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Welcome.
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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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 15, 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 8, 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
Mar 1, 20223 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 22, 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 15, 20224 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 10, 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
Feb 8, 20223 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 12, 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
Jan 6, 20222 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 21, 20212 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
Dec 14, 20213 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.
Raina LaGrand
Nov 30, 20212 min read
Coming Out of the Tunnel
That feeling when you can only focus on what, or who, is pissing you off. I call this the tunnel: focused and flooded.
Raina LaGrand
Nov 4, 20212 min read
Conflict is Only Half of the Story
How do you feel about conflict in your relationships? Conflict is only half of the story. In therapy, we refer to this as rupture and repair
Raina LaGrand
Oct 18, 20212 min read
What is Parts Work?
Parts Work is a framework to help us hold space for and integrate our multiplicity; the many layers of our human emotions, desires,...
Raina LaGrand
Oct 6, 20212 min read
Self-Effulgent Self-Praxis
When I first decided to pursue a career in therapy, part of me struggled against what felt like a departure from everything I’d known...
Raina LaGrand
Sep 30, 20212 min read
Ring the Bell: Three Steps to Accessing Supportive Resources in Times of Distress
Resource yourself! How to make your healing dreams a reality. What we can learn from dogs about that journey.
Raina LaGrand
Sep 20, 20213 min read
You can't use better tools unless you have them
We can't use better tools unless we have them. Unless we know they exist. Unless we know that they are accessible to us and we are...
Raina LaGrand
Aug 3, 20214 min read
5 Ways Parts Work Can Help Your Relationships
Parts work is spacious enough for intensity and multiplicity. Here are 5 ways it can help your relationships during conflict.
Raina LaGrand
Aug 3, 20213 min read
Your Mind is in Your Body: Thoughts as Invitations into The Body
I want to address something that happens in the somatic field (sometimes unintentionally, but not without root). The thing that happens...
Raina LaGrand
Jun 30, 20211 min read
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