Chronic pain with no structural explanation.

When the brain misinterprets safe signals from the body as if they were dangerous with the purpose of preventing further damage to the body. 

I’ve shared valuable quotes from training, potential scripts you may hear within sessions for building safety through familiarity, and a roadmap to what this work may look like, again, for predictability to cue experiences of safety.

PRT’s underlying principle is that the brain interprets pain as dangerous. 

A transcript from a role play may give some insight into what this approach may sound like in session, or in a mindful moment of awareness in private:

“We don’t care about stamping your pain out. We care about reframing what’s actually happening. Your [body part] is sending messages to the brain and your brain is going ‘Ahh!’ 

That’s all that the pain is. 

This pain is safe. As you keep bringing gentle movement to [that part of your body]…

There is nothing structurally wrong. This is just your brain overreacting and it has perpetuated this story of danger, of damage. 

How does it feel to turn to your [body part], feel the pain, and not care that you do, because you know that it is safe?…

You just proved it, because if there was something structurally wrong with you, you would not have been able to get the pain to go down just by changing your relationship with the interpretation of the sensation…

To get rid of chronic pain, all you have to do is change your understanding of what the actual sensation is…

And once you reframe it like that, the pain is no longer dangerous, and you could break twenty years’ worth of chronic pain once you cut off the vessel of reinforcement: fear.”

“Dizziness is a danger signal when we’re off balance. Nausea, fatigue, anxiety, dizziness, headaches can all be types of danger signals. And, just like with pain, the brain can misinterpret danger signals where there is none.”

“We are biologically wired to associate physical pain with physical injury, but without a structural issue and stories of avoiding or being overwhelmed by emotion, pain may be neuroplastic.”

“It’s great that you’ve been doing all the wrong things and seen no improvement, because if you had been doing all the right things and are still in pain after two years, where do we go from there? This gives us so much room for change. Here’s the reason I say you’ve been doing the opposite of what you should be doing: all of these things you’ve been doing, you’re reinforcing the messages of danger to your brain. The reason you have these symptoms in the first place is because your brain is shrouded with danger and because you are constantly preoccupied with it…

If every time you eat, you’re afraid of inflammation, if every time you walk around your house you’re afraid of mold or EMF pollution, your poor primitive brain is going to be in such a state of high alert that it is going to perpetuate these symptoms.

This drive, this pressure has really allowed you to be successful. But this is the one area where it is actually going to prevent you from being successful, because the more intense you are to try to fix this problem the more you reinforce messages of danger to your primitive brain.” Your homework is to try something new: to learn how to live in a state of ease.

“When you’re enjoying the day and existing in the moment, and not preoccupied with the pain, that’s when the pain goes away. This is not a leap of faith. This is a leap of evidence. All we need to do is to teach you to exist that way more regularly.”

Maybe progress looks like catching moments of temporary pain with mindful recognition: 

Now when [temporary pain] comes on, I look at it as, this is my body’s way of letting me know I’m putting too much pressure on myself or I’m not attending to my inner state or I’ve kind of abandoned myself in some way. And thank you brain for letting me know that. And I’ll start treating myself better and I’ll slip back into enjoying the moment and the pain will fade.

Neuroplastic pain can develop from 

• an initial injury
• a perceived initial injury
• a stressful situation
• a gradual onset of symptoms

Chronic pain is the result of learned neural pathways. “The big three” sources of fear that fuel pain are:

1. worry
2. pressure
3. self-criticism

The path to knowing if something is structural or neuroplastic may include:

1. Assessment begins with the first phone call
2. Referral to a physician who specializes in diagnosing neuroplastic pain
3. Collecting evidence pointing towards a neuroplastic pain diagnosis

The Approach

1. Mindfulness

•    Can disrupt the pain-fear cycle and help the brain interpret signals correctly
•    Increases feelings of safety

2. Safety Reappraisal may sound like:

• Close your eyes and make yourself comfortable. Bring your attention to the physical sensation in your ___ right now. What qualities do you notice?
• I know it feels like there’s something that’s going on in your body right now, but your muscles are all healthy. Your tendons are all strong. Your ligaments and your nerves are all perfectly intact. It’s simply that your brain is overreacting to a perfectly neutral, perfectly safe sensation.
• So see if you could pay attention to this sensation. You don’t need to change it. You don’t need to get rid of it. In fact, there’s nothing to even get rid of. It’s simply your brain making a misinterpretation.
• Pay attention to this really interesting [quality of sensation in a specific location], knowing that it’s totally safe. And explore it. You’re a passenger in the car, along for the ride. And what do you notice as you pay attention to this sensation…See if you can just follow it.
• Let’s let your amygdala know you’re actually safe right now.

3. Positive Affect Induction — being immersed in a positive emotional state through humor, stories, and analogies

• Exposure to the pain with a lens of safety
• Pain may decrease when you are authentically engaged in something that you enjoy

4. The Process

• At home, communicating messages of safety to the highest degree you can given the level of pain intensity at any specific moment, building more and more evidence for the brain to interpret the sensations with a lens of safety instead of threat

5. Somatic Tracking

• Helps to respond to pain with less fear
• Should not be used when pain is too severe in the moment, as exposure may prove more retraumatizing than offering a corrective experience. Instead, we would use an avoidance behavior until the pain can be viewed through a lens of safety again
• Asks sensation, what are you telling me right now?  And then we slow down, practicing presence. Here, now, listening for whatever information your body shares with us for greater understanding.     
• Take the pressure off yourself to do this perfectly. In this very moment ‘I’m safe.’ For this moment, being present here is the most productive thing I can do in the world.
• Scale 1-10, how much fear do you have towards your pain (how much do you resist it)?
• Scale of 1-10, how confident are you in your ability to regulate your nervous system at any given moment?
• No sensations are objectively positive/negative (ex. massage, hot tub) – takes power away
• I want you to describe the physical sensations as you breathe in and out. What’s it like as you breathe… Keep breathing and really explore it…Is it pleasant? Is it unpleasant? Is it neutral?

In session, we will:

• Identify the threat—the motion sensations
• Work on positive affect in present moment
• Work with reaction to the sensation
• Somatically tracking where and how the sensations of the reaction are experienced
• Prioritizing our time for primary emotional experiences instead of secondary experiences
  • Example: Instead of frustration about the frustration, what would it be like to accept the original frustration
• Allowing for natural responses to sensation, anything that exists. Practicing not fighting it away or ignoring it.
• Leaning into a new relationship to the response with compassion, valuing its’ protective qualities.
• Allowing emotions…don’t need to fight them…they can come up for air
• What is arising—finding a way to relate to sensation and emotion positively, with lightness.
• Check in with original sensation
• Relate conscious mind with subconscious mind
• Celebrate the learning of a “different” association: sensation with positive affective experience
• Continue exploring evidence for safety, new adaptive framing of your sensational experience of living: Are there any positive or neutral sensations that we can relate to this?

Like with most growth, there may be what feels like 2 steps forward and 1 step back. An extinction burst occurs as fear and pain symptoms decrease, often a spike of intense pain follows temporarily.

I encourage you to notice what sensations just set off within you reading the first part of that last sentence? And, was there any change when you got the “temporarily?

Our defenses are like the same kid going home, changing costumes, and coming back for more of the same candy. They try hard to get what they want and use disguises to improve their odds.

RECOGNIZE what’s going on

REAPPRAISE the mind isn’t drawn to rumination or distraction because there is legitimate danger, rather it’s drawn towards what is familiar 

REPLACE the messages of danger with messages of safety

Oftentimes people say “I can’t wait to get back to life before the pain” when in actuality life was probably intense leading the body to send signals of danger. We want to work towards building a more regular experience of ease and enjoyment in your life in the present and moving forward. 

Life after pain will likely differ greatly from your experience of living any time before.

Healing isn’t about fixing a broken version of yourself—it is about learning how to come back home to the present moment. If you are ready to break the cycles of anxiety, perfectionism, or chronic pain, let’s take the first step together.

Book a consultation today to explore holistic, somatic psychotherapy at our Carlsbad, California practice.

The post Pain Reprocessing Therapy: Healing Neuroplastic Pain appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

1. Conflict Is Not the Problem — Disconnection Is

Conflict is inevitable. And healthy.
The question isn’t whether you fight. It’s how you repair.
The goal of conflict is not to win. It’s to understand and reconnect.

A few essentials:

1. Avoid accusatory “Why did you…?” questions. They often trigger defensiveness.
2. Speak from your experience: “When that happened, I felt…”
3. Take breaks when flooded. (At least 20 minutes to allow your nervous system to settle.)
4. Return intentionally. Repair is what builds intimacy.

This aligns closely with the research of John Gottman — especially the idea that trust is built not by apologies alone, but by consistent changed behavior.

Conflict handled well increases closeness. Conflict avoided or mishandled increases distance.

2. Understand Your Nervous System Patterns

When tension rises, do you:

• Pursue like a rhino?
• Withdraw like a turtle?
• Defend like a porcupine?
• Appease like a fawn?

Discuss this explicitly.
Many couples don’t struggle because they lack love — they struggle because their stress responses collide.

Use shared language. Some couples use terms like:

• “My engine is low.”
• “I’m at 30% capacity.”
• “I need a HALT break” (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired).

This isn’t weakness. It’s regulation.
Emotional maturity in marriage requires knowing when you’re resourced — and when you’re not.

3. Love Is a Practice, Not a Feeling

You will not always like each other.
That’s normal.

Love in long-term partnership is behavioral. It’s choosing:

• Respect in moments of frustration
• Affection in moments of distance
• Softness when pride wants to harden

Reaffirm connection, especially during conflict: 
“I’m upset, but I’m still committed.” 
“I don’t like what happened, but I love you.”

Consistency creates safety.

4. Trust Is Built Slowly

One of the most important distinctions:

• Apology repairs rupture.
• Changed behavior builds trust.

If something hurts your partner, the work is not complete when you say “I’m sorry.” It’s complete when your actions reflect understanding.

Trust accumulates through patterns of showing up time and time again.

5. Talk About Money Early — and Often

Financial stress is rarely about numbers. It’s about values.

Discuss:

• What money meant in your families growing up
• What spending represents emotionally (security? freedom? pleasure? status?)
• Individual “fun money” allocations
• Shared financial goals

Treat the first few months as experiments, not verdicts. Adjust together.

6. Prioritize Physical Affection and Oxytocin

Safety in partnership is physiological as much as emotional.

Oxytocin — often called the bonding hormone — increases through:

• Prolonged hugs
• Six-second kisses
• Skin-to-skin contact
• Gentle touch
• Eye contact

Physical closeness builds resilience
Sexual intimacy deserves thoughtful, shame-free conversation. 

Discuss:

• Preferences
• Comfort levels
• Boundaries
• Health
• Expectations during stress or illness

Bodies change. Energy fluctuates. Desire ebbs and flows. Ongoing communication matters more than performance.

7. Protect the Relationship with Boundaries

Your marriage needs protected space.

Consider:

• A no-phone policy during dates
• A designated place for heavy conversations (not the bed)
• Clear agreements about what stays private vs. what’s shared with friends
• Thoughtful boundaries with family of origin

Especially early on, the partnership needs time to solidify before being overly distributed outward.

8. Build Rituals of Connection

Strong couples create predictable rhythms:

• Weekly check-ins (some call it a “State of the Union”)
• Monthly deeper conversations about goals and needs
• Regular date nights
• Shared projects (cooking, designing your home, planning trips)
• Shared novelty (new restaurants, classes, places)

These rituals increase emotional attunement and reduce drift.

During check-ins, ask:

• What do you need more of?
• What felt connecting this week?
• Where did we miss each other?
• What needs repair?

Keep it structured. Keep it kind.

9. Illness, Exhaustion, and Capacity Matter

“In sickness and in health” includes:

• Physical illness
• Emotional depletion
• Burnout
• Mental overload

When one partner has limited capacity:

• Scale expectations
• Communicate clearly
• Delay heavy conversations if needed
• Clarify what affection looks like during that season

Compassion during low-capacity moments builds deep trust.

10. Choose Community Carefully

Surround yourselves with:

• Couples who value growth
• Friends who respect your partnership
• Mentors who model emotional health

Be mindful of oversharing or complaining about your partner in ways that erode respect.
Community should strengthen your bond — not fragment it.

11. Self-Care Is Relational Care

Taking care of yourself is not selfish.
Your physical, emotional, sexual, and mental health directly impact your marriage.
Encourage one another’s growth. Support therapy if needed. Stay teachable.

The healthiest marriages are between two people who are individually committed to becoming more regulated, honest, and integrated.

12. Review Your Commitments

Revisit your vows or shared commitments periodically.

Not as pressure. As alignment.
Marriage is not static. It’s adaptive.

The question is not “Are we perfect?” It’s “Are we still growing?”

And when that growth means the language you’ve started your commitment with need alteration, commit together to adjusting the language so you always have shared vows: agreed upon behaviors that reflect ongoing commitment to each other and your mutual shared visions of present and future, together. 

A Final Word

You will make mistakes.
You will misattune. You will hurt each other unintentionally.

What sustains a marriage is not flawlessness — it’s repair, humility, and effort.
Stay moldable. Stay curious. Stay committed to understanding before defending.
That is what builds a secure bond.

And always spend the time to build each other’s marble jars of trust ensuring your marriage acknowledges Gottman’s Magic Ratio of 5 positive interactions to every 1 negative interaction.

The post How to Build a Secure Marriage: Conflict, Intimacy, and Emotional Safety appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

What is beauty?

In one of my early philosophy classes, beauty was described in a dozen different ways.
As confidence.
As authenticity.
As generosity of spirit.
As something natural and diverse.
As something shaped by perspective and experience.

What I’ve come to understand — both personally and in my therapy practice — is this:
Beauty is congruence.

It’s the felt sense that something is fully itself. Or that something beautiful brings us into a state of congruence, fully aligned and present in the moment of witnessing beauty.

In people, beauty isn’t perfection. It’s when someone presents outwardly in alignment with who they are internally. No performance. No holding back. No shape-shifting.

And we feel that.

Can Beauty Be Captured?

So then — can photography capture beauty?
Not entirely.

A camera can freeze a moment, but it cannot fully capture the lived experience of it.
The salt in the air.
The warmth on your skin.
The internal shift that happened when you exhaled.

But photography can do something powerful.
It can translate meaning.

There’s a difference between photographing your life to prove something and photographing your life to understand something.

In a culture where many people — especially younger generations — document every moment, it’s easy for photography to become performance. A way to curate identity. A way to manage how we’re perceived.

But artful photography is something else.
It’s interpretation.

After the image is taken, the photographer adjusts light, contrast, shadow, cropping. Not to falsify reality — but to highlight what mattered. To communicate what the moment meant.

That process mirrors healing.
We revisit memories. We reframe. We adjust contrast. We see what we couldn’t see before.

Over time, the meaning of an image changes because we change.

Why I Photograph Sunsets

I tend to photograph sunsets.
Not because they are rare — but because they are rhythmic.

A sunset signals closure without finality. The day is ending, but it isn’t gone forever. Rest is coming. And tomorrow returns.

For nervous systems shaped by unpredictability, that rhythm matters.

A sunset reminds us:
There is an ending.
There is a pause.
There is renewal.

It anchors us in time — where we were, where we are, where we hope to go.

Photography, at its best, becomes a way of marking meaning. Of honoring transition. Of remembering who we were in a specific season.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words — But Not for the Reason You Think

The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” isn’t about explanation.
It’s about resonance.

An image bypasses cognition and lands in the body. It evokes memory. Emotion. Association.

For many trauma survivors, accessing narrative can be difficult. But an image can open something wordless. A doorway into sensation. Into longing. Into grief or hope.

Photography, then, is less about proving a life and more about witnessing one.

So instead of asking, can you capture beauty?

We ask:

Can you recognize beauty when you feel it?
Can you allow yourself to be it?

Beauty — like healing — isn’t about flawlessness. It’s about alignment. When you know yourself and allow yourself to be seen in that knowing, there is a quiet confidence that doesn’t need validation.

Whether or not you ever pick up a camera, your life itself becomes the art.
And the most powerful images are often the ones where nothing is being performed — only lived.

I often think of journaling similarly, a declaration of self-witnessing our beautiful, although often messy, self-expression.

However you choose to express and be witnessed, I wish you a positive experience as you remember how to play as an adult, finding your own experience of congruence.

The post Photography, Authenticity, and Healing: Why We Photograph Our Lives appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

The room was full. Dozens of people moved through the gallery, passing sculpture after sculpture — ignoring Michelangelo’s unfinished work and then slowing when they reached him.

Why?

Yes, historically, David marked a shift during the Renaissance to depict the true human, athletic figure. Yes, the anatomical precision was revolutionary. Yes, the scale is staggering.

Standing there, I had the sense that people were responding to something beyond technical skill.
David is not depicted after victory, but before uncertainty.
David stands alert, not yet triumphant.
His posture holds tension. Attention. Almost as if he is quietly drawing inward before moving into a courageous act.
Maybe that’s part of what draws people in — not perfection, but the recognizable feeling of being on the edge of something difficult.

Art Is a Nervous System Experience

Museums tend to label art with dates and names, as if information is what makes something meaningful. But art doesn’t land in the thinking brain first.

It lands in the body.
Your chest tightens. Your breath slows. You lean forward. Or you pull back.

Art is relational. It’s a conversation between the inner world of the creator and the inner world of the observer.

When a piece moves you, it isn’t because you’ve reasoned your way into admiration. It’s because something wordless has been touched.

For many of us — especially those who learned early to disconnect from our own experience — that moment of being moved can feel disorienting. Even uncomfortable.

But discomfort isn’t a problem.
It’s information.

The Courage to Be Seen

I used to think art was about talent. Or originality. Or perfection.
Now I think art is about congruence.

To create something honest — something that reflects your interior world outward — requires self-knowing. It requires tolerating vulnerability. It requires allowing others to see what is true for you without controlling their response.

That’s not just art.
That’s healing.

Many of the clients I work with learned to become what others needed. To shape-shift. To perform. To anticipate. To keep the peace. Their creativity went toward survival.

So when they encounter art that feels raw or embodied or unapologetic, it can stir grief —
‘I don’t know if I’ve ever been that visible.’

But visibility isn’t about performance. It’s about integration.
The artist is not asking for approval. They are allowing themselves to be witnessed.
And that is profoundly regulating.

Why We Slow Down in Front of Certain Things

You don’t need an art degree to feel something in front of a sculpture like David.

What you’re sensing may be:
Strength without aggression
Vulnerability without collapse
Readiness without panic
Exposure without shame

That balance is rare. In art — and in people.
When we see it embodied, even in stone, our nervous system recognizes coherence.
And coherence is magnetic.
It inspires in us a hope for something similar.

Let Art Change You

Art is not meant to be consumed passively.
It’s meant to provoke reflection. To stir something dormant. To awaken questions you didn’t know you were carrying.

If a painting makes you uncomfortable, stay with it. If a sculpture unsettles you, notice where you feel it. If something draws you in, get curious.

Growth often begins as friction.
You don’t have to become a sculptor or painter to be an artist in your own life.

But you might begin asking:
Where am I hiding?
Where am I bracing?
What part of me wants to be seen?

Art can be a doorway back to yourself. A method of right brain expression the left brain translates to know you more fully.

And in that way, it is less about masterpieces in museums — and more about the slow, courageous act of becoming whole.

The post The Psychology of Art: What Being Moved Reveals About Healing appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

For many of us, it’s not poetry or famous quotes. It’s the final sentence spoken before a goodbye. The unfinished conversation. The thing we wish we had said differently.

Last words carry weight because they often crystallize what mattered most in a relationship. They can soften us. Or haunt us. Or move us to change in ways we didn’t expect.

Years ago, someone’s parting words to me were simple: Work on your relationship with your mother.

At the time, I didn’t.
But over the years, those words echoed. They nudged me toward harder conversations. Toward repair. Toward expressing affection in ways that didn’t come naturally. I can’t say for certain I would have moved in that direction without that sentence lingering in the background of my mind.

Sometimes it only takes one honest reflection to shift the trajectory of a relationship.

Why Final Conversations Change Us

When something feels finite, it becomes clear.
The distractions fall away. The ego quiets. What’s left is often unfiltered truth.

We see this in stories and television, too — even in shows like 7th Heaven, where a moment of clarity interrupts bickering, disconnection, or carelessness and reminds the characters what actually matters.

But this isn’t just about dramatic deathbed speeches.
It’s about perspective.

When we imagine the end of something — a relationship, a season of life, even our own life — we often get startlingly honest about what we wish we had prioritized.

Repair over pride.
Connection over control.
Courage over image.
Presence over productivity.

For many of my clients, especially those who grew up over-functioning or managing others’ emotions, this reflection can be confronting. They have spent decades being responsible, accommodating, useful.

Rarely have they asked: What do I want to be known for?

I like Lindsey Gibson’s Role Self exercise in Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents for beginning this value change towards authentic expression over perfecting the role we felt born into within our family dynamics.

Living in a Way You Won’t Regret

The philosopher Socrates spoke openly about death. He didn’t claim certainty about what came after, but he was clear about one thing: living inauthentically felt like a kind of imprisonment.

Whether or not someone holds spiritual beliefs, there is something grounding about that clarity.

The deeper question isn’t what happens after we die.
It’s this:
Are you living in a way that feels congruent now?
Are you speaking what needs to be spoken?
Are you repairing what needs repair?
Are you tolerating being fully yourself?

So many trauma adaptations are built around survival — staying small, staying agreeable, staying needed. But at the end of a life, people rarely wish they had been more accommodating.

They wish they had been more honest. More present. More connected.

If Today Were the Last Conversation

Imagine today was the last interaction you would have with someone important to you.

What would you emphasize?
What would no longer feel worth defending?
What would you finally say?

This isn’t meant to provoke anxiety. It’s meant to clarify values.

When we allow the reality of impermanence to gently inform us, it can reorder our priorities in healthy ways. We become more willing to initiate repair. More willing to risk vulnerability. More willing to let go of performance.
And perhaps most importantly, more willing to live in alignment.

What changes people is not fear of death — it’s contact with meaning.

If you were remembered for three qualities, what would you hope they were?
Courage? Kindness? Integrity? Playfulness? Steadiness?

Instead of waiting for last words to define your life, you can let your daily choices shape your meaning-filled life now.

Healing work is not just about reducing symptoms. It’s about becoming someone whose life feels integrated enough that, when the final conversation eventually comes, there is less left unsaid.

And that kind of life is built one honest moment at a time.

The post The Power of Last Words: How to Live Without Regret in Your Relationships appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

A professor asked, “Does anyone speak Italian?”
I answered, “Un poco.”
She corrected me: “Un po. Poco is Spanish.”

It was small. Technically helpful. Objectively harmless.

But something in me collapsed.

Later, when we discussed Leonardo da Vinci, I was no longer invited to translate his words. One misstep had quietly disqualified me.
And the intensity of my reaction surprised me.

Why did something so minor feel so exposing?

When Correction Feels Like Rejection

I had just returned from five months in Italy. I loved the language. The rhythm. The intimacy of it. But loving something and feeling competent in it are not the same.

In that classroom, surrounded by people who spoke multiple languages fluently, I felt suddenly inferior. My nervous system didn’t register “correction.” It registered “not enough.”

For many high-functioning, conscientious adults — especially those who grew up equating worth with performance — moments like this don’t land as neutral feedback. They land as a threat.

Sensitivity, in those moments, isn’t weakness.
It’s activation.

The Body Remembers Exposure

When we enter environments where we feel less competent, less articulate, or less culturally fluent, old attachment wounds can stir.

Fear of looking foolish
Fear of being dismissed
Fear of losing belonging

Sensitivity heightens the senses.
It changes our breath.

You become aware of tone. Of facial expressions. Of pauses. Of who is invited to speak — and who isn’t.
You become hypervigilent, scanning for safety.

And if you’ve ever lived in a context where mistakes cost you connection, your body remembers, and it doesn’t want another repeat.

Creativity Requires Tolerance for Imperfection

Leonardo da Vinci is often admired for his range — artist, engineer, inventor, scientist.
What made him extraordinary wasn’t just talent.
It was his curiosity. A willingness to explore without certainty.

Creativity requires exposure, vulnerability, inferiority, at least momentarily.

You cannot brainstorm boldly while protecting your ego.
You cannot experiment while guarding against correction.

And yet many of us try.
We want to be expansive and impressive. Curious and competent. Confident and unshakeable.

Real confidence is not the absence of mistakes.
It’s the capacity to remain intact when they happen.

Italy and the Intimacy of the Senses

What I loved most about Italy wasn’t grammar — it was the sensory saturation.
The open-air markets.
The farmer who selects the produce for you because he has nurtured it himself.
The thunder of conversation in the piazza.
The smell of espresso drifting into each street.

Everything felt personal.
Intimate.
Embodied.

And when you live in an environment like that, your senses wake up.
And so do your emotions.
Heightened sensory experience can amplify vulnerability.
When you are immersed in a culture that values connection, expression, and immediacy, you cannot hide as easily behind intellect or performance.
Nor are intellect and performance as rewarded in such cultures as they are in environments where the next promotion is already being discussed at a promotion celebration.

You are seen.
And being seen is both the most wonderful thing to ever exist between humans, and, activating.

Sensitivity Is Not the Problem

For many of my clients, sensitivity has been labeled as “too much.”
Too emotional. Too reactive. Too affected.

Sensitivity is simply responsiveness.
It is a finely tuned nervous system that has learned to scan and know what is happening in every environment at any moment to prepare and to stay safe.

The work is not to become less sensitive. It is to become more regulated.
To recognize when a correction is just a correction.
When feedback is not exile.
When imperfection does not equal unworthiness.

Sensitivity, when integrated, becomes discernment. Empathy. Creativity. Depth.

Reclaiming Confidence

Confidence is not built by avoiding environments where you might be corrected, by choosing to only be where others praise you. In fact, Stoicism teaches us that we must seek to never be the smartest person in a room for too long, for we only grow and become wiser when in the company of others who challenge our sense of greatness.

It’s built by staying present in the midst of correction, of challenge.
By allowing yourself to speak imperfectly. To translate imperfectly. To try.

Because leadership — in any field — requires emotional range.
The ability to tolerate embarrassment. To repair after mistakes. To remain connected when you feel exposed.

Sensitivity doesn’t disqualify you from that.
It may actually be the very thing that makes you capable of it.

If your nervous system constantly registers constructive feedback as a threat to your worth, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Explore how our somatic therapy services in Carlsbad can help you find safety in your body.

The post When Feedback Feels Like Rejection: Healing Sensitivity and Self-Doubt appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from trying to constantly anticipate the next shoe about to drop.

You rehearse conversations before they happen.
You overanalyze text messages.
You try to become so self-aware, so prepared, so emotionally responsible that no one could ever misunderstand you, reject you, disappoint you, or leave you.

Your mind stays five steps ahead because somewhere along the way, vigilance started to feel safer than calming presence.

And for all the people with complex trauma this double bind is reality.

If your nervous system learned that love could disappear, moods could shift suddenly, or mistakes came with shame, then anxiety becomes less about irrational fear and more about attempted protection.

The problem is that eventually your mind no longer protects the act of vitality, of living your life fully.

It starts replacing it. And sometimes it seems nearly impossible to know what’s real anymore.

In 10% Happier, Dan Harris circles around a question that I think many thoughtful, high-functioning people quietly carry:

Is it possible to strike a balance between the price of security and the wisdom of insecurity?

The attempt to create total emotional certainty often costs us our actual lives.

The Nervous System Loves Certainty

Of course it does. Certainty feels safe. 

If I can predict everything, maybe I won’t get hurt.
If I prepare enough, maybe I won’t fail.
If I think long enough, maybe I can prevent grief before it happens.

But there is a threshold where preparation stops being wisdom and starts becoming self-abandonment.

Harris shares (Chapter 6): 

“We have 3 habitual responses to everything we experience: we want it, we reject it, or we zone out…Mindfulness is a fourth option, a way to view the contents of our mind with nonjudgmental remove.”

Dan Harris references writer Joseph Epstein, who wrote: 

It’s fine to prepare for what’s to come until it’s no longer useful. Simply be mindful of when the anxious mind runs you away from presence with the reflective question: Is this thought stream useful? When it is not, come back to the breath and present moment. 

That’s the key.

Until it’s no longer useful.

Because anxious thinking disguises itself as responsibility.
Rumination disguises itself as problem-solving.
Hypervigilance disguises itself as emotional maturity.

If your thinking pulls you away from your body, your relationships, your creativity, your rest, or your actual present life… it’s no longer serving you.

Notice the question is not:

• Is this thought true?
• Am I justified in feeling this?
• What if this happens?

Just:
Is this useful right now?

And if the answer is no, the work becomes returning to breath and the present moment.

“Here. Now.”

In the epilogue, Harris describes his spiritual journey. 

“Here is where I’ve come down on this for now. I don’t know if it’s possible to be enlightened either through meditation or a sudden Tolle-style sudden awakening. I’m agnostic but not with the deadening incuriosity that characterized my stance before I began this whole trip. I now realize that on the issue of enlightenment, I was blinded by my own skepticism.”

He shares that after all of the disciplines and practices, all of the interviews, in authoring the book, how he continues to practice meditation is this: 

“Noticing when I wander off and internally stating ‘Here. Now.’ And coming back to the breath and body with present awareness and non-judging curiosity of the sensations share messages and the responding emotions, meanings as the experience unfolds.”

I’ve simultaneously been meditating similarly for years. In any practice, in yoga class even, when my attention migrates, internally I repeat “Here. Now” with a body scan of the feet up to my mind, getting all of me onboard in the present moment. 

Meditation is not a practice of perfection, transcending human emotion, or performing calmness.

Meditation is noticing “Oh. I left” 

I wandered into a future catastrophe.
Into shame.
Into rehearsing.
Into proving.
Into fixing.
Into scanning.

And then gently responding:

Here. Now.

Back to the breath.
Back to the body.
Back to the feeling underneath the thought.

Returning to build the belief: “I know how to come back into being with me in this moment here and now.”

Because most anxiety is not actually a thinking problem.

Anxiety is commonly an inability to safely remain with uncertainty inside the body.

So instead of feeling grief, vulnerability, longing, helplessness, or disappointment, the mind starts generating activity.

Doing instead of being.

Thinking feels more powerful than feeling.

But healing often looks like learning how to stay, demonstrating to ourselves that nothing in our own experience is too much for our own non-judgemental, lovingkindness.

Non-Attachment Is Not Giving Up

Harris asks the question “How can you become a happier, better person without becoming ineffective?”

Through continuous discussions with his Buddhist Psychiatrist, he finds the answer to be: 

“Non-attachment to the results of your striving.”

A different version of it’s not always about the destination, it’s about the journey, too.

This does not mean becoming passive.
It does not mean you stop caring.
It does not mean you stop working hard or loving deeply.

It means your identity no longer lives or dies by the outcome.

That shift is enormous for people who learned:

• achievement earns love
• usefulness creates belonging
• perfection prevents abandonment

Because when striving becomes fused with worth, rest feels dangerous.

Pause with that. 

When striving becomes fused with worth, rest feels dangerous. 

This is why we live in a world afraid of boredom, why adults lose a sense of play, and why so many people walk around on the edge of burnout, lacking a sense of happiness in their day-to-day.

You can never arrive.
You can only maintain.

It feeds the scarcity mindset of always striving, never having enough, never feeling satisfied. 

And yes, I have Hamilton’s Satisfied playing in my head now.

And that creates a life where externally you may look successful, dependable, emotionally intelligent, or accomplished… while internally feeling chronically in brace. Perhaps literally feeling fused or stuck through your hips, struggling to believe that it’s okay to catch your breath and release a full exhale.

Non-attachment says:
I can care deeply without controlling everything.

That is freedom.

Maybe take a moment to truly empty a full breath here. Can you let your whole belly deflate?

Equanimity Is Not the Enemy of Creativity

Many people are afraid that if they lower their standards for excellence, they’ll become lazy.

But anxiety or pressure is not the same thing as motivation.

Chronic internal pressure may create productivity, but it often crushes joy, creativity, intimacy, and presence along the way.

Brene Brown actually teaches that boredom is the birthplace of creativity, that without play there is no innovation, no progress. We need slower moments of “Oh, I left…and, now I’m back…and this is what’s happening in me right now in this moment…and this is what I’m choosing to not grasp for as I sit here, now.”

When regulated and calm;
when you finally stop performing your life and you start inhabiting it–

That’s when you return to you living your own best life.

Humility Prevents Humiliation

Perfectionism is often an attempt to outrun shame.

If I can get everything right, maybe no one can criticize me.

Humility allows:

• mistakes without identity collapse
• feedback without devastation
• learning without self-hatred

Humility says:
I can be imperfect and still deeply worthy of love and belonging.

That changes relationships.
Family.
Friendships.
Workplace.
Every kind, everywhere.

Self-Compassion Is Not Letting Yourself Off the Hook

Many people think self-compassion means lowering standards.

It doesn’t.

It means speaking to yourself in a way that actually allows growth.

Shame rarely creates sustainable transformation. It usually creates hiding, burnout, resentment, or collapse from these dark messages like I am bad. 

Guilt says I did something wrong, and I know I need to do something about it.

The people who grow most consistently are not the self-bullies, instead, it’s the people who know how to repair after setbacks without abandoning themselves.

“Self-compassion through a firm but kind way of self-talk keeps us overcoming pitfalls in progress and success.”

It’s the thought: how would I say this to someone I love and respect deeply? 

And speaking to yourself in that same way. 

Sometimes, it’s inner child work, but not always. Choose the tone and firmness that is appropriate for the moment. 

Always choosing honesty and self-compassion.

Maybe Healing Is Simpler Than We Think

Near the end of 10% Happier, Harris admits that he no longer feels the same dismissive certainty he once had. He becomes more open. More curious. Less defended against the unknown.

I think healing the gap between who we are and who we thought we ought to be often begins there too.

Not in certainty.
Not in perfection.
Not in transcending humanity.

But in becoming willing to stay present with life as it actually is.

Messy.
Uncertain.
Beautiful.
Painful.
Constantly changing.

And maybe the practice is simply this:

Notice when fear carries you away from yourself.

Then gently return.

Here.
Now.

Because nothing is worth the cost of us sacrificing living our own lives in the present.

Trauma is not healed just from us talking about the past and anxiety does not flee from us thinking our ways into the future. 

Somatic psychotherapy and mind-body practices slow us down to notice the impact of past and future in this precise moment. Here, now. 

That’s where the door for change opens. 

Here. 

Now. 

We have a chance at taking a full breath, 

Of learning to notice 

I am safe, here, now. 

I am capable, here, now. 

So I can trust myself in the future too. 

And so we choose, stay in the powerful moment of the now, right where you are. 

That’s a big enough job for any man or woman, anywhere, on any day. And the ripple effect is a more compassionate world of humans noticing the feeling of being alive and interacting with life as it unfolds: 

Here. 

Now.

The post The Wisdom of Insecurity: How to Stop Abandoning Presence for Fear of the Future appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

• Responsiveness (attunement to another’s emotional state)
• Repair after rupture (making things right after conflict)
• Emotional safety (feeling seen, soothed, and understood)
• Mutuality and regulation (both partners can calm and co-regulate)

As you watch, actively identify:

• Scenes where one character offers repair or attunement
• Moments of emotional regulation versus avoidance
• Examples of how secure connection supports growth and resilience

Movies

• Lion (2016)
• The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
• Boyhood (2014)
• The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020)
• Secondhand Lions (2003)
• We Live in Time (2024)
• Inside Out (2015) and Inside Out 2 (2024)
• Hope Springs (2012)
• The Vow (2012)
• Marry Me (2022)
• Gifted (2017)
• Begin Again (2013)
• About My Father (2023)
• The Ultimate Gift (2006)
• Mary Poppins (1964)
• A Dog’s Journey (2019)
• 12 Mighty Orphans (2021)
• Remember the Titans (2000)
• Ratatouille (2007)
• Onward (2020)
• Turning Red (2022)
• Coco (2017)

TV Shows

• From Scratch (2022)
• Ripped (2025-Current)
• Parenthood (2010-2015)
• Good Doctor (2017-2024)

News Platforms for Resourcing – these platforms report on kind acts, triumphs, and world records that benefit humanity (small scale and large)

• Good News Network – subscription option for Good News Instead: a 5-minute daily news report via email
• Positive.News
• Daily Good is one beautiful offering from ServiceSpace, a volunteer ecosystem
• Clips of SomeGoodNews from John Krasinski during the COVID Shutdown
• Optimist Daily
• Reasons to be Cheerful
• 1000 Awesome Things is a blog demonstrating the choice to focus on one positive thing each day

News Platforms for Fact-Based Global News will still cause hyperarousal due to reporting on tragic events around the world; however, the removal of opinion will limit the emotional swing of feeling interpersonal conflict with the writer or others who would disagree with your interpretation of the facts.

• Associated Press
• Reuters
• National Public Radio (NPR)
• 1440

If you feel you have watched a movie, show, or play, or listened to a song that fully resonated with you as displaying secure attachment — feelings of knowing and being known and loved within the reciprocity of connection — I would love to hear your recommendations.

The post Media That Inspires Secure Attachment appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

Core Language is the verbal expression or nonverbal expression (physical sensation, behavior, symptoms of an illness, emotion, impulse) of clues left behind from fragments of past trauma playing out inside us, a trauma that may or may not belong to us. 

• Examples:
  • being woken up at the same time each morning to a startle

Unconscious Memory

Longterm Memory

1. Declarative Memory (also called Explicit or Narrative Memory) – the ability to consciously recall facts or events, depends on language to organize, categorize, and store information and experiences that will later be retrievable memories
2. Nondeclarative Memory (also called Implicit, Sensorimotor, or Precedural Memory) – allows us to automatically retrieve what we’ve already learned without having to relearn the steps, without conscious recall (ex. riding a bicycle)

The post It Didn’t Start With You: A Book Summary appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.

Responsible children often became skilled at reading the room. They learned to notice subtle shifts in mood, tension, or tone—and to adjust quickly. This kind of attunement helped preserve connection and reduce conflict, especially when caregivers were stressed, unpredictable, or emotionally unavailable.

The nervous system learned that safety came from anticipation.

Anxiety as a Protective Strategy

Anxiety rooted in early responsibility isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a form of protection. The body learned to stay alert, prepared, and responsive because it needed to. As an adult, this can show up as:

• constant mental scanning
• difficulty relaxing, even when things are “fine”
• tension or urgency without a clear cause
• worry that feels disproportionate but persistent

These patterns aren’t failures of will—they’re nervous system habits shaped by early experiences.

Listening to the Body

Anxiety is often most clearly felt in the body. You might notice:

• tightness in the chest or throat
• shallow breathing
• digestive discomfort
• a sense of internal pressure or readiness

Rather than trying to eliminate these sensations, somatic work invites curiosity. What is your body preparing for? What does it still believe is needed?

Attachment and Hyper-Awareness

When emotional safety wasn’t consistent early on, the nervous system may continue to monitor for signs of disconnection or danger. This can look like over-attuning to others, needing reassurance, or bracing for something to go wrong. This back-and-forth, unpredictable pattern of what connection will look like is the breeding ground for an anxious attachment stance.

These responses are understandable. They reflect a system that learned to stay close by staying alert.

Creating More Space Inside

Somatic EMDR and attachment-focused work help the nervous system differentiate between past and present. Through tracking sensation and supporting regulation, the body learns that it can:

• notice activation without being overtaken by it
• settle more easily after stress
• respond from choice rather than reflex

This doesn’t remove anxiety altogether—it helps it soften and become more informative rather than consuming.

From Survival to Choice

When responsibility and anxiety have been intertwined for a long time, healing isn’t about getting rid of these parts of you. It’s about helping them relax. As your system learns that safety can exist in the present, vigilance no longer has to lead the way.

Dating, relationships, and everyday life begin to feel less like something to manage—and more like something you can participate in, believing that even you can receive care and love too.

The post When Being the “Responsible Child” Shows Up as Anxiety appeared first on Upward Roots: Relational Therapy.