Developing Our Natural Resilience with Linda Graham

MP3 Download

Graham assures us that we can rewire neural networks in our brain and build resilience to the point that positive emotions become almost a default reaction. Positive emotions are natural in easy times but more difficult to evoke in hard times. Resilience and positive emotions are inseparable. Linda Graham explains how developing habits such as mindfulness, self-compassion, and body awareness can help us learn to naturally respond with grace and skill when we are under pressure. She explains that having a regular practice of bringing up positive emotions when negative feelings arise weakens those negative feelings, making resilience easier and easier. Graham offers practical examples of behaviors that can help us outgrow our tendencies to feel bad and make “bouncing back” a natural response to challenges. “Sometimes we’ve been conditioned to have more negative or less adaptive responses to our experience…those memories are embedded deeply in our circuitry…when we can place a positive experience in our conscious awareness…the positive can trump the negative.” (hosted by Justine Willis Toms)

Bio

Linda Graham, MFT is a licensed psychotherapist and meditation teacher in full-time practice in the San Francisco Bay area. She integrates her passion for neuroscience, mindfulness, and relational psychology through trainings, workshops, and conferences. She publishes a monthly e-newsletter entitled Healing and Awakening into Aliveness and Wholeness and weekly e-quotes on resources for recovering resilience, archived on her website. 

Linda Graham is the author of:

• Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being (New World Library 2013)
• Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster (New World Library 2018)

To learn more about the work of Linda Graham go to www.LindaGraham-MFT.net. 

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• What is resilience
• How does brain development affect our resilience
• What are some ways to improve our natural resilience
• What is “self-compassion”
• What is “body memory”
• How can we use the body to practice building resilience
• What is meant by “equilibrium”
• What is the “default network” of the brain
• What are the two ways the brain processes information
• How do we overcome the “negativity bias”
• What is “implicit memory”

Host: Justine Willis Toms   Interview Date: 3/20/2015   Program Number: 3536

Music Playlist

From Album: Roots - The Solo Piano Album
Artist: Laurie Z.
1997 Zebra Productions #ZP-0103

Opening Essay: Track 01 Stranger in a Familiar Land
Music Break 1: Track 04 For the Love of a Child
Music Break 2: Track 06 From the Ashes
Music Break 3: Track 10 Invisibility