Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

Our childhood experiences play a BIG role in our personalities, our interests, our desires, our values, our triggers and most importantly our subconscious programming.

We are a result of all our experiences. They shape us. Through them we learn. 

The subconscious programming that we develop in our childhood becomes the foundation of who we are, how we approach the world, and how we respond to it.

If you are human, at some point in your childhood you have probably experienced one (or maybe even two!) challenging, stressful or traumatic situations. Bullying, car accidents, sexual assault, and divorce are all very common experiences that my clients write on their intake forms. 

These experiences drive our brains to respond in ways that keep us safe. Our bodies are incredibly smart, once we experience pain or discomfort, our bodies do everything they can to avoid re-experiencing that pain in the future. We do this by being alert and staying aware of anything that may look or feel similar to the original stressful or traumatic experience. 

Sometimes these learned behavior supports us, and other times they hinder our relationships with the people & world around us. When brushed under the rug and not addressed they can overwhelm us and create many challenges in the world around us.

There is an area of your brainstem called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is located at the brainstem and connects the brain to the spinal cord. Many stress physiologists believe this is the bridge connecting the mind & the body as one. This are of your brain is like a filter. It sorts out unnecessary information so the essential stuff can make it through… at least what it thinks is important! The RAS is responsible for arousal & sleep/wake cycles. Ultimately influencing the sympathetic & parasympathetic nervous system responses (fight/flight and rest/digest.) The things you focus on most are the things your brain believes to be most important.

Have you ever planned to purchase a specific new car and then started seeing that car everywhere on the road? You can thank your RAS for this. The same goes for traumatic experiences & stressful memories. For example, if your husband or wife left you suddenly, your brain is going to constantly be on alert looking for future partners who might do the same. 

If you are familiar with the law of attraction which states that like attracts like, you will understand that ultimately this focus will attract partners who are unwilling & unready to commit and who will likely suddenly leave you. Why? Because your RAS is focused on it!

Ultimately, the things you focus on become your reality. The beautiful thing is that you have the choice regarding what you focus on. Your thoughts, beliefs, feelings and emotions all create your reality. Choosing to focus on the positive, high vibrational thoughts, beliefs, feelings and emotions will help you bring positive, high vibrational experiences into your life. Negative, fear based, low vibrational thoughts, beliefs, feelings and emotions will help you bring negative, fear based, low vibrational experiences into your life.

Trauma & stressful events lead your brain to think about it in attempts to avoid re-experiencing, which then brings forth the experience because you are thinking about it! Sounds like a cyclic cycle doesn’t it?

Well, the incredible thing is that you can train your RAS by shifting your focus. I work with my clients to help them shift their focus surrounding their stressful & traumatic experiences in many ways. The goal is to calm the nervous system, and bring about a sense of safety through awareness, pattern interruption, breathwork and a shift in thoughts & beliefs. 

Storywork is an incredible way to support this interrupting & restructuring of thought patterns. Through storywork I safely dive into the stressful experiences with my clients that are keeping them in physical, mental & emotional pain. I support them in getting these experiences written down and in reducing the intensity of the experience to the point where they walk away with a different perspective on the actual story. This changes the body's stress response to the memory.

Writing things down creates physical matter out of your thoughts. Once we create matter, we make it matter. Thoughts are truly just floating around up in space until we write them down and make them physically real. This also allows my clients to separate between being the thought/emotion and observing themselves experiencing the emotion. 

Storywork helps slow down & break down the thoughts, feelings, emotions & beliefs that are keeping your RAS focused on the negative, low vibrations and redirects the RAS to focus on the positive, higher vibrational frequencies. When stuck in the negative, low vibrations, the body stays stuck in a stress response. The body can not heal in a stress response.

Your thoughts, feelings, beliefs & emotions play a significant role on your health & healing. When I am working with clients looking to heal from chronic pain & chronic disease symptoms, we dive into past stressors & traumatic experiences. Without releasing the energetic charges, the body will stay stuck in a stress response, which will perpetuate chronic disease, chronic inflammation & chronic pain. 

In order to support the body through healing, you must release the negative thoughts, feelings, emotions, and beliefs keeping you in that state of fight or flight so that your body can enter into & heal in a state of rest & digest.

The incredible part is when you shift these perspectives through storywork, it supports you in improving your relationships, enhancing your joy, breaking through roadblocks, and releasing limiting beliefs. It has the power to change every aspect of your life.

One storywork session for me was just as powerful as 20+ years of therapy. Storywork helped me observe and shift some low vibrational beliefs I had surrounding my father & my trust issues with men. Overnight, my relationship with my father & every other man in my life completely changed. I also noticed that the self-sabotaging voice in my head that always seemed to be challenging my every thought & decision… it was no longer yelling. The voice inside my head that made my life so challenging, disappeared.

You have the power to change your thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and emotions which in turn have the power to heal your body, and completely change your life.

If you are still struggling with the voice in your head, struggling to heal your body, and struggling to move through a challenging experience… contact me here and as me how storywork can completely change your life and help you heal better!

Your mind may control your body, but YOU have the power over your mind. 

Xo, Leah