In this episode of What You're Craving, Molly welcomes clinical psychologist Dr. Alisa Kriegel. Dr. Alisa shares her perspective on two relevant topics that have a lot of evidence nowadays: how our childhood wounds impact our relationships and how the nervous system maintains balance in the body.

According to Dr. Alisa, in our relationships, we tend to repeat the same patterns we learned during our childhood. All the lessons, the emotions, and the wounds can be a significant part of how we interact with our partners. The key here is to learn to heal those wounds first instead of focusing on fixing the external world around us.

When it comes to regulating our nervous system, it is fundamental to identify when we are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or triggered. By being aware of it, we can start regulating the nervous system with a few techniques. Dr. Alisa also explains the differences between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system and the reactions we experience when we become anxious, known as fight or flight reactions.

Episode Quotes

• “I'm a big believer that you have to understand what happened in the past. Not to blame it, but to learn from it, to understand yourself, and to use it, because that's going to dictate what comes up for you.”
• “Ideally, in a relationship, you can be co-regulators for each other, but what that requires is first recognizing your own nervous system responses and what helps you to feel soothed.”

Related Links

Anchored: How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory by Deb Dana

Connect with Dr. Alisa Kriegel

Website: www.alisakriegel.com

Podcast: Let's Talk about Sex, Really

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