Dr. Cherise Johnson guides listeners through assessing their week using a 1–10 self-regulation scale and explores emotional safety during uncertainty, explaining survival scanning and common stress reactions.
Dr. Cherise opens the session by greeting the audience, noting she's in Minnesota, and asking viewers to rate their week and share where they are. This orients the group and encourages immediate interaction.
She explains a one-to-ten scale for rating your week and frames it as a self-regulation opportunity to decide what you need next. The section helps viewers assess whether they want to improve or accept their current state.
Dr. Cherise introduces herself as a licensed therapist, mindfulness practitioner, and author, and describes how often she joins these sessions. She also welcomes newcomers and acknowledges regular viewers.
She introduces the topic 'emotional safety in seasons of uncertainty' and clarifies that emotional safety is not the absence of struggle but a presence of security that enables healing and growth. This sets the conceptual frame for the rest of the talk.
Dr. Cherise explains how change triggers survival scanning in the brain—activating the amygdala and raising cortisol and adrenaline—and lists common symptoms like racing heart, disrupted sleep, muscle tension, and racing thoughts. She also invites viewers to reflect on whether they're experiencing transition or uncertainty.
Hello, Kodrosphere. How are you? You know, when I ask that question, it's always a real honest opportunity for you to let me know what's going on in your world. So good to see all of you. I have exciting news that I am currently in Minnesota. I always feel like I have to say it that way. which is actually the headquarters of CADRE. So super excited to be out here working on a few different things. And of course, always excited to be here with you. A little bit of a different day. So some of you may end up watching this on replay.
Hello, Andy Mack. Hello, Joycelyn. But either way, rate your week and let me know where you are in the world. If I had to rate my week on a scale of one to 10, one meaning your week is running you, you're not running your week. 10 meaning given the context of your life, it has been as fabulous as possible. That's what you want to take a look at. And what that does is it's just a quick self-regulation opportunity and it gives you an opportunity to decide from there. What do you need as you continue the week?
So if you're at a five, is that where you want to land? What can you do to improve? And if this is your first time here, it's wonderful to meet you. I'm Dr. Cherise Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist mindfulness practitioner and author. And I come into the space a few times a week, if possible, depending upon travel and life and crisis, since that's one of my focus in my practice, to just join in and help us walk through life on every level. So always good to see you and those who are doing it.
And let me know if this is your first time here. I feel like I have this familiarity with a lot of the kind of regulars who are here, but I am seeing some names that are very new to me. I want to talk today about emotional safety in seasons of uncertainty. And just being able to kind of level set us, I want you to consider this emotional safety is not the absence of struggle. So we can still have a sense of what we call a felt sense of safety, even when things are chaotic. So emotional safety is not the absence of struggle, it's the presence of security that allows you to heal and grow even through difficult times.
When we experience things like change or uncertainty, whether it's in relationships, work, or health, our brain shifts into what we call survival scanning. You tell me, are you in or just coming out of a season of any kind of change? Transition or uncertainty? Are you in or just coming out of any season of change, transition, or uncertainty? If that's you, let me hear a little it's me. Well, I can't really hear it, but you know, type it's me in the chat. I can place myself there as well. So when that survival scanning is happening, the amygdala, the brain alarm system, the brain's alarm system is on high alert.
Cortisol rises, our stress hormone, adrenaline rises. That's those moments that you wake up and you feel like your heart is beating very fast, or sometimes it can even happen in the middle of the day. And you're like, I don't know what's going on. What exactly happened? Thank you, Andy. Happy to be a mini. What exactly happened? So there's a lot of physical sensations that will also let you know things don't feel great. It will also disrupt your sleep, increase your muscle tension, and create racing thoughts.
Those are a few of the things that you might experience when you're like, oh, I'm not feeling as grounded, as comfortable. Things feel uncertain or chaotic or unstable. So without
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