Your Brain is a House

Caitlyn Kalisik
May 14
3 min read

The way we see ourselves and the world around us is a lot like decorating rooms in a house. If the brain is the house, our belief systems are the rooms. These rooms are typically what dictate our reactions and behavior. Early experiences, especially in the first few years of life, lay the foundation, create the rooms, and decorate to our liking.

Some rooms feel open and easy to move through. On the other hand, some rooms are jacked up. Maybe the door sticks. Maybe the paint color is blinding. Maybe it’s perpetually on fire.

Mental health has been having a moment lately, and while that’s not a bad thing, it’s also made it oddly… foggy? It gets reduced to dangerous labels and whatever quick-fix tip is trending on social media that week.

Let’s insert “trauma”: my least favorite subject to see social media influencers talk about, but my favorite population of people to work with.

Trauma isn’t just the big, obvious things people tend to think of. Trauma is really anything that overwhelms your brain’s ability to cope in the moment. That could be a major event, or it could be chronic stress, unpredictability, or experiences where you didn’t feel safe or in control.

However, one hard thing doesn’t usually break the system. But stacking trauma? That’s when we start creating new, unnecessary rooms, or we start destroying the essential rooms that already exist.

I’m literally a therapist, but I’d be failing everyone if I said therapy was the catch-all in resolving our issues. I think it’s important, but so are a couple of other things.

If you want to support your brain in a way that actually makes a difference, start here:

1. Regulating your nervous system.

Regulation is how you calm the system enough to even access change.

When your nervous system feels unsafe, it shifts into protection mode, which we know to be fight, flight, shut down, overwork, overthink… you get the idea. This is where most of us are living more often than we realize.

This can be as simple as slowing your breathing, stepping outside, moving your body, or being around regulated people.

2. Respect sleep

To use the house and room analogy, when we don’t respect sleep, it’s like NEVER cleaning up after your toddler. You’ll eventually have toys and moldy snacks scattered in every room.

While you sleep, your brain is:

Processing emotional experiences
Filing away memories
Clearing out waste (literally)
Resetting your stress response system

When sleep is off, everything feels harder. This isn’t because you’re failing, but because your brain didn’t get the reset it needed.

You don’t need a perfect routine, but you do need some consistency, whether it’s a rock-solid routine, a healthier bedtime habit, or incorporating supplements to support sleep (I’m a big fan of magnesium).

3. Use bilateral stimulation to help your brain process

Bilateral stimulation is anything that activates both sides of the brain in a rhythmic way. It helps the brain process experiences instead of just holding onto them.

This is why it’s used in therapies like EMDR, but you don’t have to be in a therapy office to benefit from it.

Simple ways to use it:

Go for a walk (left-right, left-right)
Listen to music while you cook
Even certain forms of exercise naturally do this

It sounds almost too easy, but there’s a reason walking has been the unofficial therapy session for decades. You’re helping your brain redecorate with purpose and reestablish a little feng shui.

Mental Health is Brain Health; it’s a healthy home with functional rooms, and if your rooms feel more like the wacky clown houses at the fair than places that serve you well, it might be time to call in a professional. Trauma work isn’t a DIY project, and if your experiences are bad enough, therapy modalities like EMDR are essential.