Georgina Mavor - Psychophysiologic Therapist

17/07/2025

A new neuroplastic app for those suffering from GI symptoms. Given the role of journal writing to engage with our emotions I am sure it will be included in the suite of activities aimed at rewiring the brain so that it can quieten down and stop firing off (in the form of GI issues) like an oversensitive car alarm!

Digestible helps you go beyond just "managing" IBS symptoms to treat the root cause. Providing evidence-based tools to target the brain-gut connection and break the cycle of pain and symptoms.

17/07/2025

If you, or anyone you know, is struggling with chronic pain, then I recommend having a look at this online program from Australia's Dr Adele Stewart. Learn what modern pain neuroscience has to tell us about the protective function of pain and how mindfulness can help soothe an oversensitive system. Dr Stewart generously offers a scaled payment system making it possible to access what we need to make a difference.

Course Overview P ain is incredibly complex. When we have physical pain, particularly persistent or chronic pain, it is human nature to experience this as a tight “tangled knot” along with the emotional pain it causes and the thoughts and stories about it. This can make the pain much bigger and ...

11/07/2025

Feelings are an integral component of our nervous system's survival system. Journal writing is a safe avenue through which we can develop a healthier relationship with their wisdom. Thank you to SIRPA for raising awareness of this great online resource from CALM.

A free, interactive journal designed to help you feel your feelings then feel better. Investigate, process and soothe challenging emotions like fear, sadness, anger, and insecurity.

11/07/2025

https://nypost.com/2025/07/02/health/5-sneaky-clues-your-body-is-fighting-an-invisible-illness/

Besides pain, a person might experience fatigue, digestive issues and headaches.

07/07/2025

My realisations around what nourishes me were so powerful, once a month I have booked at room at the Glyde In Community Learning Centre for women to come together and be nourished through writing through writing about our lives, exploring our inner world, writing in response to poignant pieces of poetry and sharing our wisdom. The gatherings commence on Saturday 26 July, 10.15 to 11.45 am. Please email to register georginamavor@outlook.com. $25 per session.

07/07/2025

Someone recently asked if the time out I had given myself was nourishing. The answer? No, not really. Why was that? I wrote.

The big 'reveal' was realising that nourishment can only be experienced in my body when I am truly doing something for me, when my attention is turned to me - and not others. As a woman, and someone working in the helping professions, the use of my mind has rarely been for me. My writing turned to questions about what nourished me and how my habitual use of mind got in the way.

Disconnecting from thinking about others first and reserving headspace for me is needed if I am to experience nourishment. Prioritising time for me first before others is also something new. Noting experiences I enjoy - reading, coffee in cosy nooks with my journal, being in the bush, foot massages, delicious healthy food, walks on the beach in wild weather, hanging out in a fisherman's cafe (reminds me of my father) .... are part of the equation.

As the writing weaved through my weekend, so did my experimentation with what my mind focussed on. I regularly checked in on 'what would nourish me now?' and spent my weekend moving where the question led me. I disconnected from anything related to work - no professional books, no emails, no podcasts. I enrolled in community learning talks and yoga.

The internal shift from 'others' to 'me' feels big. The shift from 'value' in the external world to 'value' for just being me also feels big. I suspect every woman facing the empty nest and those of us nearing retirement feel the subconscious tension that calls for us to turn inward (if we are to avoid depression).

What nourishes you? If you struggle to feel the answers in your body then you have work ahead of you. Work that requires you truly put your nourishment and enjoyment in the calendar of your time. Work that requires you to relate to yourself before others. Begin with writing. But be warned, once truth is revealed, there is no going back.

02/07/2025

This is the best video for demonstrating how neuroplasticity works. It explains what I do when providing intervention to students with learning disorders. It explains what I do when rewiring neuroplastic symptoms. It explains how journal writing rewires our relationship with our inner life. And today, I used it to explain its role in procrastination and problems with motivation. Everytime we think of something we'd like to do, and need to do, and go 'nah ... I'll leave it' that pathway gets stronger and innocently becomes our default response.

Make use of the gap - that's where the power resides.

Dr Phil Parker neuroplasticity and brain retraining expert, author of many health and self-help books, designer of the Lightning Process explains neuroplasti...

22/06/2025

I remember the days when I used to talk about the injustice that permeated my relationship at the time. I spent years lamenting how I wasn't recognised, cared for, abused, taken for granted, belittled, lied to, igored .... neglected. Whilst I recognised everything that was wrong in the relationship, what didn't even cross my mind to see was how I felt - ANGRY. Anger is an emotion of agency, victim narratives keep us stuck in feelings of powerlessness.

When I finally relocated him out of the home, I started to write. First I wrote about my sadness and grief. I mourned personal expectations that were never going to be met; my separation from the community narrative in which I lived; losses my daughter would experience; and finally for me. For the person I lost whilst with him; for how easily I had given precious life away to someone who was not an appreciative recipient; and for the care I was worth.

Finally, I wrote about my anger. I felt it. I voiced it. A fire rose within and the phoenix eventually emerged. I declared how I would live my future. Something different lived inside me. I now have a different vibe I am still learning with, from, and about.

For decades I have listened to someone close to me recount incredibly hurtful words that should never have been spoken to a child. Those words still hurt, I can hear it. Last night, I opened the doorway to anger. I said what this woman has never given herself permission to voice - F ... him. I recounted all the vile behaviours of the perpetrator, evidence of his emotional immaturity and absence of merit. How dare he monopolise the narrative of her life. I also redirected her attention to the narratives of others, narratives different to one abusive man. I hope the possibility of her right to anger slowly changes the pain of the narrative she has carried for a very very long time. She is worth it. I love her.

Unless we connect with how we feel about the injustices in our lives, we NEVER reclaim our agency and our right to worth. We remain collapsed. Anger lights the fire of agency. It is not where we wish to remain, but if we are to find the middle ground, then observations tell me we have to swing the extremes in our writing before something stable emerges. And if more people expressed how they felt about injustice through writing or art or music, then maybe we would have less injustice in the world.

Start with you. Feel your anger. Find your voice. Know where you stand and what you will allow or not allow. We all need the strength and self worth that follows.

PS. The photo was taken whilst walking my dog at Woodman Point yesterday - one of those deliciously wild, furious weeather days with time to reflect and weave the connections between 'resonance' points.

15/06/2025

Wow, what a beautiful venue for our monthly journal write!

11/06/2025

With the possibility of rain this coming Sunday, I have booked the meeting room in The Wetlands Centre Cockburn for my monthly journal writing group. Still close to nature but dry and warm. :) I look forward to seeing how it works. Six women so far for this session, if anyone is considering coming along but was deterred by the weather, there is now no need to worry - it's been sorted!

11/05/2025

All prepared for todays’s journal writing group at Bibra Lake. It’s Mother’s Day, so a little something special themed around loss and the power of birthing from that which is alive in us.

16/04/2025

People are waking up to listening to their nervous system and noticing how it is intimately connected to the habituated trains of thought that get triggered by life's stresses.

They notice when their nervous system is overwhelmed and spontaneously decide to expose their brains to less social media, news, opinion filled conversations, 'busyness'. They slow down, spend more time in nature, find themselves drawn to 'small' activities of interest, disengage from people and situations they cannot influence, read more, listen to music, bake.

Others notice when the 'niagara falls' drop in their mood occurs, initiated by the habitualised/patterned thinking that is the cause. Some spontaneously develop thinking 'scripts' to act as a 'circuit breaker'. Others use imagery to push the acrimonious neural tangle out of the way. And others sense the calming benefit of consciously tuning into their sensory surroundings.

How interesting it is that the human brain is capable of noticing what overwhelms and spontaneously provides 'evidence based' solutions, even when the person is unaware of how the mind/body works, why a mind at peace is important to brain health, and how the solutions that come to mind restore equilibrium.

For others, writing spontaneously comes to mind. (Many people have had negative experiences with writing in their school years, which then interferes with accessibility to this healing pathway.) Writing allows the turmoil in our heads to be structured by words and in the process our minds calm. It also provides distance. Put the turmoil manifesting from the emotional centre of our brain on the page, and the thinking part of our brain can have a rational look at it.

Perhaps the biggest value of writing however is in its power to explore, expand and reshape the thinking that has been wired in during emotionally charged experiences. Everyone has childhood experiences that undermined their self esteem and shaped compensatory behaviours. We all carry them into adulthood, usually working for us, until they don't. Life is dynamic. Sooner or later something comes along that gets in underneath the 'armour' we have survived by.

Perhaps the most well known approach to writing about trauma to support healing was created, researched and refined by James W Pennebaker, Professor Emeritus of Psychology. There is always more context to bring to traumatic experiences. That broader knowledge changes the way we think and feel about ourselves, others and life. That knowledge (wisdom) sits latent inside everyone. We just have to tap it.

To find out more about the Pennebaker approach go to - https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/psychology/faculty/pennebak -health And if you would like support in working with it, call me.

Liberal Arts at UT offers over 40 majors and many top-ranked graduate programs in the social sciences and humanities taught by 750 faculty.