Why Expansion Matters

An Ode to Expansion Brainspotting

I love that therapy doesn’t always have to be dramatic. It doesn’t always have to have some big reveal, be a white-knuckled rehash of your worst memory, or leave you with an emotional hangover the next day. There’s room for the session where you feel your shoulders drop two inches, your breath widens, your jaw unhooks. Where your body says, “Oh…this, right here, is safe,” and you let yourself take up one more inch of space inside your own life. In my own office, that kind of session often comes with Expansion work in Brainspotting, and it’s one of my favorite places to meet people.

So much of the public story about trauma healing focuses on activation: finding the hotspot, naming the memory, going into the hard thing and staying long enough for it to change. There’s a time for that. But here’s another truth… nervous systems don’t learn only from pain resolving. They also learn from pleasure landing, support registering, goodness staying. If your history trained you to scan for danger, Expansion is like physical therapy for the parts of you that scan for safety. We’re helping your body collect new data. “When I soften my eyes toward that spot, my ribcage actually moves. When I hear that tone of voice, I don’t have to argue with it… I can receive it. When this much goodness shows up, I don’t need to brace.”

In Expansion Brainspotting, we still use an eye position, but we aim the compass toward resource: a memory that felt warm, the way sunlight hits a wall at 4:30pm, the look on your friend’s face when they really saw you, the exact exhale that shows up after a hard conversation turns kind. We hold that place, not like you’d clutch something fragile, but like you’d let your back lean into a sturdy chair. What happens next isn’t forced. Waves move through. Sometimes it’s tears (good ones), sometimes yawns, sometimes a little involuntary smile that surprises even you. The system updates: It’s okay to have this much.

What I love about this is how naturally it aligns with post-traumatic growth, and I don’t mean the Instagram version where lemons become lemonade by sheer positivity, but the quieter growth that looks like capacity: more range in your feelings, more flexibility in your responses, more trust that you can return to yourself when life smacks you sideways. People notice they recover faster after a trigger, that they ask for help five minutes earlier, that they feel joy without immediately checking over their shoulder for the catch. Expansion builds the musculature that lets you carry the hard without collapsing.

If you like IFS language, think of Expansion as giving your Self a soundstage. The eight C’s of calm, curiosity, clarity, compassion, confidence, courage, creativity, connectedness are already in you, but trauma tends to push them to the back row while protectors run the show. Expansion work invites the C’s to step forward. It’s embodied. Your breath gets a little deeper (calm), your gaze softens and widens (curiosity), the next right step appears without a committee meeting (clarity), your chest warms toward your own experience (compassion). Courage shows up as a gentle lean into life. Creativity sneaks in as a playful idea during a drive. Connectedness feels like letting someone’s kindness land without arguing with it. These are felt shifts, and once they’re felt, they’re easier to find again.

Sometimes people worry that focusing on good, safe, or connected experiences is “avoidant.” I don’t see it that way. If your system has a lifetime of reps in vigilance, we have to train the other half of the nervous system so balance is even possible. Expansion gives your body time under tension with the absence of threat, which is its own kind of strength training. And ironically, the more you practice receiving goodness, the more room you have to process the hard stuff without tipping over. Safety doesn’t make you soft; it makes you sturdy.

I’ve watched Expansion reshape small, ordinary moments… my favorite kind! A client who used to power through their day like a sprint begins to pause at their front door, feel their feet, and enter their home with a softer face. A medical professional who braced at every beeping monitor notices that, alongside the beeps, a co-worker’s steady presence still reaches them. A new parent (hi, it’s me) stands in the kitchen and lets a 12-second pocket of sweetness actually register, the baby’s laugh, the sun on the floor, and the task list feels less like a test and more like a set of choices. That’s Expansion. More aliveness per minute.

If you’ve done Brainspotting oriented toward activation, Expansion might feel like the missing puzzle piece. If you’ve avoided trauma work because you’re afraid of getting flooded, Expansion might be your doorway in. You don’t have to have a perfectly “happy” resource. Sometimes the safest starting places are small and oddly specific: the sound of chopping vegetables, the feeling of warm water on wrists, the look of your dog’s ridiculous ears. The point is to let something kind touch you and stay.

This is also where Sensorimotor Psychotherapy skills and even the Safe and Sound Protocol play beautifully. The body likes congruence. Eye position says “here,” your posture says “I’m supported,” your breath says “we can linger,” and the nervous system begins to trust its own downshift. None of this requires you to make a speech. In fact, the less performing and more pendulating (wave up, wave down), the better. When you do speak, it often comes out simpler and truer: “I feel warm.” “I want more of this.” “I can say no from here.”

I think about Expansion like widening a trail that you actually want to walk. At first you have to remind yourself it exists, turn your head, find the spot, breathe. Over time, your feet know where to go. You don’t have to argue with every old instinct; you just have more options on the board. That’s what therapy can be in this stage: not digging up every root, but watering what’s already growing.

And if you’re in a season where activation work is front and center, Expansion can still sit in the room with you, like cracking a window while you repaint. A touch of fresh air. A reminder that you’re not just a collection of injuries trying to get better; you’re a living system with a bias toward healing when conditions allow.

I’m endlessly moved by the beauty of this work. How ordinary it looks from the outside and how profound it feels from the inside. The body keeps choosing life if we give it half a chance. Sometimes that chance is as simple as a softer gaze, a longer exhale, and permission to let goodness linger ten seconds longer than usual.