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Welcome.
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Here you'll find a mix of educational pieces and my own musings on therapy, somatics, healing, and liberation.
While intended to inform, these writings are not meant to substitute the professional support provided in therapy and coaching sessions. Consider what you read an invitation to get curious about your experience and connect with others interested in doing the same.
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Raina LaGrand
Aug 3, 20223 min read
How to Navigate Evolving Identities Within your Relationship
Relationships are kind of like solar systems. Within our relationships, our identities, interests, and values are like the planets in...
Raina LaGrand
Jun 28, 20226 min read
Guest Post: Boundary Setting In Therapy
This blog includes a list of different places where therapists tend to make boundary mistakes and ways they can fix them.
Raina LaGrand
Jun 21, 20223 min read
Relationship Building as Tender Research
What assumptions do you make in new relationships? How can you approach new relationships as gentle research?
Raina LaGrand
Jun 16, 20224 min read
The You-Turn: How Autonomy Can Foster Deeper Intimacy
The fairytales we’re fed about love portray romance as a rescue mission. But is intimacy truly possible in that dynamic?
Raina LaGrand
May 17, 20224 min read
Who are you? Active Imagination and Healing Exiled Parts
Embodying your truth is not a passive thing. In fact, it demands a great deal of sympathetic activation.
Raina LaGrand
Apr 26, 20223 min read
Rhythm is a Resource
Rhythm gives us an embodied sense of predictability. It helps our bodies to feel safer, because it can reduce the need for hypervigalence.
Raina LaGrand
Apr 12, 20224 min read
Titration & Pendulation: Accomplishing, in No Hurry
Organic change, especially when it comes to matters of the subconscious, takes time. Enter: titration.
Raina LaGrand
Mar 22, 20222 min read
Your Boundaries Can Change
Your boundaries can (and should) change. Here's three reasons why.
Raina LaGrand
Mar 15, 20223 min read
Procedural Overrides, Embodying Truth, and Measuring Health
Procedural learning helps us navigate our environments with ease. Traumatic stress can make us override our needs within our environment.
Raina LaGrand
Mar 8, 20223 min read
3 Reasons I Don't Always Teach Breath Work
So much of popular mindfulness education focuses on how our breath is one of our greatest resources when we're stressed.
Raina LaGrand
Mar 1, 20223 min read
Is Therapy the Only Way to Heal? On Expertise and Colonization
For all it’s gifts, psychotherapy is still very much part of the medical industrial complex. How do we rebuild social-cultural context?
Raina LaGrand
Feb 22, 20224 min read
What is the Polyvagal Theory?
The Polyvagal Theory (PVT) describes the relationship between social connection, fear/self-protection, and emotion regulation.
Raina LaGrand
Feb 15, 20224 min read
What is the Window of Tolerance? What are We Tolerating?
The Window of Tolerance is a simple model for understanding the autonomic nervous system and our range of tolerable experiences.
Raina LaGrand
Feb 10, 20223 min read
What to Read Instead of the Body Keeps the Score
You’ve probably heard of The Body Keeps the Score. It's a great book; it's not for everyone. Here are some other suggestions.
Raina LaGrand
Feb 8, 20223 min read
What's a Container?
I define a container a a space - physical, emotional, relational, or otherwise - where we can explore discomfort, uncertainty, desire. and m
Raina LaGrand
Jan 12, 20222 min read
What Tells You That You are Safe?
Our present moment experience is layered. Not only are we thinking, we're also experiencing emotions, body sensations, bodily impulses,...
Raina LaGrand
Jan 6, 20222 min read
Somatics is Dangerous
Embodiment is a portal into our most authentic Self. And this often invites us to acknowledge everything we’ve been overriding, withholding,
Raina LaGrand
Dec 21, 20212 min read
Curiosity > Shame
“Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma...
Raina LaGrand
Dec 14, 20213 min read
At Least One Reason Why You Struggle to Access Curiosity, Creativity, and Play
Personal and collective liberation necessitates that our minds and bodies can move, explore, create, and enact.
Raina LaGrand
Nov 30, 20212 min read
Practice Slowing Down When the Stakes Are Low
Oh, how challenging slowing down can be. And how necessary. In trauma therapy, we often say we have to go slow to speed up.
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