Bridging the Gap Between Intention and Action

Behavioral Activation

Many of us struggle to bridge the gap between what we know is good for us versus actually doing it. This involves breaking habits, leaving our comfort zone, and pursuing change...Easier said than done! Many people find themselves living in a 'familiar hell' rather than stepping into the unknown to pursue better or more. 

Behavioral Activation is a term for the process of taking action steps toward goals. We accomplish this by identifying goals, exploring your 'why,' and then creating an exposure hierarchy to organize the path toward your goals into small, doable steps that accumulate to create feedback loops of forward movement, motivation, increased confidence, and successes. When we have inevitable missteps, we explore what got in the way. Not from a place of shame, but from a place of curiosity, acknowledging that identifying obstacles empowers us to get creative and overcome them. We regularly prepare before taking action mentally, emotionally, and logistically; encourage mindfulness during said action (helping the brain to re-wire its perceptions of the event based on facts and particularly noting safety); and then review the process on the other side of the action step to help integrate between mind and body the positive, supportive, factual 'data.' 

The process of behavioral activation is nuanced and complex. It is unique to the individual based on their goals, strengths, and limitations, but this framework when tailored to your unique needs scientifically supports building momentum, integration, and foundational shifts that support lasting changes in the brain and body rather than one-off's or short term movement.  

Nervous System Regulation

Nervous system regulation is a popular term but what does it really mean? Our nervous system is fine-tuned to respond to what the brain picks up on via stimuli from the environment (what you can see, hear, feel, taste, smell) based on how the brain categorizes said stimuli. A lot of this happens before logical thinking or conscious processing even occurs -- which is why many of us experience anxiety, panic, overwhelm, or shut down that can feel disconnected from the moment or out of control. 

Regular practices like grounding, breath work, meditation, etc., support our ability to regulate -- regulation is not the absence of activation or triggering, it is our ability to notice and respond in a way that fosters resiliency and autonomy. Creating and then recognizing our ability to effectively respond to challenges our nervous system might face creates confidence and by its nature changes the way our brain synthesizes incoming stimuli. Our brain learns it doesn't have to stay hypervigilant for threat, because life begins feeling a lot less threatening when we learn to navigate it in a way that facilitates safety. 

Perspective Reorientation

A foundational piece woven throughout all of this is perspective re-orientation. This supports our ability to start toward behavioral activation by weeding out the "lies" the nervous system took in about you, your environment, your worth, your ability, etc. 

A lot of the work we do in counseling involves identifying what used to serve you, bringing in compassion and understanding to those facets, and then examining the current landscape of your environment and options available to you, to ultimately fine-tune how you cope and navigate based on well-thought-out, safe, and truth-based facts. 

For example, if you grew up in a world where you were expected to reflect well on the family, but no one seemed to care about how you actually felt or who you even really were, you may feel later in life disconnected from yourself in a way that perpetuates anxiety- in performance tasks, social settings, even just leaving the house. Back then, it may have been a real and reasonable coping strategy to disconnect from your true feelings, strive to perform in ideal ways, and constantly be reading the environment and judging your performance as a means to access or maintain safety. Later in life, all of this may feel very cumbersome, heavy, exhausting, and lonely. You may still notice nervous system activation and anxiety around seemingly simple cues like leaving the house to hang with friends, co-workers, or even just run errands... We then come to see that what really helped you cope in the past might be holding you back today... and so we begin the journey of 'weeding out' the 'lies' you took on as general truths about yourself and the world, replacing them with what we can identify based on facts as actual truths. Essentially, this is an exploration that facilitates expansion. As we expand our perspectives, we experiment with them using the behavioral activation process and hierarchy. We take small steps with intention and notice what's true as we walk through it, how it felt on the other side, and why. We begin building a new neural network for synthesizing the same (once triggering) stimuli. It takes conscious effort at first, but the brain loves to be as efficient as possible, so with consistent effort, it does become a new and automatic way of processing with more positive outcomes.