In this episode Donna Hemingway explains how her experience with Emotional Brain Training helped her through her husband and young adult son's series illnesses and bone marrow transplants. Donna shares a few of the EBT skills that helped her relax and feel calm when she was very stressed as a caregiver. Both her husband and son had a life threatening illness that required a life threatening treatment, and she needed all the help she could get to make an authentic connection to herself and others.
In this episode, Donna shares she is a retired dietitian and has learned many skills in her career to help people find ways to reduce their stress levels in order to make healthier decisions. This is something very important for Caregivers of a spouse or child facing cancer or other life threatening illnesses. One of these skills is Emotional Brain Training, or EBT, created by Laurel Mellin, PhD a health psychologist who developed EBT during her 40 years as a professor in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Donna emphasizes she is not a certified EBT provider, but was part of the provider training program for several years. She shares about the two brains, the thinking brain and the feeling brain and the difference between the two. She leads her audience through a brain state check-in and then demonstrates how she uses the brain state 5 damage control tool to "Spiral Up!".
Donna shares a special message for Caregivers of AYA's (young adults between 19-39 facing cancer or a life threatening illness) encouraging extra compassion for the challenges these caregivers face with their loved one.
https://www.cancersupportcenter.org/
https://wondersandworries.org/
Donna's Favorite EBT Book: The Pathway, by Laurel Mellin Originally published: January 21, 2003
00:13
This is amazing. Welcome to season one of Caregiver Tea Time. It's called "Let's Get It Together" and it's going to be about our emotions and giving our emotions,
00:25
the respect they deserve so that we can be the caregiver that we want to be and that our loved one needs. So today I have so many things to share. This episode is going to be about something called EBT or emotional brain training.
00:43
I'm going to share a few of the EBT skills that I've used. They helped me out when I was super stressed and an emotional wreck. And since I've been working on this podcast,
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I've been using these skills and it's been great. I'm so glad I did because doing this podcast is not an easy thing for me to do. So I'm going to give you some background information and explain some of the important terms that you'll need to know in order to kind of understand what I'm talking about.
01:15
But I want to make it clear that this is an introduction to EBT. I'm not a certified provider, but I was part of the provider program for several years.
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And I remember I was on the phone call when the five brain states of EBT were named. I believe it can help anyone who feels that it speaks to their heart.
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It definitely speaks to mine, and that's why I'm sharing it today. If you have a way of taking notes, that's great. But if not, just relax and listen, because all the needed information is provided on my caregiver tea time website.
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And at the end of today's podcast, I have a special message. I'm going to dive right in by sharing how I learned about EBT,
02:06
and then I'll take time to teach you one of the skills that I used. In my career as a registered dietitian, my specialty was weight management. I loved helping people figure out how to eat the best diet for them,
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and I was always looking for ways to help my patients turn off that drive to overeat and turn on the drive to take care of themselves and do the right thing so they could reduce the harmful effect that stress can have on our lives.
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Well, one year I took a continuing education class from Laurel Mellon. Laurel is a fellow dietitian who has devoted her life to addressing childhood obesity and today's epidemic of stress and depression.
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One thing you need to know about dietitians like Laurel and me is that We love to know the science behind what's going on in our bodies. I tell you this because I want you to understand that the EBT skills are based on scientific breakthroughs.
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In the past 20 years, we've learned so much more about our brains and our emotions and many of what they've learned recently contradicts what was long accepted.
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Having said that, This podcast is going to delve into the skills and not so much the scientific terms. I just want to share this information in the simplest way and give you direction so that you can learn more about it if you want to.
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So my basic understanding of EBT is this. We have a thinking brain and a feeling brain. The thinking brain is in the front of our head.
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In fact, you can kind of knock on your forehead and there it is. The feeling brain is underneath it and it's located somewhere between our ears. So if you were to take the palms of your hands and put them over your ears,
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you could say hello emotional brain, I know you're in there somewhere. Well, the emotional brain or feeling brain, and I'll use both of these words for the same thing is the brain that's in control.
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no matter what we think we know. Unless we take time to step back and use our thinking brain to take a moment just to check in with our feeling brain and try to tap into what's happening.
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And then let the thinking brain translate that into words. And isn't that what we all want is to be heard and recognized and listened to?
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And even more that than that we want to be understood. So let's give this gift to ourselves. and we can do that with EBT. Here's the first skill for how to get your thinking brain to check in with your feeling brain.
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First, you wanna take a nice, deep breath. You wanna breathe through your nose and out through your mouth or whatever feels most comfortable for you.
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Then put your shoulders back, lift your chin slightly, and then just warmly observe yourself, and really see yourself in the present moment,
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just as you are. So now we want to name our brain state, and there's five brain states. If you are a one,
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you feel great, In fact, you feel wonderful and there's a glow about you. If you are a two, you still feel good. In fact, you could still feel great,
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but you just don't have that glow. If you are a three, you feel pretty good, but you could have some stressful things going on and you're starting to wonder how long you'll be able to keep things together.
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And if you're at a four, you're starting to feel, or you are feeling, very overwhelmed. There is too much going on, too much to think about, it's just more than your brain can handle right now,
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and you feel very stressed. If you are a five, which I'll say that I spent a lot of time in Brayton State five,
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you can't think, or you just think the same thoughts over and over again without getting anywhere. It's total overwhelm, and you're stressed out, and you don't know what to do.
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But at the same time, I'd have this feeling that I had to do something, or I would go crazy, or shut down and just go numb. So let's say you are at a brain state five.
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What's next? Laurel calls it "spiraling up." Each number from 1 to 5 has its own tool, but today I'm going to give you the tool for what to do when you find yourself at Brain State 5.
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This is called the "Damage Control Tool." You start by taking another deep breath and then you say these three phrases. Do not judge,
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Minimize harm. Know it will pass. Do not judge. Minimize harm. Know it will pass. Do not judge.
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And I won't judge. Myself or others. Minimize harm. Oh my gosh, I want that other piece of cake but I'm not gonna do it. And know it will pass.
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You know it's just a brain state and I won't always feel this way. So now what are the words I need to hear? It could be something like "I'm not perfect" or "this is really hard" or "I feel so rejected" but I'm not going to reject myself.
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And after you've said the words you need to hear, just notice how your body feels now. Maybe it's relief, hopefully it's compassion,
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maybe there's a smile on your face that wasn't there before. Just notice it. Each state has a different tool, and if these tools seem interesting to you,
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I hope you will consider learning more about EBT, and you can do that by going to my website where you'll get all the information you need. And now my special message for caregivers of AYAs,
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and you know who you are. And for those of you who don't know what AYA stands for, it's adolescents and young adults. These are people between the ages of 17 to 39 dealing with cancer or other life -threatening illnesses.
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This age group has special needs as do their caregivers. When I was a caregiver for an AYA, I didn't know if I was supposed to be his mother,
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I look back and I think why and the heck didn't I use my EBT skills they are wonderful but I was at a brain state five for much of the time and when you're in brain state five there's just no way to spiral up without support.
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And support is an essential part of EBT. So I hope the skills you heard about today can help you on your journey. I think I'm ready to wrap it up,
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but I want to share that at the end of our group EBT sessions there was one thing we always did. We'd stand up and we'd put our hands over our heads and we'd all say the same thing.
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So how about stand up now if you can and put your hands over your head and say,
" I take care of my health and happiness" and go "yes!"
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And for caregiver teatime we'll say "cheers! "