RESILIENT, STRONG, CONNECTED Dr. Mark Vander Ley

I really like new beginnings.  I look forward to the first day of class with each new semester. I recall the fun of an exciting new job, and I can feel the warmth of the first 40 degree day after a hard winter.  
One of my favorite parts of being a counselor is the opportunity to offer someone the hope of a new beginning.  People often seek out counseling in the lowest moments. They are desperate for help when they are hurt the most, at their lowest or have no other place to go.  
But, to seek out counseling also demonstrates an incredible ability to hope. The first counseling session is full of hope that a new beginning is possible.  Someone new to counseling may think, “I hope this counselor can help me”, “I hope things get better”, “I hope my marriage survives”, “I hope the negative thoughts stop”.  What many find in this first session however, is that the most powerful aspect of counseling is the ‘WE’.  It is discovered that by connecting with another caring and compassionate human ‘WE’ can find a path through the difficulty. The first counseling session begins a relationship in which you are no longer alone, you are now a ‘WE’ and have a partner to walk alongside you on the journey.    
Connections Family Counseling’s mission is ‘to help build resilient kids, strong marriages, and connected families’ in Quincy, Illinois and the surrounding areas. Therefore, we believe that every new beginning starts with hope, is powered by ‘WE’ and becomes resilient, strong, connected.  For this reason today is a new beginning for Connections Family Counseling.   We are excited to announce that our podcast, which had been known as “the connected family podcast” will now be titled ‘Resilient, Strong, Connected”  We believe that this name more clearly reflects the mission and vision of Connections Family Counseling and is therefore a better vehicle to assist our community members looking for a new beginning.  
We hope that you will continue to benefit from the podcast and will join us in becoming ‘Resilient, Strong, Connected.
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Christina Furnival, MS, LPCC is a wife, mom to two young children, licensed psychotherapist, writer, and children's book author.  With over a decade of experience in the mental health field, she has worked in a variety of settings including a domestic violence center, hospital program, a non-profit providing parent support, education and coaching, outpatient clinics, and telehealth. Christina is passionate about supporting parents and children to understand themselves better, navigate challenges with confidence, and live the life they want.
Christina founded the internationally enjoyed blog, Real Life Mama, after going through postpartum depression and anxiety to support other moms going through the same thing.
Christina's writing has grown and evolved beyond her blog, enabling her to secure a children's book deal with PESI Publishing for an entire series focused on vital social-emotional skills. 
 
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Going Deep To Heal Relational Pain
Matthew Leavenworth is a mental health counselor in Billings Montana with Yellowstone Counseling Center.  He graduated from Adams State University in 2015 with a master in mental health counseling and is currently pursuing his PhD at Adams State as a counselor educator.  He has extensive experience seeing children, adults, couples, and families dealing with a range of disorders, including anxiety, depression, and trauma.  He uses rock climbing as an experiential component of therapeutic healing and is an avid rock climber and outdoorsman when he is not home with his beloved wife Kylie and daughter Huxley.  
The Dock
By Matthew Leavenworth
I feel the sand under my toes,
The sky is blue. 
The sun is opaque behind thin clouds. 
A slight breeze blows across the water. 
 
The dock is a hundred yards in front of me,
A peninsula out into a great expanse of water.
I have a towel in my hands.
My skin goosepimples and I shiver as the breeze picks up with a chill. 
 
I think about turning back.
The water is too cold.
The wind will chill me to the bone.
There are sharks out there.
 
Instead, I throw the towel aside and start forward.
My steps are heavy at first,
The wet sand swallows my feet,
I can still turn back.
 
I don’t.
I start jogging forward,
My quickening steps find the wooden planks, faster and faster.
There is no railing; only the sparkling cold and deep that will swallow me.
 
The end of the dock looms,
The thought occurs. 
I can turn back,
I can stop unless I take another step.
 
I leap forward.
Into the open unknown.
The water swallows me.
It is all the pain and the triumph and everything I am.
 
I am deep under water.
Deeper and deeper,
Until I see.
Other shapes in the water, like mine, staring back at me, swimming also.
 
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Pat and Tammy McLeod serve as Harvard Chaplains for Cru, an interdenominational Christian ministry. Tammy is also the Director of College Ministry at Park Street Church in Boston. She received her MA in Spiritual Formation from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Pat holds an MA in Theological Studies from the International School of Theology and an MA in Science & Religion and a PhD in Practical Theology from Boston University. They are founding members of the Mamelodi Initiative in the township of Mamelodi, South Africa—a project that connects Harvard students with at-risk youth in a mentoring and educational program to prepare them for college. Pat and Tammy, certified instructors for Interpersonal Communication Programs, Inc., have been married for more than three decades and are parents to four grown children. They coauthored the book Hit Hard: One Family’s Journey of Letting Go of What Was and Learning to Live Well with What Is in which they share their journey into the world of ambiguous loss that began after their son suffered a traumatic brain injury playing football. Zach’s story received media coverage by ABC, NBC, CBS, and NPR. Recently they started COVID-19 Conversations on their website hoping to help others be resilient in ambiguous loss.  For more information, please visit  https://patandtammymcleod.com
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Connection is the Cure
If you are like me, sometimes you look around in your home, your community, and the world and feel overwhelmed by the pain.  So many people are hurting. Children are stressed to the point of thinking about taking their own life. Parents struggle to respond when adolescents seem rebellious, angry, lost, and out of control.  Married couples hurt one another over and over again with disagreements, harsh words, and thoughtless actions.  These are only examples found inside families.  Our communities and world also express pain through war, hatred toward the ‘other’, and social isolation. The pain seems overwhelming and constant. 
I hope to be a person that assists with the healing of the world, I desire to help families recover from unimaginable hurt and to walk with couples as they grow to love one another again.  I want to impact my community in a way that increases understanding and decreases social isolation. But how? What is the cure for the pain that so many experience?
I believe that healing occurs in the context of relationship.  Parents overwhelmed by the difficult behaviors and strong emotions of their child need relationship.  Couples caught in a dance of conflict desire to know and be known.  Our communities racked by violence and hatred are desperate for an end to the isolation of being ‘the other’.  In short, I believe that connection is the cure.  The book “A General Theory of Love” (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon; 2000) describes the resonance, regulation, and revision that occurs in deep connection as the cure for relational and emotional pain.
Resonance:
Resonance is defined as “the reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection from a surface or by the synchronous vibration of a neighboring object.”  When you strike a guitar string the vibration from that string causes the strings next to it to vibrate.  Even more, if the two strings are vibrating at the same speed they are said to be in resonance and they amplify or reinforce one another.  Humans are constantly broadcasting signals about what is happening inside of them (Lewis, Amini & Lannon; 2000).  As our inner world is broadcast we long for another to recognize our signals and synchronously reflect our experience.  Synchronous reflection amplifies and reinforces our internal state.  The amplification and reinforcement of our internal state allow us to experience the sensation of being known and knowing the other (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon; 2000).
Regulation:
The broadcasting and synchronous reflection of experience allows an individual to be known and to know another.  This connection of two beings establishes a physiological rhythm resulting in the modulation of emotions (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon; 2000).  When distressed we instinctively look for others to help modulate overwhelming feelings.  We seek out support groups, friends, partners, pets, or service providers (therapists, doctors, etc…) to regulate our physiology.  Lewis, Amini, & Lannon argue that learning to modulate emotions is not learned through didactic or cognitive learning but only through experience (2000).  “They absorb the skill from living in the presence of an adept external modulator, and they learn it implicitly” (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon; 2000; p. 171).
Revision:
Regulation is the process of implicitly learning to modulate emotion in connection with another.  Revision is the process of rewiring the brains relational pathways to create more fulfilling relationships (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon; 2000).  Our relational pathways are shaped early in life through the previously described processes of resonance and regulation. Hundreds probably thousands of early experiences form our templates of relating to self, others, and the world (Bowlby, 1969).  Often, these early ways of relating do not lead to fulfilling relationships.  Revising these templates requires many interactions with another in new more fulfilling ways. Like the p

How to Change Your Brain To Improve Relationships, Emotions, and Connection.
This time of year, many of us are wondering how to change bad habits.  Others plan out ways to accomplish big goals for the year.  We may take big ideas and break them down into small steps or we may subscribe to a “Guru’s” fool proof way to “rock out 2019”.  I recently read a book that argued the way to change yourself is to change your brain.  What?  Change my brain how does this work?  Would I have to crack my head open and perform a lobotomy?  Well, no. Curt Thompson in his book “Anatomy of the Soul” outlines the ways in which we change our relationships by changing our brain. 
How to change:
Neuroscientists say that the brain is “plastic” meaning it can change and grow over the entire lifespan.  So, Thompson states that we can use the “neuro-plastic triad” to change the way that we function in the relationships, ourself, and the world.  He argues that we increase our functioning in relationships, emotion, and memory through aerobic activity, focused attention exercises and novel learning experiences.
Aerobic Activity:
We have always known that exercise is good for us.  Most however tend to think of physical exercise as something that changes only our body.  We may lose a few pounds, gain more physical strength, or fit into the clothes we wore in our younger days.  Thompson argues however that regular vigorous activity actually changes our brain and makes it more responsive for our lives.  We may become more able to regulate emotions, handle disappointment or connect with loved ones. 
Focused attention exercises:
Changing the brain has to do with creating new “wiring” or, neuro-networks as the scientists call them. Focused attention is how this wiring is created. Some call this type of attention mindfulness.  I have written HERE about how to teach your child to be more mindful.  Others practice prayer or meditation to accomplish similar purposes.  Focused attention allows us to become more aware of what happens inside of us at any particular moment.  This awareness creates deeper understanding of ourselves and others.  This new understanding allows for more connection to ourselves and the people that matter in our lives.  
Novel learning experiences:
Thompson then challenges us to engage in novel learning experiences.  These activities should include activities that one is passionate about or things that contain deep meaning for the individual.  Memorizing the phone book doesn’t count but such things as art, music, dance, drawing or working with your hands may.  Learning something new stretches our neural connections. It causes us to use parts of our brains that we may not have used in a while.  This new learning opens up possibilities for learning in other areas and experiences. 
So what?
How is the “neuro-plastic triad” helpful for us?  Change can be difficult and many of us have experienced failure in our attempts to change.  But approaching change from a brain-based perspective allows us to lay the ground work in our mind and body before attempting to change outward behavior.  So, start with a short walk while mindfully paying attention to your surroundings or praying.  As you gain confidence and traction in that area try something new like playing the ukulele or sketching in a notebook.  Take it slow and give yourself grace.  You will not be perfect but you will be changing.
References:
Thompson, C (2010) Anatomy of the Soul: Surprising connections between neuroscience and spiritual practices that can transform your life and relationships.
 
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