Learn new skills in a safe, supportive environment, be facilitated in art making and embodied awareness as part of emotional regulation skill building. No prior art experience needed.   

​Emotion Regulation is the module in which we learn to understand how our emotions work, and the skills we need to manage our emotions instead of being managed by them, to reduce how vulnerable we are to negative emotions, and to build positive emotional experiences.

In his book, Healing the Shame that Binds You, late therapist John Bradshaw includes a parable about a prisoner.  The original story is good, but I'm going to give it my own spin:

Once upon a time, a prisoner of war is dumped in an underground cave. Given enough rations of food and water to last three weeks, he is told there is an escape if he can find it. The dark is thick, the cave dank. Yet, he discerns a pinprick of light above. With his hands, he finds good-sized rocks around him and realizes he can mix water rations with mud to cement the rocks. Not wasting a minute, he devotes all his waking hours to building a mud and stone ladder.

The work is hard, but our prisoner is plucky. He knows his goal and works tirelessly to obtain it, the light inching closer day by day. Water is running out, but this only makes him work harder. Soon it is time to make his escape. Full of determination, despite weakness and dehydration, he climbs. He can see the exit! He foists himself up along the edge of the cave but his muscles are jelly. Not to be deterred, he pulls himself up, loses his grip, and falls. He dies from dehydration and wounds incurred by the fall.  Days later rescuers are incredulous when they find him. Only two feet from the prisoner's body is a tunnel that would have taken him out of the cave to freedom. The escape was close to him all the time—in the darkness.

Nancy Long Foster, APRN, PhD is from the Aniwodi Cherokee clan.  The Aniwodi clan were historically known as prominent medicine people.  Dr. Foster is founder of Therapeutic Lifestyle Center of Utah where she practices psychiatric medicine.  

This June, Dr. Foster will be passing along wisdom from native ancestors through her series Walking  on the Wind:  Teachings for Harmony and Balance.  Each week, there will be a teaching about key traditions and philosophies that have guided the Cherokee for many years.  

​It is an honor and a privilege to receive these teachings as there are few Aniwondi Cherokee people left to pass them on.   Sessions are held on Thursdays 6:30 - 7:30 from June 2 - 30.   The cost for each session is a $25 offering.  

In my first blog on the life and times of the Highly-Sensitive Person (HSP) I discussed the unique challenges facing those who fall on the extra-sensitive side of the sensitivity spectrum. If you are an HSP it may be difficult to get a handle on the challenges of your sensitivity.  You must learn to soothe and protect your nervous system.  Important skills to develop include:

1 - Setting emotional boundaries:  You can easily pick up on the feelings of others and can become confused about whether your feelings are your own.  Think of yourself as a psychic sponge, soaking up the mental and emotional energy of those around you.  Use your creative ability to visualize a protective shield around you that can filter out some of the stimulus.

2 - Saying no:   This is tough for you because you don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.  Yet, when you take on more than you can handle you can build resentment that often leads to pulling away from others, so that you find yourself bouncing from one extreme to another.  While saying no may be awkward in the short term, it can help save your relationships in the long term.  ​

How many of you have heard the comment “oh...you’re just too sensitive”?   Maybe you feel hurt when people say that and think there is something wrong with you.   According to Elaine Aron, Ph.D in The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), approximately 20 ­percent of the population has a highly sensitive nervous system.   For these individuals (myself included), it's as if they wear their nerves on the outside of their skin.  In the first part of this series on sensitivity I will discuss those who find themselves on the highly sensitive side of the HSP spectrum.

If you’re an HSP, you can experience external and internal stimulation rather quickly and with more intensity and duration.  It’s as though your nervous system is an antenna running through your mind and body—always on and picking up signals from everything around you.   As an HSP, you can become overstimulated and this “noise” or “static” can result in a variety of mental and physical complaints that may be difficult to diagnose.  

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), popularized through films like Rachel Getting Married (2008) and Welcome to Me (2014), is a diagnosis many patient's fear because of the overwhelming  stigma associated with it.

​A tell­tale sign of BPD is a person's erratic and unstable relationships, caused by outsized reactivity when feeling threatened and/or rejected.