.

There may be a place for understanding, it may even be possible to offer them compassion at some point. But in order for these to be safe and viable options, it will be necessary to feel safe first.

I've come to think about this as aggression in the service of safety and connection. If we are able to do what is necessary to "earn" a sense of safety, there's at least the possibility for understanding, compassion, and connection.

I'm not suggesting that forgiveness is necessary for healing — it's not. I also feel strongly about not pressuring survivors to forgive, as forgiveness is often weaponized and used to keep survivors trapped in freeze/collapse.

What I am suggesting is that if we want to create a context where understanding, compassion, and forgiveness are possible, we would be well served to celebrate the anger, aggression, and power that result in safety.

"It was not okay."

Feel the injustice and see if maybe there's a way to make sense of a world where you are fierce, powerful, aggressive, and safe. Imagine what might be possible from this place of safety.

Thank you for sharing a few steps of this journey with me. I'm grateful for your encouraging words and thoughtful insights.

Here's to aggression in the service of safety and connection!

-Brian

Dare to tell the truth to yourself and to the people around you, in a way that it’s clear you’re rooting for them and for the relationship, but not backing away from telling the truth.

All feelings are welcome.

All feelings are only looking for a loving home, for mercy and protection.

Feelings that have been resisted, pushed away, denied, banished, do not actually disappear; they live on in the darkness of the Unconscious, homeless and hungry for love, pulling the strings in our relationships, our bodies, our work in the world, getting in the way of our joy. Screaming for attention, deep down in the Underworld, they sap and drain our vitality and self-expression, cause us to become reactive, compulsive and obsessive, depressed and anxious, and ultimately affect our physical health... all in their attempt to get us to listen.

Until one day, we remember, all feelings are sacred and have a right to exist in us, even the messiest and most inconvenient and painful ones. And we remember to turn towards our feelings instead of running away. To soften into them. To make room for them instead of numbing them out or ignoring them.

These hungry ghosts, now fed with our love, our warm attention, our curiosity and Presence, now given a home in us, can finally come to rest. They no longer need to pull the strings in our lives. They now have the empathy they always longed for.

So much of our precious life force, our prana, our chi, our sacred energy, is spent on this Sisyphean task of pushing feelings away, trying to make them go 'somewhere else', but where would they go? For even the Underworld is within us. So much creativity is released, so much relief is felt, when we break this age-old pattern of self-abandonment, go beyond our fearful conditioning, and try something totally new: staying close to feelings, not pushing them away, as they emerge in the freshness of the moment, looking for their true home – which is our own hearts.

I am eternally grateful to the gods of the Underworld for keeping my feelings safe until I was ready to feel them, for protecting me from what I was not yet ready to protect.

- Jeff Foster

Two words that lift up our tender selves 💜

A gentle reminder 💜

“Your victory is in any freaking process that gets you closer to operating more authentically, more kindly, more compassionately, and more integrated with yourself and others.”

Therapy = deliberate and intentional brave work to walk your own self on a new path with the support of a compassionate guide 💜

It’s important to show up for yourself with tenderness and compassion as you are showing up for others in this difficult and turbulent time.

Bookmark this one for a tough day and share it widely with those who may need this support, too. Because, after all, who among us doesn’t go through hard times and require a little extra support, an extra spark for our soul?

Working together in therapy we can explore your inner critic, get curious about when it shows up, grieve how it undermines and limits you, and learn to bring kindness and compassion to yourself instead.
*drawing by Charlie Mackesy

May is Mental Health Awareness month. Life is hard. Especially now. Everybody hurts sometimes. No one is immune from loss, suffering, heartbreak, depression, grief, anxiety or post-traumatic responses. Please reach out if you feel overwhelmed. It is ok to not be ok. We don’t need to face difficulties alone. We heal in the presence of compassion and connection 💜

Working with the body in therapy to move through stuck traumatic energy.

How & Why Somatic Experiencing Works Last week I received a call from a potential client, typical of the ones I receive from those seeking help after spending years in and out of talk therapy yet still finding themselves anxious,

Great article on the collective experience of loss and insight into coping as we move further into the new “normal”.

Esther Perel Social distancing. Flatten the curve. Shelter at home. Three months ago, we had never even heard of these terms. Now, they’ve become defining features of our lives. We’ve embraced this vocabulary as a means of understanding this surreal period we’re living through. In our fight against a micro...

Yes, working through trauma involves processing our narrative and understanding our core beliefs as a result of trauma, but the transformative work is when we touch into the deeply visceral and palpable sense of the trauma within our body and release the pain of thwarted responses in the past, and experience safety and empowerment in the present.

Before working with trauma, I assumed the agony Maya Angelou was referring to was in the story itself when she wrote this powerful line,

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

And, by story, I imagined a narrative in the form of language.

While I still value expressing our experience as part of meaning-making narratives via the spoken word or text on a page, I’m discovering more and more that our pain is not contained in our stories alone—the agony is inside our bodies.

I think this may be what Maya Angelou is getting at with the location of this untold story—it’s inside you.

This wordless suffering lives inside your nervous system. This pre-verbal anguish is rooted in a biological survival response seeking to resolve itself. The embodied experience of trauma is more visceral than words can fully capture.

Often, when we seek to understand trauma via story, we inadvertently detach from our embodied reality. When we attach words to the unspeakable, it can create some distance from our suffering. This distance may be useful at times — it may also get in the way of doing the important embodied work required to feel safe again.

Story is not a language our bodies understand.

Our bodies understand the felt sense of safety and threat. Our bodies know the pre-verbal connection we felt as an infant. Our bodies speak a more visceral and primal language, and we would do well to listen with more awareness.

While it may be true that, “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” I would add, there is no greater potential for healing than connecting with the felt sense of your body.

Brian Peck, LCSW

We don’t heal alone. I love this work and have deep gratitude to come alongside and share sacred ground for those seeking to speak their truth and experience compassion, connection, restoration and growth.