20 hour bundle

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Experiencing trauma can cause us to respond by entering into a state of survival. Even after the traumatic event or events have ended, we may find that the actions of truncated survival become integrated into the nervous system and can lead to long-term side effects on the body. Eventually, the strategies that kept us alive can keep us from fully living.

In this three part, 12-session certification course, you will learn to recognize and safely resource the tension patterns of these survival responses. This course provides strategies for managing the nervous system that can help us deal with anxiety, overthinking, emotional flooding, and being overwhelmed.

As we develop an understanding of how to regulate the nervous system through various strategies, new choices become available for the neuro-muscular system, which can allow us to cultivate self-awareness around past behaviors, thoughts, and emotions. This gives us the opportunity to bring the nervous system's functionality back online so we can fully embrace life.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This program will focus on how the cascade of activation and immobilization, which is designed to help us survive overwhelming experiences, can be addressed to facilitate enhanced quality of life. Strategies will emphasize bottom-up self-regulation, co-regulation, expanded window of tolerance, and interoceptive awareness. Resourcing techniques will be practiced to facilitate bridging the gap between external safety and internal safeness.

In this level we will explore:

• How stored trauma creates a dysregulated nervous system
• The impacts of and how we cope with a dysregulated nervous system, including addictive processes
• Neuroception and co-regulation as a neurobiological imperatives for survival
• How Polyvagal Theory can be applied in a way that is inclusive of the lived experiences of BIPOC and those with marginalized identities

Stored trauma creates a dysregulated nervous system

• Neuroception of danger & life threat: Animal survival responses

• The autonomic impact of trauma on physical and mental health

• The link between traumatic stress and nervous system dysregulation

• Window of capacity as a model for mapping the autonomic nervous system

Gaining control over how you feel

• The three main branches of the autonomic nervous system

• Blended autonomic nervous system states

• Common autonomic nervous system loops

• What is Neuroception?

• Neuroception, trauma and social justice

• How the state of your autonomic nervous system drives your story of the world

Co-regulation as a neurobiological imperative for survival

• • The cranial nerves that drive the social engagement system as a neurobiological imperative for survival
    
  • How dysfunction in the social engagement system may manifest
    
  • Co-regulation through connection and reciprocity
    
  • In the absence of co-regulation from a self-regulated care-giver, an infant/child learns how to self-regulate from a place of fear and self-protection

Neuroception, trauma and social justice

• Deconstructing the trauma of class, race, sex and other -isms within the context of psychotherapy and neuroception of safety
  
• Fawning: giving up authenticity in order to belong
  
• Appeasement: self-snuffing life force energy in order to survive