Beyond Skin Picking & Hair Pulling

A highly effective practice to reduce the length, severity and frequency of picking, pulling, and biting sessions happens when you least expect.

💜 The moments after a bad session can be some of the hardest.

But what if I told you they were also one of the greatest opportunities for healing and growth?

In my own healing journey, and in those of my clients, I've consistently seen that how we respond to ourselves in these moments can directly impact the picking, pulling, and biting.

In this episode, I'll walk you through the exact process I use after a difficult session. You'll learn how to regulate your nervous system, validate what you're feeling without spiralling into shame, and take the next step forward with compassion instead of self-punishment.

🌱 Because healing isn't determined by whether you have another session. It's often determined by what you do in the minutes that follow.

If you've ever found yourself stuck in the shame spiral after picking, pulling, or biting, this episode will give you a practical framework to help you break that cycle.

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

If, after a picking, pulling, or biting session, you feel:
💔Shame
💔Self-judgment
💔Embarrassment
💔Hopelessness
💔Lost
💔Stuck
💔Apathetic

These are all big indications that you need and deserve support in healing.

BUT...

"... Is it really that bad?"

"... I should be able to figure this out myself."

If you've had these doubts, there are 2 cognitive defensive mechanisms that you might be unknowingly engaging that are greatly holding you back.

If you're engaging in one or both of them, then it's a big sign you really do need help and should not keep waiting.

Listen in to find out!

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

You're not consistent, not because you lack willpower, but because you think you need to be fixed.

When we look at the science of motivation and the incredible impact self-compassion has on our likelihood of moving toward our goals, the first sentence takes on a much more profound meaning.

So let's unpack that together:
🌟Understand what's really driving your inconsistency and resistance.
🌟Learn how to make change feel easier by connecting to what truly matters to you 
🌟Discover a simple framework to create lasting habits from self-care, not self-criticism.

 If you keep wondering, "Why can't I just stick with it?", I made this episode for you. 💛 

---

Questions from this episode:
(Listen to full episode for more context!)

1. What might I gain when I do that thing?
2. Why is that important to me?
3. How might this positively impact those around me?

---

Resources:

The Neuroscience of Goals and Behavior Change - Elliot T Berkman

Being Compassionate to Oneself Is Associated with Emotional Resilience and Psychological Well-Being - Rick Warren, Elke Smeets & Kristin Neff 

The Power of Self-Compassionate Motivation - Kristin Neff

---

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Satisfaction, rest, soothing - these are some of the most common things people report they enjoy about picking, pulling, and biting.

The biggest reason why we enjoy it so much is that it gives us something we aren't getting enough of in life already - Read the first three words again...

Despite how much you might enjoy it, when you begin to address the root cause, you start building a life that gives you more genuine reasons to feel satisfaction, rest, and soothing (and much more).

When this happens, we stop needing picking, pulling, or biting so much.

Sounds far-fetched?

I've seen it happen for my clients, and I have a couple of their incredible stories to share with you in this episode, PLUS 5 relationship areas we can focus on that make all the difference.

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Understandably, the scars that we create through chronic skin picking, hair pulling and nail biting are not something that we feel good about.

The bald patches, thinning, hyperpigmentation, and dwindling nail beds can trigger feelings of shame, self-judgment, or even unlovability. 

The problem is, these are also the same emotions that fuel picking, pulling, and biting! It becomes a self-sustaining cycle.

When we learn how to move through these emotions, we are actively helping ourselves reduce the need for them while unburdening ourselves of their emotional weight.

But how do you navigate this in a way that allows you to move through and release rather than feel stuck? Is that even possible as long as the scars and damage remain?

It is, and I'm going to share with you how.

🚩Fair warning, though, this episode contains no fluffy, toxic positivity. This is about embracing the truth and grounding yourself into reality. Which can sometimes, initially, be an unpleasant experience.

🙏It's an odd thing to say because it will probably drive some people away from listening to this episode. If that's the case, those people are most likely not ready to listen to what's inside.

Rest assured, if you listen, I'll be with you every step of the way 💛.

----

Journaling Prompts:
Make sure you listen to this episode before answering these Qs.
🌟What do you not want to accept?
🌟What do you feel the scars are costing you?
🌟What do you feel you can't have because of them?
🌟From what you've written, what do you suspect might not be the full truth?
🌟What might you be able to allow yourself to grieve that you haven't yet?

If you need more support, reach out to your therapist, psychologist or coach. You can also reach out to me. I'm here for you!

----

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

The version of you that is free from chronic skin picking, hair pulling, or nail biting is one that feels confident, creative, compassionate, and calm.

These are not just pretty words; this is who you are at your core (as research has discovered)!

Now the question is, how do we connect more to this part of ourselves?
And how does picking, pulling, and biting both hold you back and help you get there?

This is where we turn our greatest struggle into our greatest teacher, and we don't do it through guesswork but through using well-researched therapeutic models (that actually help).

Listen in to learn:

• A powerful therapeutic model for chronic picking, pulling and biting that isn't CBT or HRT. 
• How to turn picking/pulling/biting into a tool for healing
• Who you are at your core (as research has discovered) 
• How to connect to these incredible core qualities in a tangible and practical way

Resources:

No Bad Parts by Richard Schwarz (book)

Clarity: Focusing on the 8C's of Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy

IFS Website

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Did you know there is a specific brain function that is largely responsible for your chronic picking, pulling, and biting?

That's right, you're not broken. You never were. It's your brain over-functioning.

In fact, it's a really common struggle in this modern, overstimulated world.

Look at all the people who are overworking, overeating, overgiving, overexercising, overthinking, overgrooming.

We're all chronically overwhelmed and addicted to it.

And it's because of something called intermittent reinforcement.

In this episode, I share with you how this particular brain function is one of the key drivers behind your BFPA* + tangible steps to rewiring your brain.

These steps don't require force, are backed by science, and will pull on your heartstrings. Not to mention, they will actually help you to move forward towards freedom.

Journaling prompts from the episode

"Needs" list. Which one calls to you?

• Relief
• Escape 
• Comfort
• Stimulation
• Certainty
• Control
• Numbing
• Achievement
• Connection

Whatever stood out to you in the list above, ask yourself these Qs:

1. Why is that need so important to you right now?
2. What would it give you to make the space to meet that need for yourself?
3. How might this impact those around you?
4. What will it cost you to not make the space to meet that need?
5. What are 3 tangibles things you can do to meet that need in your life right now?

References & Resources

• Determinants of Addiction: Neurobiological, Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sociocultural Factors
https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/monograph/9780323905787/determinants-of-addiction

• Intermittent Reinforcement: Why Toxic Relationships Feel Addictive
https://reachlink.com/advice/relations/intermittent-reinforcement/

• Engineered Highs: Reward Variability and Frequency as Potential Prerequisites of Behavioural Addiction
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460323000217

• Wired for Want: How Dopamine Drives the New Epidemic of Everyday Addictions
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zoe-Wyatt/publication/391756047_Wired_for_Want_How_Dopamine_Drives_the_New_Epidemic_of_Everyday_Addictions

• Stuck in a Toxic Cycle? This Psychological Pattern Might Be Why
https://www.catharticspacecounseling.com/blog/stuck-in-a-toxic-cycle-this-psychological-pattern-might-be-why

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

After this, if you want a guided meditation on how to drop into your body, listen to episode 108: Why You Can't Slow Down + Somatic Practice to Show You How. 

To truly regulate your emotions, you need to get out of your head and into your body.

The frustrating thing is that even if we understand this concept on a logical level, we can still be left feeling lost about how to implement it effectively and consistently.

This is because emotional regulation is a felt experience, not a thought process.

You've got to stop thinking about how to feel and instead allow yourself to experience it.

Like jumping out of a plane and floating to the ground far below. You can't truly appreciate the full experience unless you do it. Anything else is just living in our imagination rather than reality. 

So let's take that leap together and learn:

• The brain system that keeps you trapped in your head
• How the purpose of this system can be rooted in trauma
• What your inner child has to do with it all
• The steps to getting out of your head and into your body

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

This is why the typical treatments for OCD - CBT and habit reversal - just don't seem to work.

You've been falling through the cracks of ill-fitted treatment and blaming yourself for being a hopelessly broken human being.

It's not your fault.

You've just been misinformed and going about healing the wrong way.

If this resonates, then odds are you'll find hope and a path forward in this episode.

You'll learn:

🌟How a behaviour can become an addiction
🌟Where addiction comes from
🌟How you can heal the root cause + the three core components that facilitate this

Resources:

Intermittent Reinforcement - article
https://www.catharticspacecounseling.com/blog/stuck-in-a-toxic-cycle-this-psychological-pattern-might-be-why

In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate - book
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/617702.In_the_Realm_of_Hungry_Ghosts

Behavioral Addictions: Signs, Symptoms, and Treatment Options - article
https://americanaddictioncenters.org/behavioral-addictions

Introduction to Behavioral Addictions - study
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3164585/

The Difference Between an Addiction and a Compulsion - article
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-difference-between-an-addiction-and-a-compulsion-22240

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

It's because of your inner critic.

But it's not enough to know this one small fact. In fact, maybe reading this leaves you feeling more lost than before.

This is because our mind needs to understand the WHY behind new information to make sense of it and organise it in our brain in a way that is helpful.

It's like you're on a long hike and someone adds a new, sparkly tool to your backpack. You get the sense it's important, but you don't know what it's for or how to use it, so it just becomes a burden.

This is what it's like when we hoard information without learning how to apply it.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why you procrastinate the things you know are good for you and end up picking/pulling/biting at your body instead

- The profound part your inner critic plays in this frustrating pattern

- Practical tools and questions to apply this knowledge to help you reduce procrastination, feel more regulated, and create more meaningful moments in your life

💌Share your story - Book your FREE BFPA* Support Call with me

✅VIP Access to BFPA Masterclasses + Workshops

🌟Download your FREE Guide to Stop Skin Picking Using Somatics

🎯Join the 7-Day Skin Picking Recovery Challenge

🤓Sign up - FREE BFPA Monthly Masterclass

✨Join - BEYOND Support Group on WhatsApp

🙋‍♀️Send me a message here

My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.