Dr. Annie Brook: Four Ways to Stay Calm in the Courtroom

Freeze has no movement in it, and Annie Brook says that is exactly the problem. When you go numb before a hearing there is nothing moving, so there is nothing to feel, so there is no way back to your own awareness. Everything she teaches works by putting movement, breath, weight, or pressure back into a body that has stopped producing any.

Dr. Annie Brook is a body-centered, or somatic, psychologist with a doctorate and decades in practice. She runs The Brook Institute, which trains therapists, publishes online courses, and gives away a substantial free library of articles and tools. Her specialty is what she calls pre- and perinatal work: the impressions laid down before a person could think, including birth and adoption trauma. She is candid that this is her own material as well. She was born premature, spent seventeen days in an incubator without touch, and did not connect her adult perfectionism to a fear of being sent back there until her forties. She has also worked with children in the court system, and says the experience damaged her confidence in it. This is her first appearance on the show.

In this episode, Annie explains how an early template sets the questions a nervous system keeps asking, and what she looks for in an adult: whether you let someone very close very fast, whether you override your own instincts, whether you keep getting blindsided. She and Lisa spend time on shame and self-blame, which Annie treats as a serious drain on personal power, because once you have lost the felt sense of your own potency you make strange decisions and turn your anger inward. She also describes a small girl in her office who taped shut the gap in a folding screen and would not let her in, and what that turned out to be about.

The second half is a toolkit, and Annie walks through each one so a listener can do it while listening. A ball you imagine breathing between your hands, for coming out of a frozen state. Weight and pressure, which she calls proprioception, done invisibly against a desk or a chair. Three sentences worth having ready. A spatial boundary you fill with your own energy rather than leaving collapsed for other people to walk through. Pushing down through your feet before you push outward. She and Lisa talk about high tone, low tone, and the middle you want under pressure, about blending fierceness with compassion without losing either, about interrupting self-attack by twisting a towel under the table on a video hearing, and about why she suggests watching a fish.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why hopelessness after one of these relationships isn't evidence that you're broken
• What Annie looks for in adults: moving too fast, overriding instincts, getting blindsided
• Why shame and self-blame drain your sense of your own potency
• Proprioception: using weight and pressure in a courtroom without anyone noticing
• Three sentences worth having ready before a hearing
• The spatial boundary you fill instead of leaving collapsed
• Pushing down through your feet before you push outward, and why the order matters
• High tone, low tone, and how to stay in the middle during a hard phone call

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 The "bad picker" belief, and why hopelessness isn't proof you're broken
4:00 Meet Annie Brook, and patterns encoded before you could think
7:00 Attachment, and the template an early experience sets
10:00 Being blindsided, and what shame and self-blame cost you
12:00 What children show in play: the folding screen
15:00 Body awareness, and the spatial game to play with a friend
18:00 The breathing ball, and coming out of freeze
22:00 Four things to do right before court, and the boundary you fill
27:00 High tone, low tone, and staying in the middle
32:00 Fierceness with compassion, and pushing down through your feet
36:00 Self-attack thinking, and twisting a towel under the table

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Dr. Annie Brook and The Brook Institute: https://anniebrook.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.