Our next Living Despite Meeting will be Wednesday March 25th from 1:00-2:30 at the Vernon Public Library in the Community Room upstairs
We are pleased to be welcoming Willow Burton, Registered Clinical Counsellor, Canadian Certified Counsellor, and Pain Reprocessing Therapist, who will be speaking on the intersection of chronic pain and illness, stress, and the nervous system, and how therapy can help.
Willow approaches chronic pain through a trauma-informed, neuroscience-based lens. She teaches that pain is not simply a signal from injured tissue, it is a protective output of the brain. Pain is a danger signal, much like fatigue, nausea, dizziness, hunger, or thirst. And just like these other danger signals, pain is not located in the tissue itself; it is constructed by the brain when sensory input activates specific neural circuits.
Willow integrates Pain Reprocessing Therapy into her work to help clients retrain this danger alarm system. PRT is grounded in neuroscience and neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire and reorganize). Through education, somatic tracking, emotional processing, cognitive safety messages, and nervous system regulation, clients learn to reduce fear around sensations, increase feelings of safety, and gradually desensitize pain (and other unwanted sensations!) pathways.
Willow also brings advanced training in trauma therapy, polyvagal theory, chronic illness and pain, hormonal health, nutrition, sleep, psychopharmacology, and neuroscience. At the heart of Willow’s work is a simple but powerful belief: pain is real, symptoms are real, and the brain is capable of change. When we understand how stress, fear, and past experience shape our nervous system, we can begin to turn down the alarm, restore safety, and reclaim our lives.
To learn more about Willow and what she does you can check out her website at
https://bestlifetherapy.ca/
This meeting will be provided by Zoom and we ask that you contact Chantelle from the John Rudy Health Resource Centre at
aW5mbyB8IGpvaG5ydWR5aGVhbHRoICEgY2E= before March 23rd to register to get the zoom link
We hope to see you there
Also check out other Meetups in Vernon, Health & Wellness events in Vernon, Workshops in Vernon.
