Ditch the Quick Fixes: A Revolutionary Approach to True Emotional Resilience

Imagine decades of feeling trapped in a cycle of anxiety, sleepless nights, and overwhelming stress. 

That was me (hi! 🙋‍♀️) —until I discovered a transformative approach that threw open my Window of Tolerance, bringing flexibility and resilience to my nervous system. 

By harmonizing mind, body, and brain through a specific combination of Neurofeedback (don’t worry, I’ll explain), Heart-rate Variability coherence training (ditto!), Restorative Yoga, and a philosophy for life based on ancient Yogic wisdom, I not only reclaimed the calm that is every human’s birthright, but I also unlocked a vibrant, peaceful way of living. 💃🏽

Whoops! I skipped a few steps…

Rewind just a bit…so I can share with you the personal – and professional – revolution that inspired me to create the unique Embodied Neurofeedback program. 

Let’s dive into the future of your mental health.

First…

Your struggle IS actually real – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

After over a decade of working with thousands of clients as a licensed clinical psychologist, I began to feel disillusioned with the process I was taking my clients through day after day – typically talk therapy and more in-depth psychological testing.

➡️   I’m wondering if you can relate to any of the long list of challenges my intelligent, hardworking clients face every day? 

✔️   Struggling with constant worry, rumination, and reactivity to minor stresses, they end up feeling irritable, tired, sad, and isolated. 😓

✔️   Sleep issues, like difficulty falling or staying asleep and nightly stress dreams or nightmares, are the norm – in fact, most have become so used to struggling with sleep that it’s almost background noise compared to the other, more pressing issues they’re facing every day.

✔️   Many feel overwhelmed, lack confidence, and have developed negative self-beliefs, leading to procrastination and loneliness 🫣 – or even the opposite, a need to keep achieving more and more in a never-ending attempt to build their sense of worth and value. 

While they made some progress in therapy or learned something about themselves from their test results, something was nagging at me…keeping me up at night (ok, other than my own history of trauma, but that’s a story for another post)… 

So….20,000 hours of therapy and psychological testing later…

My clients had learned many tools to *manage* some of their symptoms day-to-day but were never getting a full-bodied, lasting sense of relief and peace. 

❌   Medications and talk therapy often provided partial relief but didn’t address the root causes. (Two Myths: too little or too much of a neurotransmitter and/or having “dysfunctional thoughts” are not the root causes. They themselves are simply internal symptoms of the underlying problem.)

❌   Journaling and thought logs sometimes led clients to focus even more on negative thoughts or had them spiraling into endless ruminations. 

❌   Identifying a “diagnosis” helped some clients understand their struggles better (or helped their doctor pick the most appropriate medication) but didn’t lead to meaningful change. (Whew, I could write a book on what I think of “diagnosing” problems…) 

I was literally scratching-my-head, screaming-into-my-pillow baffled (I desperately wanted to help!)

And I was also veeerry curious (as I am.literally.always!)

After many years, much research and a ton of personal, deeply-felt experiences, here’s what I realized…

What these old methods didn’t do for my clients:

🧠   alter the deeply ingrained connections in their brain’s wiring, 

🧠   make their brain wave frequencies more adaptable, or

🧠   change the nervous system’s reactivity in any lasting way. 

Instead, they got… more “shoulds” and “to-dos”! (“I should be able to relax if I just breathe. What is wrong with me? Breathe damn it!” 😮‍💨)

Very overwhelming!

Death of a Nightmare and Birth of a Dream

Purely for the joy of learning more about the Yoga I already loved, I took a yoga teacher training course 🤓 (Yay, something just for me – check off “Self-care” on the to-do list! #achievinggoals). 

Surprisingly, during this course, I discovered just how closely related the first two Padas of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are to many of the cognitive and behavior-modification concepts I was using with clients in therapy. (Did the Yogis invent therapy? 🧐 If so, it has definitely been waaayy watered down and fragmented in translation.) 

The Sutras also provided one of the things I had always felt was missing from my work (there are more, we’ll get there…): a cohesive overarching framework for happy and healthy living – without requiring the incorporation of a specific religion (although it fits well with any of my clients’ existing beliefs). 

But….this was still not getting at the brain and rest of the nervous system – not directly anyway.

Enter the revolutionary book The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk (a pioneering researcher, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma and founder of both the Trauma Center and the Trauma Research Foundation). 

Wow! The research on how Neurofeedback, physical Yoga practices, and other nervous system-related techniques could benefit my clients specifically was mind-blowing! And I finally had ways to address their struggles at the level of the body and nervous system – where the deep and lasting change happens. 

Especially intrigued by Neurofeedback – which beautifully combines my passions for neuroscience, psychology and engineering 🤓 (a natural fit for me) – the real turning point came when I tried this brain-wave-regulating technology myself, following a traumatic event involving my son. 

I would have been absolutely shocked at the results. 

Except I wasn’t….Because I couldn’t be.

Because I was truly, deeply calm…For the first time in my life.

The transformation was profound! 

Not only did it help me recover from an 18-month-long traumatic “event,” but – within months! – it also resolved long-standing symptoms of trauma from my own childhood. 

I no longer experienced nightmares or intense emotional reactions to minor issues (or loud noises!). 

And to be clear, it wasn’t that I was numb – you know, like the effects of some “mental health” medications we know… (Oops, did I say the quiet part out loud. Not sorry.)

No. I was present, focused and ready to experience each little joy that found me throughout the day.

Neurofeedback was a game-changer for me, and I knew my clients had to have it too! 

I immediately enrolled in neurofeedback training sponsored by Dr. Van Der Kolk’s Trauma Research Foundation and learned how it can help reduce the symptoms of:

✔️   Anxiety

✔️   Irritability/Mood swings

✔️   Depression

✔️   PTSD/Trauma

✔️   “Borderline Personality Disorder”

✔️   ADHD

✔️   Headaches/Migraines

✔️   Alcoholism/Addiction

✔️   OCD

✔️   Eating Disorders

✔️   Irritable Bowel Syndrome

And improve:

✔️   Sleep

✔️   Focus

✔️   Mood

✔️   Mental and Physical Energy

✔️   Impulse Control

✔️   Peak performance

…all by helping you achieve an optimal level of brain activation. 🧠

Embodied Neurofeedback – Calm your Nervous System and Find your Flow

Now, as a Board-Certified Neurofeedback provider, a registered yoga teacher, and both a HeartMath® and Safe and Sound Protocol® certified practitioner, I am passionate about my work guiding clients through my unique Embodied Neurofeedback program. 

Powerful and efficient, Embodied Neurofeedback combines multiple approaches to create deep and lasting changes. The core of the program includes:

🧠   Neurofeedback to retrain brain wave patterns (top-down approach).

💗   Heart-rate variability coherence training to engage the entire nervous system (bottom-up approach).

🧘‍♂️   Restorative and Yin yoga combined with non-invasive Vagus Nerve stimulation – improving the function of connective tissue (a key part of the nervous system that runs through your entire body) and creating a felt sense of safety in the nervous system and body (bottom-up approach).

🕉️   Yoga philosophy (and a sprinkle of Internal Family Systems theory) to provide an overarching framework and guide for the incredible – but likely unfamiliar – changes you’ll experience.

Unlike other neurofeedback programs, Embodied Neurofeedback involves your entire nervous system, not just your brain. By addressing your brain, body, AND sense of self, you learn to regulate your own brain and nervous system, creating meaningful and lasting changes in both function and flexibility. 

Within the first 2 weeks you could be the one saying…

🌟   “I can finally sleep—and wake up feeling rested!”

🌟   “I don’t feel like crying or yelling over the littlest things. I think my family loves it too.”

🌟   “Finally, something that took the tension from my body.”

🌟   “No more thoughts rolling over and over, all day and night. I feel at peace.”

And in just a few months…

“Loved that I didn’t need to talk through or even figure out all the details of how what I went through as a kid created this mess. It doesn’t matter now because it’s no longer keeping me up at night!”

“I was worried it was too expensive, but if I knew at the beginning that I would feel like THIS, I would have paid 10x the money. And it lasts, so I don’t have to keep doing more forever like with medication (which I don’t need anymore!).”

Change your nervous system. Change your the world.

In the future, more providers will offer neurofeedback, but many will do so within the context of talk therapy or as a passive “brain fixer.” 

My personal mission is to help calm as many nervous systems as possible – will yours be one of them?

I hope so. 

Because then the BONUS  🎉 magic happens… 

✨ The Ripple effect…Your natural resilience, confidence, joy, and creativity will give others permission and a safe space to feel peaceful being themselves… (your own personal Ripple! 💫)

Creating a calmer, kinder world around you. 

THIS is my vision –  a world where everyone feels calm and peaceful in their own skin, being their authentic selves. 

So, Get Curious and….Own your Ripple! 💫

🙋‍♀️ Psst! I’m passionate about helping my clients achieve true, lasting change and live happier, healthier lives. 

If you’re ready to transform your nervous system and experience profound improvements in your mental and physical well-being, I’d love to work with you.

Curious? Schedule a FREE consultation with me today.