Bouncing Back

1. Bouncing Back The Neuroscience of Resilience and Well-Being Linda Graham, MFT linda@lindagraham-mft.net www.lindagraham-mft.net 415-924-7765

2. All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming. - Helen Keller

3. Factors of Resilience • Hardiness • Determination, grit, capacities to last, endure, to persevere and follow through • Flexibility • Adaptability, capacity to shift gears • Coping • Face and deal with disappointments, difficulties, even disasters

4. 6 C’s of Coping • Calm • Compassion • Clarity • Connections to Resources • Competence • Courage

5. Modern Brain Science The field of neuroscience is so new, we must be comfortable not only venturing into the unknown but into error. - Richard Mendius, M.D.

6. Neuroscience of Resilience • Neuroscience technology is 20 years old • Meditation improves attention and impulse control; shifts mood and perspective; promotes health • Oxytocin can calm a panic attack in less than a minute • Kindness and comfort, early on, protects against later stress, trauma, psychopathology

7. Neuroplasticity • Greatest discovery of modern neuroscience • Growing new neurons • Strengthening synaptic connections • Myelinating pathways – faster processing • Creating and altering brain structure and circuitry • Organizing and re-organizing functions of brain structures • The brain changes itself - lifelong

8. The brain is shaped by experience. And because we have a choice about what experiences we want to use to shape our brain, we have a responsibility to choose the experiences that will shape the brain toward the wise and the wholesome. - Richard J. Davidson, PhD

9. Mechanisms of Brain Change • Conditioning • New Conditioning • Re-Conditioning • De-Conditioning

10. Conditioning • Experience causes neurons to fire • Repeated experiences, repeated neural firings • Neurons that fire together wire together • Strengthen synaptic connections • Connections stabilize into neural pathways • Conditioning is neutral, wires positive and negative

11. Attachment Styles - Secure • Parenting is attuned, empathic, responsive, comforting, soothing, helpful • Attachment develops safety and trust, and inner secure base • Stable and flexible focus and functioning • Open to learning • inner secure base provides buffer against stress, trauma, and psychopathology

12. Insecure-Avoidant • Parenting is indifferent, neglectful, or critical, rejecting • Attachment is compulsively self-reliant • Stable, but not flexible • Focus on self or world, not others or emotions • Rigid, defensive, not open to learning • Neural cement

13. Insecure-Anxious • Parenting is inconsistent, unpredictable • Attachment is compulsive caregiving • Flexible, but not stable • Focus on other, not on self-world, • Less able to retain learning • Neural swamp

14. Disorganized • Parenting is frightening or abusive, or parent is “checked out,” not “there” • Attachment is fright without solution • Lack of focus • Moments of dissociation • Compartmentalization of trauma

15. Pre-Frontal Cortex • Development kindled in relationships • Executive center of higher brain • Evolved most recently – makes us human • Matures the latest – 25 years of age • Most integrative structure of brain • Evolutionary masterpiece • CEO of resilience

16. Functions of Pre-Frontal Cortex • Regulate body and nervous system • Quell fear response of amygdala • Manage emotions • Attunement – felt sense of feelings • Empathy – making sense of expereince • Insight and self-knowing • Response flexibility

17. Evolutionary legacy Genetic templates Family of origin conditioning Norms-expectations of culture-society Who we are and how we cope…. …is not our fault. - Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind

18. Given neuroplasticity • And choices of self-directed neuroplasticity • Who we are and how we cope… • …is our responsibility • - Paul Gilbert, The Compassionate Mind

19. New Conditioning • Choose new experiences • Gratitude practice, listening skills, focusing attention, self-compassion, self-acceptance • Create new learning, new memory • Encode new wiring • Install new pattern of response

20. Re-conditioning • Memory de-consolidation – re-consolidation • “Light up” neural networks • Juxtapose old negative with new positive • Neurons fall apart, rewire • New rewires old

21. Modes of Processing • Focused Attention • Tasks and details • Deliberate, guided change • New conditioning and re-conditioning • De-focused Attention • Default network • Mental play space – random change • De-conditioning

22. De-Conditioning • Default network • De-focusing, loosens grip of attention • Creates mental play space, free association • Can drop into worry, rumination • Plane of open possibilities • Brain makes new links, associations • New insights, aha!s, new behaviors

23. Practices to Accelerate Brain Change • Presence – primes receptivity of brain • Intention/choice – activates plasticity • Perseverance – creates and installs change

24. Mindfulness and Compassion Awareness of what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening) Acceptance of what’s happening (and our reactions to what’s happening) Attention circuit and resonance circuit Two most powerful agents of brain change known to science; both foster response flexibility

25. Boundin’ video

26. 6 C’s of Coping • Calm • Compassion • Clarity • Connections to Resources • Competence • Courage

27. Calm • Manage disruptive emotions • Tolerate distress • Down-regulate stress to return to baseline equilibrium

28. Window of Tolerance • SNS – explore, play, create, produce…. OR Fight-flight-freeze • Baseline physiological equilibrium • Calm and relaxed, engaged and alert • WINDOW OF TOLERANCE • Relational and resilient • Equanimity • PNS – inner peace, serenity…. OR Numb out, collapse

29. Hand on the Heart • Touch – oxytocin – safety and trust • Deep breathing – parasympathetic • Breathing ease into heart center • Brakes on survival responses • Coherent heart rate • Being loved and cherished • Oxytocin – direct and immediate antidote to stress hormone cortisol

30. Compassion • Respond to pain and suffering with open heart, interested mind, willingness to help • Mindful Self-Compassion: • Keep heart open and mind engaged when dealing with difficult events and difficult emotions that arise in response to events • Practice not to feel better but because we feel bad

31. Self-Compassion • Powerful and immediate antidote to self-criticism, self-loathing • Practice not to feel better but because we feel bad • Putting own oxygen mask on first when other people are not around • Come into loving connected presence • Compassion leads to calm leads to clarity

32. Self-Compassion Break • Notice-recognize: this is a moment of suffering • Ouch! This hurts! This is hard! • Pause, breathe, hand on heart or cheek • Oh sweetheart! • Self-empathy • I care about my own suffering, me as experiencer • Drop into calm; hold moment with awareness; breathe in compassion and care • May I meet this moment fully; may I meet it as a friend

33. Self-Compassion Break, cont. • My pain is the pain; I’m not the only one • Kindness to self: May I be safe; May I be peaceful; May I be free of fear; May I be free of shame; May I accept myself just as I am; May I know this, too, will pass; May I know I can be skillful here • Choose wisely: re-direct, shift the channel; practice gratitude, metta; share pain with caring other; notice coping and easing of suffering

34. Mindfulness Focused attention on present moment experience without judgment or resistance. - Jon Kabat-Zinn

35. Between a stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. The last of human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. - Viktor Frankl

36. Autobiography in Five Short Chapters – Portia Nelson I I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I fall in. I am lost…I am helpless It isn’t my fault. It takes me forever to find a way out.

37. II I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

38. II I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place But, it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.

39. III I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in…it’s a habit My eyes are open, I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

40. IV I walk down the same street There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. V I walk down another street. -Portia Nelson

41. Positive Emotions-Behaviors • Brain hard-wired to notice and remember negative and intense more than positive and subtle; how we survive as individuals and as a species • Leads to tendency to avoid experience • Positive emotions activate “left shift,” brain is more open to approaching experience, learning, and action

42. Positive Emotions • Less stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness • More friendships, social support, collaboration • Shift in perspectives, more optimism • More creativity, productivity • Better health, better sleep • Live on average 7-9 years longer • Resilience is direct outcome

43. True Other to the True Self The roots of resilience are to be found in the felt sense of being held in the mind and heart of an empathic, attuned, and self-possessed other. - Diana Fosha, PhD To see and be seen: that is the question, and that is the answer. - Ken Benau, PhD

44. Shame De-Rails Resilience Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. Shame erodes the part of ourselves that believes we are capable of change. We cannot change and grow when we are in shame, and we can’t use shame to change ourselves or others. - Brene Brown, PhD

45. Reconditioning • Anchor in present moment awareness • Resource with acceptance and goodness • Start with small negative memory • “Light up the networks” • Evoke positive memory that contradicts or disconfirms • Simultaneous dual awareness (or toggle) • Refresh and strengthen positive • Let go of negative • Rest in, savor positive • Reflect on shifts in perspective

46. Wished for Outcome • Evoke memory of what did happen • Imagine new behaviors, new players, new resolution • Hold new outcome in awareness, strengthening and refreshing • Notice shift in perspective of experience, of self

47. Relational Intelligence • Setting limits and boundaries • Negotiating change • Resolving conflicts • Repairing ruptures • Forgiveness

48. Find the Gift in the Mistake • Regrettable Moment – Teachable Moment • What’s Right with this Wrong? • What’s the Lesson? • What’s the Cue to Act Differently? • Find the Gift in the Mistake

49. Coherent Narrative • This is what happened. • This is what I did. • This has been the cost. • This is what I learned. • This is what I would do differently going forward.

50. Do One Scary Thing a Day • Venture into New or Unknown • Somatic marker of “Uh, oh” • Dopamine disrupted • Cross threshold into new • Satisfaction, mastery • Dopamine restored