Emotional Regulation Skills Series
Emotional Regulation Skills Series
Welcome to my Somatic Emotional Regulation Skills video series—a collection of short practices you can return to anytime for support with stress or overwhelm. Each video draws on tools I’ve learned from trusted teachers, books, and trainings, with sources credited so you can explore further. These practices are meant to help you build curiosity, deepen self-connection, and discover what feels supportive for your system. If you’d like to connect or have questions, you’re always welcome to reach out through my website.
This guided practice offers simple self-care tools to connect with your body and nervous system through the lens of Polyvagal Theory. By noticing your “home base” stress responses and gently exploring practices like breath awareness, body scans, and orienting, you can begin to build flexibility in how you respond to stress. Additional tools—such as tapping, bilateral stimulation, or gentle twists—invite curiosity, grounding, and self-compassion. The focus is on experimentation and kindness, meeting your body where it is while expanding your capacity for regulation and care.
This video guides you through Stanley Rosenberg’s “Basic Exercise,” a vagus nerve practice that supports stress relief and emotional regulation. Using gentle hand placement at the base of the head and slow eye movements from side to side, the exercise helps invite subtle shifts in the nervous system—like deeper breaths, swallowing, or a sense of calm. You’re encouraged to stay curious, notice what changes for you, and adjust as needed. The practice closes with simple movements to restore ease and deepen awareness of your body’s signals.
In this video, I share simple morning rituals—like tending to my plants and engaging my senses with touch and scent—that help me feel grounded and calm. I invite you to reflect on your own routines and how they might support your sense of presence and readiness for the day.
This video explores the vagus nerve and neuroception, our body’s ability to detect safety or threat. Past experiences can sometimes cause us to sense danger when none is present, so learning to align with present-moment safety is deeply supportive. Through the orienting response—gentle eye movements, looking around your space, or light spinal twists—you can send calming signals to the nervous system. The practice invites curiosity, helping you notice what feels grounding and expand your sense of safety and connection.
Join me for my adapted version of self-havening—simplified and centered on gentle self-contact. This practice blends neuroscience with ancient healing traditions, offering comfort and helping me calm and reconnect with my body. What do you notice when you touch these areas and engage with yourself in this way?
Today, we’ll look at how sleep disruption is closely tied to mental, physical, and nervous system health, particularly for people experiencing trauma, chronic stress, or major hormonal transitions. I share practical strategies—such as morning sunlight, movement, reducing caffeine and screen time, creating calming routines, optimizing the sleep environment, and using simple breathing or body-based techniques—to support better rest over time.
I am excited to share a video demonstrating a practice from the Reiki tradition called brain balancing, or balancing the cortices. This is a newer technique in my own practice (learned yesterday!) that I found had a lot of bang for my buck - meaning effective in a short amount of time and minimal effort.
I invite you to follow along with this gentle tapping sequence to see what support it might offer your nervous system. I hope you find the session helpful, restorative or that you learn something about yourself along the way.
In this video, I demonstrate a containment practice designed to help create space for difficult content, such as strong emotions, unwanted images, or unpleasant sensations.
I invite you to join me as I guide you through this practice using imagination and visualization. I offer alternative ways to acknowledge and "put away" content through journaling if visualization isn’t resonating for you. This practice is intended to help reduce avoidance by allowing you to attend to difficult aspects of your experience without feeling overwhelmed by them.
I hope this exercise provides a sense of choice and agency in your healing process. While we often need "to feel it to heal it," that process does not have to happen all at once.
My name is Anna, I am somatic practitioner and trauma therapist in Maryland and I can help
I work with adults who are struggling with the demands of family, career and relationships. We work together to step out of survival mode and rediscover their capacity to have a nourishing, balanced and joyful life.
Anna Pemberton, Trauma Therapist in Baltimore, MD
I’ve spent the last decade working with people who live with chronic stress and trauma. I understand how daunting it can be to reach out for help. But you’re here, and that’s a huge step forward in taking care of yourself.
We work at a pace that feels right for you—tending to the past without getting stuck in it.
My goal is for you to leave every session feeling more connected to your emotions and better equipped to handle the demands of your day-to-day life. You'll develop stronger coping skills, make decisions aligned with your core values and highest self. We'll also tackle unhelpful coping mechanisms and replace them with healthier, more effective strategies. As we move forward, you’ll build more meaningful, supportive relationships and reconnect with yourself on a deeper level. I’m here to guide you in living with intention, rediscovering the beauty in your life, and creating lasting change. Together, we’ll transform the pain, face the tough stuff, and pave the way for your healing.
You don’t have to do this alone.
Contact me for a free consultation here and let’s talk about how I can help
Take a healing step today—connect with trauma therapy in Baltimore, MD.
Frequently Asked Questions About online Trauma Therapy in Baltimore, MD
-
If previous therapy hasn’t worked for you, and/or you struggle with any of the following symptoms—many of which align with updated language from PTSD and Complex PTSD diagnostic criteria—it may be time to explore trauma-informed care:
Flashbacks, nightmares, or being easily triggered
Intrusive thoughts about distressing events, often surfacing at inconvenient times
Physical symptoms or chronic pain that may reflect unresolved childhood trauma (somatization)
Withdrawing or isolating from others
Avoiding people, places, or situations that serve as reminders of past trauma
Using alcohol, substances, food, work, or caretaking to numb or avoid difficult feelings
Perfectionism or intense self-criticism as a way to control emotional discomfort or “messiness”
Hypervigilance—feeling constantly “on guard,” easily startled
Heightened sensitivity to perceived threat in others’ body language, facial expressions, or tone of voice
Needing an “escape plan” or constantly scanning for exits
Expecting the worst or feeling the need to prepare for self-protection
Frequent crying or emotional overwhelm
Taking a long time to recover from stressful events
Persistent feelings of anger, irritability, anxiety, or panic
Feeling hopeless, depressed, emotionally numb, or unable to experience joy
Holding painful core beliefs such as: “There’s something wrong with me,” “I’m broken,” “I’m bad,” “No one loves me,” or “I can’t trust anyone”
Little or no hope for the future
Ongoing feelings of shame, guilt, or unworthiness
Struggling to find a stable sense of self, purpose, or meaning in life
Avoiding relationships or having difficulty trusting others
Relying too heavily on others or fearing abandonment
Repeatedly choosing unsafe or harmful relationships; re-enacting old emotional wounds
Being reactive, defensive, blaming, or resistant to hearing others’ perspectives
If any of these resonate with you, know that you're not alone—and that healing is possible with the right support.
-
Seek help as soon as you start struggling—research shows that the earlier trauma-informed interventions are applied, the better the outcomes.
-
While I believe there are many paths to healing, it's important to work with an experienced provider who is trained in trauma. Because trauma is often stored in the body and not always accessible through memory or language, engaging the physical body is a crucial part of the healing process. To support you in finding the right provider, check out my blog series on 'Finding a Therapist in Baltimore' for guidance and deeper insight.
-
The therapist you “click” with matters most. Research consistently shows that, regardless of the therapeutic modality, the strongest predictor of progress in treatment is the quality of the therapeutic relationship.
Take the time to schedule consultations—notice who you feel comfortable with, who you can imagine opening up to, and who creates a sense of ease in the room. These first impressions are valuable starting points as you make your decision. If you’re not sure you are making the progress you want, check out my blog about How To Tell If Therapy Is Working.
-
A trauma-informed therapist considers the impact of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction within the context of an individual's unique lived experience—and how those early experiences continue to influence their sense of self, relationships, and engagement with the world.
In my experience, it’s equally important that a trauma therapist can widen the ‘trauma aperture’ to include the effects of adverse community experiences such as poverty, discrimination, violence, patriarchy, colonization, enslavement, and genocide. A skilled trauma-informed therapist recognizes the significance of how trauma is stored in the body—often below the level of conscious awareness—and brings a calm, attuned, and grounded presence as individuals access, reprocess, and begin to heal from the past experiences that contribute to present-day distress.
-
While I don’t believe there’s a one-size-fits-all approach to healing—nor a single modality that works for everyone—I’ve found parts work to be valuable with all of my clients. It helps give voice to complex emotional experiences that may not align with what seems "rational," and is especially powerful for those healing from attachment and developmental trauma.
I'm trained in EMDR and FLASH, and have found these techniques particularly helpful for clients who are more visual and responsive to structured reprocessing methods. That said, as a clinician, I strongly prefer Brainspotting. It’s gentle, client-guided, and less structured or cognitively driven, which naturally creates more room for uncertainty, curiosity, and possibility. I deeply appreciate the intuitive nature of this modality and have adapted techniques for clients who struggle to feel sensations in their body or worry about “doing it right.”
No matter the modality, focused mindfulness and tracking sensation and emotion—core components of many trauma-processing approaches—are woven into every session I facilitate.
-
PTSD can shows up after a single traumatic event if symptoms aren’t resolving. It can look like flashbacks or intrusive thoughts, feeling on edge or shut down, wanting to avoid anything that reminds you of what happened, and just generally feeling like you’re still not safe—even when you are.
Complex PTSD has a different impact. It often comes from repeated or ongoing abuse, neglect or household dysfunction—especially the kind that happens in relationships, starting early in life, and in situations where there was no real way to get away or feel safe. This kind of trauma can affect someone more deeply and requires understanding pervasively unmet needs and unhealed wounds from the past.
People who carry complex trauma might struggle with feeling disconnected from themselves or others, have trouble managing emotions, and hold really painful beliefs about who they are (like feeling broken, unlovable, or not enough).
In-person and online Trauma Therapy in Baltimore, MD
My office is conveniently located in Catonsville, MD situated between Ellicott City, Columbia, Elkridge, Glen Burnie and Baltimore, MD. Can’t make it into the office? No worries! I’ve got you covered with online trauma therapy in Maryland.