Let Me Tell You This About That

Neurotransmitters--the Brain Bridge to Possibility!

• Hess and Delbert • Season 1 • Episode 50

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Neurotransmitters—the Brain Bridge to Positivity

Hess and Delbert feel energized when they talk about possibility.  They wanted to follow up and talk about it more after last week’s Podcast.   In their Sunday chat this morning, Hess explains how we can move from trauma to resiliency.  We can use the neuroplasticity of the brain to rewire and get out of the “ditch”. Trauma lives in the limbic area of the brain and stays there if it is not processed in a healthy way.  The trauma lives on in the re-triggering with anything similar to the trauma.  She is trained in a modality called Accelerated Resolution Therapy.  With this modality, the therapist leads the client to replace the trauma—with something different—something more positive.  After a session, the traumatic event is a fact-it happened, but the brain is no longer triggered emotionally.  

There are options—there are ways to get the help we need to be able to “spiral back up”.  We can work together, there are solutions.  Delberts family charity, Carole’s Kitchen was able to combine with a bigger organization—Dare to Care that can help the Seneca Food Pantry stay stocked all year round. 

Do what you can to move to positivity—towards better outcomes.  It is good for you and for others.

Thanks for listening!  We love you!  Like and share!

I am still collecting for José's cancer treatments. This week José received radiation in his lower spine every day. We are awaiting the next CT Scans. Thank you for your continued support!
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a top realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties She will help you find your home, and also help you get the most equity when you sell your house.

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools. The instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/caroleskitchen.nonprofit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==





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Hess:

Welcome back to our next conversation to let me tell you this about that I'm Hess and I'm sitting in the white chair in my bedroom looking out and Delbert. We've had a few days of rain and I swear it's just like a miracle. It's like in the springtime when things start to turn green, things are turning green again, folks. Yeah, we've had we had about six, six weeks with no rain and just with a couple days of rain. It's just so awesome how it's starting to green up. So amazing. Love it. So that's the report from my white chair. How's the green?

Delbert:

Alright, I'm Delbert as always on the green couch looking out my picture window. Hess is rain dance worked. It's been raining. Things are greening up. I planted some, rose of Sharon. Once you get one rose of Sharon, the birds will plant other ones in all different places. I had one growing up in my fire pit, had one growing up in another little planter, and I just dug'em up and. And planted'em somewhere else. And they were, I was like, oh man. They can grow anywhere. They're real hearty and strong. And my grandma used to call'em alley flowers'cause they could grow in the alley. They just grow in rock and all, they grow all along the back alleys in old Louisville and Southern Louisville. But so it's the rain helped it. I put some more potting soil on this one that was struggling. My rose of Sharon is coming back. Grass is green.

Hess:

All of this all comes together again, we've talked to you about possibility. And this kind of reiterates that even though the grass had gotten brown and is withholding its energy and it still had the possibility to turn green, your little rose of sharon that, that wasn't doing so well with the rain and with you putting some new potting soil around it. It's giving it new possibility.

Delbert:

Yeah, and I talked to him. I'm like, you're gonna make it. You're gonna pull through. It's all good.

Hess:

Yeah, wor words can give possibility too.

Delbert:

Yeah, encouragement for So has what, I mean we had so much to say about possibility that we made it two podcasts. So

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

did you, have on your mind that you wanted to say about possibility?

Hess:

Bert. Now everybody, I really want you to go back and listen to all of our podcasts because I really feel like there's so many threads that tie together. Because when we're going through something hard, we can spiral down and when we spiral down, it just gets more and more negative. And we just, that teacher sister Patrick at Sacred Heart, she said if you start to feel down, you start drooping your shoulders and then you trip more and then things get worse. Yeah.

Delbert:

Look up.

Hess:

Look up. Delbert when I went back to school in 19 94 to the college of social work when I was 36 years old. Like I said, I had a customer at the fruit market, this attorney that was one of the best attorneys in Lexington, and she went to law school when she was 40. She said, I knew when I turned 43, I knew I'd turned 43 whether I went to law school or not. So I thought, why not go to law school at 40? I'll be 43 anyway. And at 36. At 36, I went back to school Master's of Social Work. And it's always been my intention and this is what keeps you young, is to be a curious learner. I've always been curious. I've always wanted to learn as much as I can and my clients motivate me to keep learning more so I can help them the most.

Delbert:

Right.

Hess:

Yeah, so I learned that really good cool relationship work, Imago, which was amazing. And I learned that because Cathy and I were going through a hard time and I read about it and we went to that and it was transformational. So you talk about like moving towards positivity, reframe, you can learn something, you can learn new ways to have connection and how to communicate, how to relate. Like that intentional dialogue that I've taught all my clients, my couples. So when we've gone through any kind of trauma and it doesn't get processed in a healthy way, it gets stuck in our brain in that limbic part of our brain. And that's a deep. Subcortical area in our brain. It's where the amygdala is, and we, our amygdala can hijack us and that limbic part of our brain where the trauma got stored, it doesn't speak English, it's images in sensations. So whenever we get. Re stimulated. We like go through it all over again. Our body floods and that's all connected to the medulla Oblangata. That and that part of our brain that will run, fight or play dead. If we thought we were gonna die, we immediately react. It's when we get activated, it's a switch. It's not a volume. And for example, I'll give you an example of that. When I was growing up and I finally, when I was 11 years old and I thought I was ancient, I finally got my horse, Jesse James. His name was Whiskey. But we didn't think that would be a good name for a horse for a young girl. So we named him Jesse James. My grandpa would give you$50 if you named somebody, Jesse. So anyway,

Delbert:

For that.

Hess:

$50. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why with my 32 first cousins, there's about 10 of us that have Jesse in our names. All right. Riding at the state fair was like, the epitome was like the top of the staircase of places you could compete. And it was just so exciting. And you'd be riding, you'd be practicing, and then you'd go into that air conditioning of Freedom Hall. And you're riding and they have mulch that you're riding on. It was a good surface for your horse. And so that smell of mulch was always just, would just always make me feel good whenever I'd smell mulch. Okay. All right. So then the second part of my story is tragically my brother died when he was 21. Jesse boy, there's another Jesse. He was, yeah. He died and the wake after the service was at Dad and Susie's house and my dad made sure that the yard looked good and he had his, the area in between the bushes and shrubs. He had all that re-mulched. And so then mulch, that smell then replaced my good smell of mulch. To, to the death and tragedy of my brother. So that's the flip, that's the switch that gets flipped now when I smell mulch. Okay. Yeah. So we can go through something hard and tough and when that limbic part of our brain gets reactivated, it's like all over again. Okay. And that's how trauma lives on and on with its reactivation. So that's hard and tough. And then we kinda live in that cycle of keep getting triggered and waiting for the shoe to drop. So anyway, when we talked, when we were talking about possibility last time, Delbert, I wanted to share that this new therapeutic modality that I use. Called Accelerated resolution Therapy has been a game changer, and I learned it about eight years ago and it was, it grew out of. Eye movement desensitization, reprocessing, EMDR, that there's a bilateral of back and forth, maybe somebody's hand going through across our eyes or tappers or something like that, side to side. As we're processing a trauma, it helps us process it or it can reinforce a resource also. So tell me if I start losing you, Bert.'cause I don't wanna lose any of the pods. You following me?

Delbert:

I am following you.

Hess:

Okay, so what's so amazing and you can go on my website, everybody, jessica bollinger.com, and I have a tab for accelerated resolution therapy, jessica bollinger.com and Lainey Rosenweig who, who came up with this technique of accelerated resolution therapy. She, I have a video attached to my website where you can listen to her talk about it. What she came up with, and it just happenstance working with a client where she's doing just a regular EMDR protocol where you go, okay, you're doing the protocol and then you say, okay, go with that. And the client goes, go with what? And she goes, I don't know. Go with something positive. So he put something positive there. She noticed, like how much better her clients, she started doing that more with her clients, put something positive there. So she did this whole kind of protocol. I'm not gonna explain the whole protocol if anybody needs this, find somebody. And there's so many more, so many people get trained all the time and accelerated resolution therapy, the acronym is art ART so for instance. Cathy Lucas and I were in a really bad car accident about 14 years ago on old Frankford Pike, and it was a three car, a four car accident. We, we were on our side, we had to climb out the sunroof, and what that accident did is that it made me a hypervigilant driver. I was scared when I was driving and, and that didn't help me be a better driver or if I was a passenger, I was hypervigilant. And in the meantime, Lucas began to drive. He turned 16, he was 11 at the time of the car accident. He turned 16. He's driving. I'm trying to get the dang speed limit on old Frank Fort Pike, lowered from 55 down to 45.'cause it's just scaring me. I'm more scared when I'm driving. Anyway. I go get trained in this ART this modality just sounds like it's like too good to be true. I get trained in it and when you do the training, Delbert, you do training with each other and so you gotta practice with each other. And so I chose to process the car accident. So I processed the car accident and then part of the protocol is, okay, let's replace it. And I replaced it. We were on our way to a lady cat basketball game when this happened. It was January 3rd and it was at 6:30 at night. It's dark. And what I replaced it with Delbert is that we drove to the basketball game. I ate a bucket of popcorn, which I did sometimes. We were sitting with our friends, Nan and Tink. I waved to Mel and Alberta across the stadium, across Memorial Col because you can always pick them out because Alberta has beautiful white hair waved to them, and the Lady Cats win and we drive home. So the rest of the protocol kind of reinforces this new thing I'm putting in my limbic system. Okay.

Delbert:

Okay.

Hess:

And Delbert, even though it's a fact the accident happened, I put something different in my limbic part of my brain and I noticed that night that it worked. So let me describe that. Okay. With the people that were at the workshop, I said, there's a really good Mexican place. Let's all meet there. And so Cathy Lucas and I met the other people at the workshop at the ART workshop. We met them at jalapenos. Cathy and I both had a margarita. And so we had Lucas drive us home so Cathy sitting in the passenger seat, Lucas is driving, I'm behind Lucas in the car. And we come back home and Cathy says, drop me off down at the barn. The barn is below our house here, just down the driveway. She says, drop me off at the barn before you drive to the house so I can water the horses. So Lucas pulls down to the barn, Cathy gets out, goes in the front door of the barn, we back up. And as we back up, I see a car had been parked there and left by somebody that might've gotten dropped off at the barn. Okay? And right then, Delbert, I go, oh my gosh, this worked. Because Delbert, when we would've pulled in there, I would've, I, my hyper vigilance self would've gone, Lucas. Now when you back up, you watch out for that car, and so when we backed up and I saw that car. And Lucas of course, missed it. He's a really good driver. I thought, oh my gosh, this worked. So it's just amazing. And so last week, Delbert, or in our, in one of our last podcasts, we were talking about reframing. So in ART you're reframing an old trauma into something different. And it changes your emotional connection. I don't know how that hyperactivity, hyper vigilance anymore because of the accident. And Delbert, I still drive. If I go to town, I drive past it twice, but I, it's a fact it happened, but I'm not emotionally connected to it anymore.

Delbert:

That is so great. I And just like you're saying, reframe it. We can all do that if we're down in that dark hole we've talked about people being so down deep, in the ground, they can turn it, they can twist it upward. A big,

Hess:

right

Delbert:

flower Towards the sun because there's help out there for you. There's a way and when we were talking about possibilities, we were talking about being the architect of your life. when you reframe it, it's like framing a house. It's like building something.

Hess:

Right.

Delbert:

that memory, that brain, that beautiful brain of yours. Into a more positive light. And I love that. I love that. What's beautiful about our minds, because sometimes when something bad happens, we feel like we don't have any control. You're telling us in this wonderful story is that we do have control.

Hess:

Yes. Yes.

Delbert:

tools in our toolkit for therapists and counselors help you reframe, rebuild any kind of trauma, and I love that. I

Hess:

Absolutely.

Delbert:

Yes,

Hess:

Absolutely.

Delbert:

we're in control. We're in control of our minds, even though sometimes, things can get away from us and we can go off and thought we are in control.

Hess:

Delbert, the brain has neuroplasticity and it can grow in new directions and make new connections. And when we've had a trauma and then we get re-triggered, it makes that more of a ditch and a trough of. Of trauma and it makes it deeper.

Delbert:

And we've talked about, car accidents, they do trigger a lot of things. Accidents trigger a lot and, it's very it's very much a metaphor, when somebody's down in the ditch, in a car. In their life, in their mental state. You gotta roll out of that. You gotta There And it's okay if you're hurt and you're bruised and know it's okay to sit there for a minute and yourself together. That's okay.

Hess:

Sit in the Denny's and have a cup of coffee because you're just blown out and stunned

Delbert:

Exactly. You. Okay.

Hess:

when you. Yeah. When you got that phone call about your sister and the tragedy of the car accident and your niece and the little neighbor girl that's where you went and you were numb and you called somebody and they came and got you. But and then just a few weeks ago, you're talking on our pod about being with your nephew. The surviving son. Like you all saw a van upside down and he said, if anybody's ready to run towards it, it's us. We gotta run towards it.

Delbert:

Mean we did. And that is. When you can rebuild it, and that's when you can reframe it, reshape it, and say, we understand. We understand what

Hess:

Yes.

Delbert:

right to happen. We understand and we are here to help. Bend yourself and you rebuild and you reframe. Then you are so resilient. You're so strong, and you can help others. And that's what you do. Hess. You help other people in your practice These thoughts that are crippling themselves in their life. Andre helping'em get back up there.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

up.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

And so that's just our. Our minds, our imaginations the possibilities of what we can do are just, it's just endless. It's just endless. And I just hope everybody that's listening out there, if you're going through anything hard and gosh knows there's a lot going on right now it's all gonna be okay. We're It. We're gonna, work together, we'll help each other

Hess:

and there, there's a, we there's new paradigms or new ways to think about things. You you are moving towards collaborating with Carole;s Kitchen and say more about that, how there's a new paradigm there for you.

Delbert:

right? One of our podcasts you'll hear me talk about a golf scramble that we do annually. And and it just, it really was super draining for everybody that did it'cause we just don't have that many volunteers And, we were looking for a way to be to have legacy with the Seneca Pantry and to keep it going, as long as it's needed. And we were feeling like, oh, shoot we just don't know what to do. We don't have any young people that really wanna come in and help us, or maybe we're just not, reaching out the right way or, but a lot of people. Are my age or older, and they're just thinking, gosh, I'm retiring, I want to travel. I don't know how long I can do this. my friend Patty, who's just so great in volunteering and networking, she happened to read something about Dare to Care partnering, with other charities. And and suggested it and we reached out to them. And they said, yes, we will partner with you. And so we became a partner with dare to Care for Seneca's Pantry. Carole;s Kitchen is now an official partner with Dare to Care our Seneca Pantry. And that money that we raised would normally just serve the pantry for one year really will feed that pantry forever until as long as somebody will still order the food. They will be. With Dare to Care.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

I just I'm so thrilled about it. It's like I said I would get so tired for at least a week after the golf scramble, because there Bob Jones and I were the two that volunteered and it would just level us,

Hess:

and it would be weather dependent, right?

Delbert:

Yes. Yes. And you know what, so wild about that. Every year, it's always around Carole;s birthday in September and the weather has always been beautiful. That probably was coming one day. But the fact that we found a new way that we pivoted, that we found a new possibility and when we partnered with somebody that was bigger than us. And and, dare to Care has also partnered with Feed America. So they're partners with them'cause they're bigger than them. And in these times when, I was telling Hess, there are benefits that are being cut and it scares small. that, that deal with hunger. I worried about how long I could sustain what I was doing and and so partnering with somebody bigger it's such a godsend. It's such a relief. instead of planning a scramble this week, this is just God and the universe. I'm gonna go see Christopher this weekend Carole;s son just had his first child so I'm,

Hess:

You're gonna be there on her birthday, on his mom's birthday,

Delbert:

Instead of doing the golf scramble on her birthday, I am gonna be holding her gr first grand baby on her birthday.

Hess:

and you're gonna be the grandmother to that baby.

Delbert:

Probably there's a lot of people standing in line to do that, but I'll be one of'em and I'm so excited and I'm I'm just, that's a new, that's a new possibility That wouldn't have been possible if I was here planning the scramble. Open your heart up. And you don't always have to have your, your nose, so to the grindstone that you can't see left or right. Just open it up and ask for help and look at this wonderful thing that we've created for Seneca. Their Will go on forever. Dependent on just a few people Now. It's, it's infinite. It's infinite, and I'm just, I'm so excited. So that's just, that's how God in the universe works.

Hess:

Love that. Love that.

Delbert:

how I feel. I'm going to see Christopher and his baby and his wife instead of doing the scramble this year. So

Hess:

so cool.

Delbert:

That's beautiful.

Hess:

Yeah. When we spiral down, it constricts our vision so we don't see as many opportunities. Yeah. Yeah.

Delbert:

And we do, we, and that old saying about your nose to the grindstone, I'm really guilty of that. I work work so hard. And when you all hear the self-help podcast, I'm a nut, I'll just work myself to death and I'm just almost flattened, this is teaching me a new way, a new possibility, new ways to do things, to let go and let other people help me connect with, bigger forces. And and I'm gonna do that with some other schools as well. I'd always worked with blessings in a backpack for elementary schools and then just done backup pantries and that takes such a load off.'cause the kids are getting the food on the weekend, just supplementing maybe older siblings and things their pantries. But yeah. But this is very similar to that in that, this bigger charity is helping me supplement. Yeah.

Hess:

So next week I'm going on an adventure. The possibility of learning how to make sauces beyond my hollandaise with the little Dijon mustard in the microwave for 30 seconds. Going with one of our high school friends, Karen Rood who is a chef and affiliated with a French cooking school going with the group and one of, one of our high school class, another one of our high school classmates, Mary Carol and her daughter's good friend Leslie. There's about 10 of us in total who are going to France to hop around and do, learn some cooking and to travel around and so on. Our podcast next week we're going to play one we recorded last October about Delbert about taking care of herself and Delbert's gonna talk about hitting a wall and what she needed to do to recharge herself. That's really important to. To do some self care so that we can spiral back up.

Delbert:

Exactly. Exactly. We've gotta take good care of ourselves. We've gotta reframe when we need to. We gotta get up and be the architect of our day, make that list, make that plan. Let's thinking, even a grocery list. It helps you have a more successful trip to the grocery, doesn't it?

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah. And practice Delbert's technique of the Goldie Hawn stretch when you first open your eyes in the morning and putting a positive light around your day and around the people that you love. Practice doing that practice looking as she talked about last week, of looking at your schedule for the next day so that you can see that it all works out and it all flows. It makes it all easier. Yeah.

Delbert:

It

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

it all down Don't wear yourself out too much. Don't do too much. You're showing up in your life that counts for something. That's what.

Hess:

And when you look, when you're looking out in a wider vision, you're seeing a lot of different miracles that are happening right now, right around you. It's beautiful and that feeds you and gives you energy. It moves you forward. With more of a spring in your step.

Delbert:

Absolutely.

Hess:

yeah

Delbert:

we can't wait to hear our. The next podcast that we do together will be our 52nd our year. So we're gonna hear all about Hess's Trip and The trouble that I

Hess:

yeah.

Delbert:

here in Louisville, Kentucky while she's traveling, and all Wonderful things.

Hess:

And what it's like to hold that new great nephew.

Delbert:

oh, don't you know.

Hess:

Don't,

Delbert:

don't you know, that's Okay.

Hess:

Send pictures.

Delbert:

Hey,

Hess:

hey, what? Hey, we love you all and be sure. I hope this lifts you up. It lifts me up. Be sure to like, share, subscribe, and leave us comments and we love you.

Delbert:

hey friends. We do love you so much. Peace and love.