Nicole Lee Rocha, LMHC, LLC

Our human brain 🧠 is hardwired to seek out relief from pain.

🖤physical pain
🖤emotional pain

Did you know 🤔relief of pain actually registers in our human brain as the BEST emotion?

So while our relapses may be messy,
damaging,
heartbreaking;
let’s also remember whatever the relapse behavior: Substance use Self-injury Disordered eating Codependency
…these patterns all offer relief from pain, where we decide when tha relief begins.
It’s often
a brief relief,
A chased relief,
Not a sustainable relief.

So let’s support ourselves during lapses and releases, and be reminded
❤️ we are simply human with our human brain that’s hardwired to seek out relief of pain
❤️ if our goal is recovery, may we be brave enough to ask ourselves what is the underlying pain we need to seek relief from?

This is real recovery ❤️‍🩹

💕And a gentle reminder: Messy healing is proof of genuine healing

Happy Healing Friends ❤️

some damage
doesn’t look like damage.

🖤What ifs.

Did you know “what ifs” are a category of
Automatic Cognitive Distortions?

In other words, what ifs include an entire category of Easily accessible .untrue .thoughts. 🤯

Many of us experience these internally.
What ifs are so common, we needed a whole darn category to reflect how frequent this experience is for us all.

You’re not alone, Friend.

🖤 “what ifs” contribute to… Time travel/ fortune telling Made-up scenarios Negative outcomes

With majority of these thoughts being based in negativity,
Worry & anxiety,
Fear or panic,
not based in logic
(I can’t tell the future; can you?),
And not based in truth.

If the “what ifs” sound familiar to you;
let’s work on how to support our nervous system
to be present and access thoughts and feelings that are both true and safe. 😌

Healthy Healing Friends ❤️

Neural Nostalgia. 🎼

Ever notice listening to our old playlists feels different than listening to the others?

Neural Nostalgia
refers to music we listened to from our teenage and young adult years
being closely tied to memories
and emotional connections.

This is one of the most powerful links 🧠our brain has between music and memories.

Mental health benefits include
🎧supporting mood
🎧reducing emotional and physical pain
🎧memory retrival, including for those who have repressed memories or dementia 😮

Here’s your emotional wellness reminder to
Turn up that old playlist 💿🎧🎼

“The Helper”

If we identify as being a
🖤helper,
🖤rescuer,
🖤caretaker,

Asking for help and support can be an extremely challenging task and a difficult change to initiate.

🤔Let’s talk why.
This pattern likely developed all the way back during our childhood. Many of us were parentified children It’s likely we may have grown up with emotionally immature parents who did not regulate their own emotions It’s likely we lived in spaces where we were expected to manage others’ emotions It’s likely we’ve lived with someone who needed extra care, thus resulting in neglect of our own needs (this could look like a chronically ill parent, or a special needs sibling)

Through these experiences,
we learned to
💔rely solely on ourselves,
💔minimize our needs,
💔Not ask for help

☺️Let’s be mindful: Begining this change and trying to ask for help, offers us reassurance that we are trying to heal and living in a safe space to do so.

Little by little Friends.
Happy Healing ❤️‍🩹

"The Helper" Asking For Help