Alyssa Finkelstein, MS - Mental Health Counseling

01/12/2026

Children exposed to constant criticism often develop a hyperactive stress system, making it harder for them to feel safe, calm, or confident. Neuroscience shows that repeated negative feedback activates the brain’s fight or flight pathways, especially in regions still forming connections for emotional regulation. Over time, the nervous system stays on high alert, expecting threat even in neutral situations.

This heightened stress response increases cortisol and overstimulates the amygdala, which interprets tone and emotion. When criticism is frequent, the brain begins wiring itself around danger signals. Kids may become anxious, withdrawn, perfectionistic, or quick to shut down not because they are sensitive, but because their biology is adapting to survive emotional pressure.

Healthy development requires a balance of guidance and connection. Supportive communication strengthens prefrontal pathways that help children manage emotions, solve problems, and feel safe enough to grow. Even small shifts calmer tone, specific feedback, or moments of warmth can steadily retrain the stress system toward regulation instead of alarm.

Science is clear: how we speak to children shapes how their nervous system speaks back to the world. Encouraging environments build resilience. Constant criticism builds fear. Changing the pattern can change a child’s lifelong stress response.

01/10/2026

Your mind can misinterpret situations through fear habit or expectation but the nervous system tracks safety constantly. Heart rate breathing muscle tension and gut signals change instantly. These signals reflect real time information about threat comfort or alignment before conscious thought forms guiding reactions beneath awareness during daily human experience.

Neuroscience shows the body processes sensory input faster than the thinking brain. The vagus nerve connects organs to emotional centers influencing calm or alarm. When thoughts say everything is fine but the body reacts strongly the nervous system is detecting something important before conscious reasoning catches up in complex environments.

Learning to listen to bodily signals improves decision making and emotional regulation. Practices like slow breathing movement and grounding restore balance. Over time people build interoceptive awareness which strengthens trust in sensations reducing overthinking and helping choices feel clearer and safer across daily stress relationships work health transitions and change.

Trusting the nervous system does not mean ignoring thought. It means integrating body and mind. When signals align confidence grows. Science suggests self awareness begins below words. By honoring bodily feedback people navigate life with steadier calm resilience and authenticity grounded presence safety connection intuition balance regulation clarity daily living.

01/10/2026

Regularly expressing gratitude doesn’t just feel good it actually changes your brain on a molecular level. Neuroscience studies show that gratitude activates regions in the brain responsible for emotion regulation, reward, and empathy. Over time, this repeated activation strengthens neural pathways and helps the brain rewire toward a more positive and resilient outlook.

When people practice gratitude daily, levels of dopamine and serotonin the brain’s feel-good chemicals increase. This boosts mood and reduces stress. Brain scans have revealed that expressing gratitude lights up the prefrontal cortex, which plays a key role in decision-making and emotional balance. These effects aren’t temporary. Continued practice leads to structural and functional changes in the brain.

In addition, gratitude lowers cortisol, the stress hormone, and supports vagus nerve activity, which helps calm the nervous system. This makes gratitude not only a mental health tool but also a physical wellness strategy, supporting sleep, heart health, and immune response through consistent use.

Science confirms that gratitude isn’t just a mindset it’s a daily exercise that rewires your brain. By choosing to notice and name what’s good, you can reshape your internal world and strengthen the biology of calm, clarity, and contentment.

12/31/2025

Your brain physically resists becoming a future version of you that it has never experienced, and psychology explains why. The human brain is designed to prioritize familiarity and safety. Neuroscience shows that the brain relies heavily on past experiences to predict future outcomes. When a version of you feels unfamiliar, the brain often interprets it as a potential threat, even if that future change is positive.

This is linked to a psychological concept called cognitive homeostasis. Your brain works to keep your identity, habits, and behavior consistent with who you have been before. When you try to change careers, habits, confidence levels, or lifestyle, the brain may trigger fear, doubt, or procrastination. These reactions are not signs of failure. They are protective responses meant to keep you within known territory.

Research on neuroplasticity confirms that the brain can change, but only through repeated exposure. Visualization, rehearsal, and small consistent actions allow the brain to gradually experience a new identity. Once the brain recognizes a future version of you as familiar, resistance decreases and motivation increases.

This explains why change feels uncomfortable before it feels empowering. The brain does not block growth permanently. It blocks unfamiliar identity shifts until they are practiced enough to feel safe. Growth begins when repetition turns the unfamiliar into the new normal.

12/30/2025

Did you know you don’t owe anyone an explanation for how you live your life?

Read that again.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation for why you said no, for why you changed your mind, for why you left, for why you stayed, for why you chose yourself. You don’t have to justify your boundaries, your dreams, your healing, your happiness, or your pain. Not to friends, not to family, not to strangers on the internet.

We spend so much of our lives apologizing for who we are, trying to fit into boxes that don’t belong to us, carrying the weight of other people’s expectations. But the truth is, your life is yours. Your choices, your healing, your path—they’re sacred. Not everyone gets to understand your journey, and that’s okay. They don’t have to.

You don’t have to explain why you’re not the same person you were last year. You don’t have to explain why you protect your peace, why you love who you love, why you’re still figuring it out. You don’t have to explain why you’re happy, or why you’re still hurting.

You are allowed to grow, to change, to choose differently, to start over—without permission, without apology.

This is your reminder: You are not responsible for making anyone else comfortable with your truth. You are responsible for honoring yourself.

Live honestly. Live boldly. And let go of the need to explain yourself to people who aren’t living your life.

You are enough, exactly as you are. No explanation required. ❤️

©️Kimberly Smith

12/30/2025

Lately, the word somatic seems to be everywhere. It’s being used in captions, course titles, and conversations so often that it can feel like just another passing trend in the wellness world. But somatic work is not new, and it is certainly not a buzzword. For me, it is a remembering. Long before it had a name, the body already knew how to communicate through sensation, rhythm, and response. Somatic work brings us back to that language, inviting us to listen beneath the noise and honor the intelligence that has always lived within the body itself.

So, if you will indulge me with a few moments of your precious time, I would love to share the meaning behind this word.

Somatic work is the art of listening with the hands. It is an invitation for the body to speak in its own language, one that lives beneath words and stories. Rather than asking the body to perform or correct itself, somatic work creates a space where sensation becomes the guide and awareness becomes the medicine. We slow down enough to feel the subtle tides beneath the skin, the places where the body learned to brace, adapt, or go quiet in order to survive.

In this work, nothing is forced. The nervous system is met with patience, curiosity, and respect. As safety is reintroduced, tissues soften, breath deepens, and the body begins to remember its own rhythm. Movement returns not because it was demanded, but because it was invited.

Somatic work honors the body as an intelligent, living landscape. Every sensation is information. Every pause is meaningful. Healing unfolds not by fixing what is broken, but by restoring relationships, helping the body feel seen, heard, and safe enough to release what it has been holding.

Somatic awareness is what transforms technique into art. When we weave somatic principles into bodywork, our hands stop leading and begin listening. Each stroke, hold, and pause becomes a conversation with the nervous system, guided by breath, sensation, and subtle shifts rather than force or expectation. It is where skill meets presence, where science meets intuition, and where the body is given the space it needs to reorganize, release, and remember its own capacity for healing.

body artisans

12/30/2025

We often speak of surgery as though it were a single chapter with clean edges. The date is circled on the calendar, an incision is made and closed, and a problem is addressed and resolved. The before and after are neatly divided by stitches and time. But the body does not experience surgery this way. The body experiences surgery as a shift in its inner terrain, as though a familiar landscape has been altered overnight. The river that once ran freely now curves around new terrain, learning its new shape.

In previous posts, I have talked about the quiet river system that lives beneath the skin, one that most people are never taught to notice unless something interrupts it. The lymphatic system. It does not announce itself with a pulse or rush forward with force. It moves slowly, and patiently, guided by breath, subtle movement, and a sense of safety. It is less like a current and more like a tide, responding to the rhythms of the whole body. When surgery enters this landscape, that tide is changed.

Surgery not only passes through skin and muscle, but it also crosses pathways of flow. Delicate lymphatic vessels may be cut, cauterized, or stunned. Nodes may be disturbed or asked to take on new roles. Fascia, the great connective web that binds and communicates, is opened, shifted, stitched, and often healed into unfamiliar patterns. Nerves that once spoke freely may soften their voice or change their language altogether. The body reorganizes itself around the experience because survival demands adaptation.

Unlike blood vessels, lymphatic vessels are not always repaired or reconnected. The body compensates as it always does, finding alternate routes, creating workarounds, and learning how to carry on. But adaptation does not always come with ease.

Scar tissue, so often treated as a surface concern, tells a much deeper story. A scar is not simply healed skin; it is a place where layers that once glided now hesitate. Where fascia holds more tightly, and where lymph slows, reroutes, or pools. When a familiar pathway is disrupted, the body does not panic. It listens. Like water meeting an obstacle, it softens and begins to trace new lines through the landscape. Swelling that gathers in unexpected places is not a mistake. It is a quiet act of problem-solving, guided by survival and care.

This is why someone can say, even years after a C-section, an appendectomy, breast surgery, orthopedic repair, or abdominal procedure, “I healed, but I was never the same.”

So here is something to think about. The lymphatic system does not exist alone. It is woven deeply into the nervous system. Surgery is not only a mechanical event but also a biological and neurological one. The body remembers the invasion, the anesthesia, the vulnerability, even when the mind has moved on. If the nervous system remains protective, lymphatic vessels remain guarded. Flow slows. Inflammation lingers, and the tissues struggle.

This is why aggressive approaches often fall flat in post-surgical bodies. The system does not need to be forced open; it requires touch that reassures the nervous system that it is no longer under threat.

The good news is this. While scars cannot be erased, function can be restored. Communication can be reestablished, and flow can improve. The body is not broken; it is adaptive, responsive, and profoundly wise. Given the right conditions, the lymphatic system can learn new pathways, rehydrate tissues, and relieve the burden it has been quietly carrying for years.

Healing is not about undoing what was done. It is about listening to what changed. It is about restoring movement to the quiet rivers beneath the skin and honoring the tissues that adapted to protect you. This is where a bodyworker trained in fascia and lymphatic work becomes essential. Not to force the body back into shape, but to understand its language. To recognize where flow has slowed, where fascia is holding history, and where the nervous system is still standing guard. With a skilled, patient, and informed touch, the body is reminded that it no longer has to brace and that it is once again allowed to move toward ease.

body artisans

12/27/2025

Some gentle reminders as we head into the new year. Your goals don't have to look like anyone else's. Rest is productive. Progress isn't always linear. And you can start fresh whenever you need to.

💜 I’d love to get your support on Patreon. It's packed with affirmation cards, journaling prompts, and gentle tools for the hard days. Join here: https://www.patreon.com/SelfLoveRainbow

12/16/2025

Researchers have found that chronic negative thinking can physically change the brain. When the mind stays focused on worry, regret, or self criticism, stress circuits stay active for long periods. Over time, this constant strain can shrink the hippocampus, the region responsible for memory and emotional balance. It can also weaken the prefrontal cortex, the area that supports focus, planning, and self control.

The good news is that the brain is neuroplastic, meaning it can change and repair itself. Studies show that simple practices like gratitude and mindfulness can begin rebuilding healthier neural pathways within weeks. When you repeatedly shift your attention toward positive moments or grounding exercises, the brain strengthens circuits linked to calmness, resilience, and emotional clarity.

Gratitude activates regions associated with reward and connection, helping the brain form new patterns that counteract negative thinking. Mindfulness reduces stress signals and increases activity in the prefrontal cortex, supporting better decision making and emotional regulation.

These practices work because the brain responds to repetition. The thoughts you choose to return to become the pathways you strengthen. Even small daily habits can create long lasting change, proving that internal patterns are not fixed but continually shaped by awareness and intention.

11/28/2025

11/01/2025