https://www.therapyden.com/therapist/alexis-nelson-sandy-ut

Alexis Nelson- MFT, Murray, UT (2026)

05/17/2026

Emotional flooding happens when the nervous system becomes overwhelmed and shifts into survival mode.
When this happens, the brain becomes less focused on problem-solving and more focused on protection.
Flooding can look like:
• feeling suddenly overwhelmed during conflict
• racing thoughts or inability to think clearly
• shutting down or going silent
• crying, yelling, or becoming reactive
• feeling physically hot, shaky, tense, or panicked
• wanting to escape the conversation immediately
• hearing your partner as “attacking” even if they are not
During flooding, communication often becomes less productive because the nervous system is prioritizing safety over connection.

What helps?
🌿 Taking a regulated pause instead of forcing the conversation
🌿 Slowing down breathing and grounding in the body
🌿 Avoiding criticism, contempt, or escalating language
🌿 Returning to the conversation once both people are calmer
🌿 Learning to recognize your early warning signs before overwhelm peaks
A break from communication is healthiest when it is:
✔ communicated respectfully
✔ temporary
✔ followed by re-engagement later
Examples:
- “I want to continue this conversation, but I’m too overwhelmed right now.”
- “I need 20 minutes to regulate so I can respond instead of react.”
- “I care about this conversation and want to come back to it calmly.”
Emotional regulation is not about never becoming flooded.
It is about learning how to notice it, respond to it skillfully, and repair afterward.
Emotional flooding typically involves language in reference to romantic relationships, but it can be applied to all relationships! 😊

05/17/2026

Emotional regulation is not about never feeling upset.
It’s about learning how to experience emotions without handing responsibility for them to everyone around you.

Other people can influence our emotions. They can hurt us, disappoint us, support us, or trigger old wounds. But emotional maturity means recognizing:
✨ Your emotions are valid.
✨ Your reactions are still your responsibility.
Emotional independence is the ability to:
• self-soothe during distress
• pause before reacting
• communicate needs directly
• tolerate discomfort without blaming or controlling others
• separate feelings from facts
• recognize triggers without making others responsible for fixing them
• hold boundaries without absorbing everyone else’s emotions
One of the healthiest things we can learn is that empathy does not require emotional absorption.
You can care deeply about others without carrying their anxiety, anger, or chaos as your own.

Some ways to build emotional accountability and avoid absorbing negative emotion:
🧠 Notice what emotion actually belongs to you
🌿 Take space before responding when overwhelmed to handle emotional flooding (see next post)
🗣️ Use “I feel…” instead of accusations and blame
📓 Journal or process internally rather than frequently seeking reassurance
💛 Practice grounding techniques and nervous system regulation
🚪 Set boundaries with emotionally draining dynamics
🪞Ask yourself: “What part of this is mine to own?”

Healing often looks less like controlling others and more like learning to regulate yourself with compassion, awareness, and accountability. 🤍

05/11/2026

Becoming a parent is one of the most meaningful transitions a person can experience and one of the most challenging.
Two things can be true at the same time; you can feel deep gratitude & love for your baby and overwhelmed by how much your life has changed.
Parenthood often brings joy, love, and purpose… but also exhaustion, identity shifts, relationship changes, and moments of doubt. These experiences don’t cancel each other out, they coexist. Acknowledging the hard parts doesn’t make you ungrateful; it makes you honest.
As we recognize Mother's Day and Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month, it’s especially important to normalize the emotional complexity of this transition. Many mothers struggle silently, believing they should feel happy all the time, but real life isn’t that simple and you’re not alone if it doesn’t feel that way.
Here are a few gentle reminders for navigating this transition:
• Lower the bar – You don’t have to do everything perfectly. Focus on what feels doable for you in this season of life.
• Ask for help – Support is not a luxury, it’s a need.
• Protect small moments of self – Even brief breaks can help you reconnect with yourself.
• Communicate with your partner – This is a shared adjustment and communication can help clarify things and adjust to new roles.
• Check in with your mental health – If you’re struggling, reaching out is a strong and important step.
You are allowed to grieve your old life while embracing your new one. You are allowed to feel both joy and difficulty in the same day, even the same moment.
Parenthood isn’t about getting it perfect, it’s about learning, adjusting, and showing up the best you while having compassion for yourself along the way.
If this season feels heavy, you don’t have to carry it alone. 🌻
We are honoring:
• Mothers in the thick of postpartum. Mothers carrying invisible mental loads. Grieving mothers and mothers navigating infertility or pregnancy loss. Adoptive, foster, and stepmothers. Mothers healing from difficult birth or pregnancy experiences. Working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Mothers doing their best, wondering if it is enough. Those longing to become mothers. All mothers! 🤍

04/17/2026

Grief has been a reoccurring topic in sessions recently, so let's talk about it! Some pictures of my sweet doggie who I lost unexpectedly due to health issues when she was just 6 years old. 🤍

Grief isn’t just something we experience after death. We can also grieve people who are still alive but no longer part of our lives. We grieve relationships that changed, futures we imagined, versions of ourselves we had to let go of.

Sometimes, grief even begins before something ends.When you sense a relationship slipping, when change feels inevitable, when you know something is coming to a close, you may find yourself already mourning. This is called anticipatory grief, and it’s more common than people realize.

Grief doesn’t follow a straight line. You’ve probably heard of the stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) but they aren’t steps you neatly move through. They ebb and flow. You might feel acceptance one day and anger the next. You might revisit the same feeling over and over again.

There is no “right” way to grieve. No timeline. No perfect process. Grief is simply the natural response to loss of a person, pet, a relationship, stage of your life, or a version of yourself, etc.

If you’re grieving something or someone who is no longer in your life, your experience is valid. Even if no one else can see your loss, it still matters. Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It means learning how to carry what’s been lost, while still making space for what remains and what is to come. 🌹

02/27/2026

Why are certain things so hard to let go of?
If you're my dog Juno, everything is hard to let go of 😂💛

There are real psychological reasons certain things stick!

🧠 Why Some Things Don’t Just Go Away

1. Your nervous system doesn’t operate on logic.
-You can intellectually understand something is over, but if your body experienced it as a threat, betrayal, abandonment, or humiliation, your nervous system may still be on alert.
2. Resolution doesn’t always equal repair.
-Conflict can be “settled” without emotional safety being restored. If safety wasn’t rebuilt, your system may keep scanning for danger.
3. Rumination is often a protection strategy.
-When your brain replays something, it’s usually trying to prevent it from happening again, make sense of what felt confusing, regain a sense of control, or validate your own experience.
4. Old wounds attach to new experiences.
-Sometimes the situation wasn’t just about that moment. It tapped into something older (attachment injuries, past betrayal, unmet needs, or patterns that feel familiar).
When the past gets activated, it feels bigger than the present.

💭 What does it look like to let go in a healthy way?

-Letting go is not: pretending it didn’t hurt, forcing forgiveness, minimizing your experience, shaming yourself for still feeling something.
-Moving on in a healthy way looks like: fully acknowledging the impact, feeling the emotion instead of bypassing it, making meaning of what it taught you, setting boundaries if needed, integrating the experience instead of erasing it.

Letting go is less about “dropping it” and more about your nervous system no longer needing to carry it. Sometimes letting go doesn’t require more logic, it requires more compassion.

02/12/2026

Let's talk synapses! 🧠✨

As both a therapist and a new mom, I want to talk about one of the most fascinating parts of early child development (in my opinion).
When babies are born, their brains are wildly over-connected. They have far more neural connections (synapses) than they’ll ultimately keep. In the first few years of life, the brain goes through a process called synaptic pruning which is strengthening the connections that are used often and trimming away the ones that aren’t.
In simple terms:
The experiences babies have literally shape the architecture of their brains. Every time you:
respond to their cry, make eye contact, smile back at them, talk, sing, soothe them when they’re distressed, etc., you are reinforcing neural pathways.
These pathways are related to: safety, emotional regulation, attachment, language, and social connection.
This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. It doesn’t mean babies can’t handle frustration or brief stress. In fact, small, repairable stress (like waiting a moment before being picked up) helps build resilience.
What matters most is consistent positive interaction and repair. A regulated caregiver helps build a regulated nervous system. A responsive relationship builds secure attachment. Safety wires the brain for connection.

12/13/2025

I'm excited to share that I’m officially enrolled in my final semester of grad school! 🎓

This milestone has also been a reminder that even as therapists, we are human first. We still experience stress, emotional depletion, and difficulty prioritizing self-care.

Supporting mental health isn’t only about insight, it’s also about understanding the body and nervous system. Natural ways to boost oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins can play a meaningful role in mood regulation, connection, and overall well-being.

In the second photo, there are some natural things that I love to try and incorporate to help me stay grounded and stabilize my mood (especially post partum!). I hope that these can help you out as well! 😊

*Meme and info graphic are not mine*

11/09/2025

Sometimes my brain feels like this, especially lately with so much going on! 🤣 So I want to talk about focus and things that can help. 😊

◇Why Your Brain Resists Simple Tasks
→ Executive dysfunction in everyday terms: you know that thing where you can’t send one email even though it takes two minutes? Sometimes that’s not laziness, it’s your nervous system trying to protect you from being overwhelmed.

◇Task Paralysis: When You Want to Start but Can’t
→ Sometimes freeze response, perfectionism, or fear of failure is behind it.

◇Focus is a Skill, Not a Personality Trait
→ Think of attention like a muscle that can be trained through small, consistent habits (environment setup, breaks, body movement).

◇Why Your Motivation Comes in Waves
→ Fluctuating motivation is normal and it is linked to energy cycles, hormones, stress, and/or seasons of life.

◇The Myth of Constant Productivity
→ Rest is a part of productivity, not the opposite of it. Rest promots nervous system regulation and prevents burnout.

◇Remember:
→ Guilt and shame drain motivation, while compassion and curiosity get things moving again.
→ Limit overstimulation and multitasking, because our brains are wired to avoid stress, not chase it.
→ Stay motivated for your future self because they are someone worth showing up for and also give yourself compassion.

10/12/2025

*Artwork is not mine*

🌱 Boundaries: Why They Matter & How to Set Them

Boundaries are the invisible lines that protect our time, energy, and emotional well-being. They help us build healthier relationships with ourselves and with others.

✨ Why boundaries are important:

They keep us from becoming overwhelmed or resentful. They clarify what we need to feel safe and respected. They can help build the life you desire.

💪 How to set boundaries:

1. Get clear on your needs. What drains you? What helps you thrive?
2. Communicate directly. Use “I” statements: “I can’t take calls after 9pm.”
3. Stay consistent. Boundaries work best when they’re upheld regularly.
4. Be prepared for pushback. Not everyone will understand right away and that’s okay.

Sometimes, people with good intentions still push our boundaries. They may say, “I’m just being nice,” or “I was only trying to help.” But even kindness can cross a line if it ignores our limits. Respect means listening when someone says no, not assuming our intentions make it okay.

💡 Remember: Boundaries aren’t walls to shut people out they’re doors that open to healthier, more respectful connections. You have the right to uphold boundaries that feel good to you, and when others decide to respect and support your boundaries, they are respecting and supporting you as a person.

09/06/2025

Mid-August, my amazing partner and I welcomed our first child! ✨️🫶 When my partner and I decided to start our family, we were overwhelmed with all the information out there (a lot of good, and also a lot of bad). I wanted to share some of the information as an MFT that I find most helpful (derived from evidence-based practices) and we will be focusing on as new parents. Now it's my turn to give unsolicited advice! 😉😂

1. A Secure Attachment Relationship: Kids don’t need perfect parents, but they do need safe, consistent, emotionally attuned ones. You're their safe space as they enter this world and the way you show up for them makes lasting impressions.

2. Authoritative Parenting Style: Not authoritarian (harsh/rigid) or permissive (hands-off), but warm + firm. Setting clear boundaries, while still offering respect and age-appropriate autonomy encourages responsibility, emotional regulation, and self-esteem.

3. Emotion Coaching: Helping kids name, express, and regulate emotions (vs. minimizing or punishing emotional expression) is linked to stronger mental health and better relationships long-term. Letting kids know it's okay to have emotions, and there are appropriate ways to express and regulate those emotions.

4. Modeling (Not Just Teaching): Kids learn way more from what you model than what you say. How you handle stress, conflict, communication, apologies, and self-care teaches them how to do those things for themselves.

5. A Safe and Predictable Environment: Structure, routines, and reliability help kids feel safe and regulated. Not rigid schedules, but rhythms they can count on, especially during tough times.

6. Letting Them Struggle Sometimes: “Good enough” parenting allows space for natural consequences, problem-solving, and autonomy. Letting kids have appropriate challenges can help create resilience and reasoning.

There are so many things that play into parenting and family dynamics! This is just the tip of the iceberg for these techniques and topics/psychoeducation that I really enjoy. 😊

Alexis Nelson- MFT

05/17/2026

05/17/2026

05/11/2026

04/17/2026

02/27/2026

02/12/2026

12/13/2025

11/09/2025

10/12/2025

09/06/2025

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