Calm Works Counseling, LLC

In addition to all the excellent clinical sessions at the EMDRIA Virtual Summit, we’re making space for you. Join Kevin Bonifield for a 30-minute guided Qigong and Tai Chi self-care session designed to help you reset your nervous system and reconnect with your body. Through gentle, accessible movements—often called “meditation in motion”—you’ll explore simple somatic practices that are both calming and energizing. Movements are slow and mindful, and may be done seated or standing. No experience necessary.

The body is the key to the mind. You first have to calm the body’s response to trauma, shifting it from danger/alert to relaxed/controlled. Only then can you begin to recognize and process the mental and emotional aspects of the trauma.



Winter reminds us that slowness doesn’t have to look like turning off but turning in. If this season looks more like settling deeply into your nest rather than rushing to renew and reset, you’re not alone. Everything in nature takes time to hibernate, to go inward, to marinate, and slow down - you can too 🤍
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Learning about fight, flight, fawn, and freeze can be helpful, but learning how these responses manifest in our particular bodies is where the magic really starts. When we understand how fight, flight, freeze, or fawn show up for us, we can develop an internal template to refer back to in moments where we are feeling a lot of (or beginning to shut down and feeling no emotion at all) that alerts us when it’s time take steps to soothe our and return to our window of tolerance.

No one has an innate ability to pause during a conflict and reflect “Gosh, I think I might be moving into a freeze response.” Instead, this realization tends to be something we recognize as we reflect on an experience later. Growing the capacity to check in with ourselves and notice, in the moment, when we are slipping into a response is one key to learning how to self-soothe, expand our , grow emotionally, and build .

That’s where my new comes in: it’s a tool specifically for helping us recognize when we are moving out of our window of tolerance (where we can listen, learn, and respond thoughtfully) and into a reaction state.

Like the Emotion Sensation Wheel, the Fight, Flight, & Freeze Embodied Wheel is a tool to prompt conversations and build awareness by showing how each of these responses *tends* to show up through physical sensations. It's not prescriptive- it's a conversation starter. It's meant to teach, to stir, and to prompt conversations that build awareness, connection, and experience through awareness. Download a digital copy of this art via patreon.com/lindsaybraman or through my website.

The dog feeling wheel!

A doodle just for giggles that is particularly complex for so many of us.

Get a sticker, print, or tote bag via the Society6 link in my profile.

Tulsa-area EMDR Therapists: Check out the EMDR with IFS Workshop being offered by EMDR & Beyond in Bixby, OK this August 10-11, 2023! Thank you Connect & Restore for sponsoring the training.

Information Link: https://emdrandbeyond.thinkific.com/courses/integrating-internal-family-systems-into-your-emdr-practice-a-practical-approach