Jake White Healing LLC

07/25/2025

I don't think it is always right to immediately choose compassion.

I often felt a lot of conflict with my father. He would often impose his opinions and his needs over mine. I found myself feeling suppressed, powerless, and shutdown. In this more passive state of freeze I would often make excuses for my father. I would say that he had a difficult childhood or he was a loving parent. I was choosing compassion and overriding my basic instincts for protection and freedom.

Compassion did not allow me to feel my anger and the injustice of having my life controlled by my father. Somatic experiencing helped me to get in touch with my anger and feel the primitive response of my nervous system. I was able to create space away from my fathers control and needs.

Compassion is a wonderful goal for our life. It can lead to self love and care for others. Compassion helped me feel love for the little boy who felt stuck and trapped around his father. Compassion was sometimes a hindrance to my nervous system when it was shrouded in fawning, guilt, and shame.

Today let yourself feel your primitive and raw emotional experience within your body.

07/24/2025

07/15/2025

In disorganized attachment the need to stay connected for survival overrides the signals of threat and alarm of the body.

We then have to rely on freeze and shutting down in order to maintain attachment with our families. When working with the disorganized attachment we are reconnecting with our gut instincts and signals of threat. Reaffirming that its okay to feel our gut instincts, to feel that something is wrong for us, and to feel the mobilized energy of the body that would run or fight to protect us. Its these signals that would have led us out of an environment that was harming us.

This helps us to arrive in more safety and deeper sense of connection with the signals that were always trying to protect us. This helps us to learn to trust ourselves and to no longer stay in environments that threaten us.

Through safety we attend to our own body and also attune to other safe nervous systems that can provide love and connection.

In working with the disorganized attachment pattern we are teaching people to reconnect with their bodies instincts for safety and self protection.

07/11/2025

Here is a short practice that uses resources of stability within the body to pull ourselves out of a negative spiral.

Once we feel more stability we can then hold with awareness the felt sense of threat and activation. Over time stability grows and is able to coexist with our negative spirals and reactions. We begin to feel less reactive, triggers happen less often, and we recover faster.

Try to find stability in the body and resource this stability next time you are in a negative spiral.

07/08/2025

We often struggle to settle or feel at peace because the nervous system is still holding onto sympathetic energy. It cannot feel safe if it still perceives a threat.

In moments of stress and anxiety we can ask ourselves: What needs to happen for me to feel safe? We can become curious about how this protective energy in our body needs to be expressed. For example, a quick, anxious energy in the chest may need to move or run. We may need to escape, to get away from perceived danger. We might need to move our hands or legs to help the sympathetic response flow through the body. This can help us release the energy we often suppress or avoid by going into a freeze state.

Afterward, we may begin to slow down and experience more ease and freedom in the body. The sense of safety that follows the release of sympathetic energy marks the completion of the stress response in the nervous system. When we feel safe, the nervous system can move out of the protective state it has held onto due to past trauma.

Next time you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself: What does my nervous system need to do to feel safe? Then bring that into action to engage your protective response in a supportive way. In doing so, you are releasing stored protective energy and helping your nervous system return to regulation.

07/03/2025

Beliefs create expectations for how we are going to be treated. Beliefs are connected to our implicit memories. We will react emotionally to a current situation based on our past memories. This influences how we engage in our present relationship.

We may expect neglect and abuse and feel not enough because of the past. This limits how safe and connected we feel in our present life. We want to feel loved and connected but our old beliefs create expectations to protect us from future harm.

In order to heal our past emotional pain we can focus on regulating our emotions. Placing a hand on our chest, slowing down in the moment to feel our emotions, and bringing awareness to how our body is responding physically to stress.

As we support ourselves emotionally we can then open to new experiences of safety. Noticing when someone listens to us, responds to our needs, or stays with us even though we are having a difficult time. The positive feelings that come from safety reinforce new beliefs and expectations. We may feel more seen, more worthy of love, and more present and grounded in our own body. This creates new healthier patterns that are rooted in present safety rather than past emotional pain.

Although we carry old beliefs and expectations, we also carry the capacity to regulate ourselves, support our emotions, and open to new experiences. This is how we begin to form new beliefs—about ourselves, about others, and about what it means to be loved and cared for.

07/02/2025

In therapy there should be frequent pauses to explore sensation of the body. We should be consistently learning how to move attention toward the body to notice what is occurring in the nervous system. Most of healing past trauma is based on supporting the nervous system to move through protective responses and into rest and digest. When we continue talking we often miss these subtle changes in the body that are trying to communicate with us. We may miss a sensation of threat or activation that needs to be felt and processed. We may also miss a feeling of settling that communicates an experience of deep attunement and safety.

We can try to lean into our bodies sensation and take 30 seconds to feel a positive sensation. In therapy if we feel seen and heard from our therapist we should take time to track sensations. Feeling our head, chest, abdomen, legs, and arms. Noticing ease or settling that occurrs through safety. By noticing these sensations we are developing a new pattern in the nervous system. One that sends a message of safety and possibly a new relationship with our body and with life. All positive and lasting change occurs in the physiological response of the nervous system.

Giving yourself 30 seconds to feel these positive changes can help you heal and repair.

06/30/2025

When we attune, our nervous system connects with another person to create co regulation. When we misattune the dysregulation of our nervous system causes another person to feel unheard, unseen, disregarded, and ignored.

Attunement comes from the time that we take to observe another person’s emotional state. Watching their posture, facial expression, the emotional tone of their body, or the quality of their energy. Based on this observation we change our behavior to connect with them.

For example I may observe a person feeling cold, distant, and emotionally withdrawn. I may slowly approach them with a calm demeanor, relaxed shoulders and chest, and slightly looking away in order to help them feel less exposed. I may then gently ask if they are okay. “They may say they need time and space, and I respond with, ‘Okay, thank you for letting me know,’ as I slowly walk away to honor their boundaries.” respect of their boundaries may help them feel less overwhelmed and gives them time to self regulate.

On the other hand I may missattune by ignoring the persons demeanor and emotional distance and start talking to them. “They may move away from me, but I continue following them and keep talking. When they finally say, ‘I need to be left alone,’ I take it personally, become offended, and walk away feeling angry and hurt.” Because of my missattunement the other person feels more emotionally withdrawn and feels shame for needing space and alone time.

Through attunement we can learn how to offer safety to another person. We can learn the subtle language of how one nervous system communicates with another, providing safety that supports co regulation. Attunement is the nervous system’s language—spoken through the body to express safety and connection.

06/27/2025

Often times we feel anxious and completely overwhelmed and we want to run away. We feel trapped, powerless, and out of control in these moments where the autonomic nervous system takes over.

This is often caused by past trauma where we were overcome by external threat with out the chance or capacity to protect ourselves. Instead of being able to push or say no we had to freeze to survive. When life creates overstimulation the nervous system will recycle these old patterns. Where we feel overwhelmed and need to get away to feel safe.

Pushing and boundaries engage with the fight response. We can push out our hands to protect ourselves, push back and create distance from threat, and use our power to protect ourselves. Pushing with our arms, hands, shoulders, jaw, and abdomen generate power and force. As we use our body to push we can feel ourselves begin to expand, to become more up right, and feel the space that our boundaries create from external threat. Instead of running and freezing we are facing and protecting ourselves.

Pushing out with our hands is a new pattern that can lead to more safety and ease in the nervous system. Through pushing we establish boundaries that were needed in the past. Next time you feel overwhelmed try pushing with your hands and feel the way that your body creates a boundary. This can help reduce the feelings of anxiety, fear, and powerlessness.

06/23/2025

Here is an exercise to support a positive pattern in the nervous system. Its so important to take time to allow a positive feeling to be noticed. A positive sensation that is felt for 30 seconds allows the nervous system to develop a new pathway.

Supporting a positive sensation also allows the nervous system to ease the protective energy that holds on to past implicit memory. This approach will give you a step by step process to nurture and support a positive experience that can change your nervous system.

In healing noticing positive sensation is sometimes more important that following activation and stress. Healing is not only about what we let go of its also about what we let in.

06/19/2025

Here is a short description on why its important to follow the nervous system. When we follow the sensations we learn how to give space to our feelings and emotions. We also learn how to be with a cycle of stress and activation. Noticing how our chest tightens or our feet leave the ground.

Through connection with sensations we also learn how to notice when the nervous system completes its stress response. Noticing when our heart opens, feet settle onto the floor, and our face softens.

Through following sensations we support the nervous system to move through its natural cycles. We learn how to express our emotions through our body. And we create more space to be fully engaged and present for ourselves.

Connecting with your bodies sensations is the main way that you can support regulation of the autonomic nervous system.

06/17/2025