We recently connected with Brianna Green and have shared our conversation below.
Brianna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s go back in time to when you were an intern or apprentice – what’s an interesting story you can share from that stage of your career?
My mental health counseling internship took place in underserved neighborhoods in Miami. At one point I was driving to 40 different clients per week, spread out all over South Florida. I basically lived in my car. A majority of the time I felt quite unsafe wherever I was. At the time I was working exclusively with children, with a few substance abuse cases sprinkled in. The level of stress I endured during that period honestly felt intolerable at times. I felt pathetically ineffective working in systems that were designed to fail, with children who were simply victims of their circumstances, of which they had no autonomy or ability to opt out of. I found that talking to clients did little to nothing. We couldn’t talk them out of a situation they had no control over. So I began to take trainings in body based approaches to stress reduction and nervous system regulation. If I’m being perfectly honest, those trainings were just as much for me and my burnt out nervous system as they were to benefit the clients who were under my care. I took training after training, collecting the tools that I found to be most effective, and eventually had a collection that I felt deserved to be shared with the world. This painful chapter is where my first deck, Hack Your Nervous System, was born.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am, first and foremost, a student. I grew up in a household of chiropractors and holistic healers — my parents and my brother were/are Chiropractors, and my sister is a Therapist, Reiki Master and Yoga Instructor. Their influence led me to understand that the mind, body, and spirit are deeply entwined and should be treated as one whole, integrated unit. Before I embarked on my professional career as a therapist, I made a point to become certified as a yoga instructor in order to better conceptualize the integration of mind and body. I went on to complete a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Counseling and spent my master’s internship working both as an inpatient and outpatient Therapist for Agape Network, where I held space for women and children who struggled with a variety of mental health disorders, more often than not preceded by trauma and accompanied by substance abuse. This job pushed me towards a focused study of Somatic Trauma Interventions, intended to rewire both the brain and the body to return to optimal functioning after periods of trauma and prolonged stress.
Fast forward to present day — my studies have continued and led me firmly to the path of Somatic Psychotherapy, where I have the immense privilege of accompanying my clients into their innermost sacred spaces and along the most difficult parts of their paths. This journey inevitably leads them to deeper self love, acceptance, and a remembering of the truth of who they really are — their sacredness, their connectedness, and their personal brand of magic and aliveness. Somehow I have unintentionally found myself working with a very specialized cohort — mid 20s to mid 30s singers who are seeking to break patterns of intergenerational trauma and become their most expressed selves. It’s a pretty big departure from where I began, and I love it. I love my clients and I love the work I get to do with them.
Although in many ways my therapy career is my main focus in this chapter of my life, most people recognize me for the products I have created — The Hack Your Nervous System Deck, The Kingdom Calm Children’s Co-Regulation Deck, and The Planet Grief deck, which I co-authored with my sister Aurena after the death of our mom in 2023. These tools are inspired by my own life struggles, studies, and a desire to make life affirming information and support available and accessible to the masses. I am well aware of the immense privilege I walk with — I was required by my parents to complete a graduate degree — something I found burdensome at the time but now recognize as a gift that few get access to in their lifetime. Because of my education I have the means to continue to train and do my own self work alongside skilled practitioners and leaders in my field. I don’t believe that what I have learned and what I continue to learn should be gatekept. We all deserve to take the path inwards if we desire it, to feel safe in our bodies, to feel the empowerment and choice points that arrive when our bodies are not working overtime to survive. I am also well aware that personal tools do not outweigh the impact of the capitalistic and patriarchal systems we exist in. But if there is a way I can turn the dial even a half of a degree with what I share with the world, I aim to do it.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
I will answer this from the vantage point of being a Wellness Entrepreneur with the products I share. I believe that a couple of choice aspects of the way I show up in this realm have contributed most to my successes – 1. I create based on personal need. As one of my clients has told me – “whatever is most personal is also most universal.” We cannot assume what the world needs. But we can certainly know what we need, and more often that not, we are not alone in that. I put out information that has benefited me personally – that I use daily, and that has greatly improved the quality of my life. The information lands more fully to those who receive it because I trust and do my best to embody every word I write. 2. Intentionality. I am very mindful with the way I send my products. I want the opening of them to be an experience. For the recipient to feel that someone was thinking of them with love when their package was sent. I write a personal letter to every customer. I include free stickers. I make sure that every inch of the design of my products are infused with meaning, with love, and with the energy I want to send out into the world. Because of this, people post pictures of their decks when they recieve them. They WANT to share the burst of magic they have received. This creates a natural flow of business without needing to bribe anyone to share the product with their community.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
In 2023 my mom died. It was a horrible death, and one that debilitated me for quite a while. I took almost a full year off from practicing as a therapist. During that time, I dove deeply into the study of grief, embarking on an “Apprenticeship with Grief” through the work of Francis Weller, and both attending and volunteering for Grief Retreats under the same lineage. I had the privilege of allowing myself to dive completely into that journey, with the support of my wife and the income I was still receiving from sales of Hack Your Nervous System. During that time I was able to alchemize the experience by creating the Planet Grief Deck with my sister. I felt my mom wrote through me in the creation of that deck. It felt like taking the most painful and destructive thing that had ever happened to me and my family and turning it into medicine. Into beauty, into creation, and into a massive act of resilience.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hackyournervoussystem.org
- Instagram: hackyournervoussystem
