Latest / Adult Child of Dysfunction / E 369: Becoming Trigger Proof/ Guest Nima Rahmany

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E 369: Becoming Trigger Proof/ Guest Nima Rahmany · Adult Child of Dysfunction

• 0:02
  Okay.
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  Hello everybody.
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  Welcome back to another episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction.
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  Today we have with us Nima Rahmany, whose work centers on helping adults heal from the lasting effects of growing up in dysfunctional family systems.
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  Drawing from his own healing journey and years of clinical experience He developed the Becoming Trigger Proof methodology to help individuals regulate their nervous systems, heal developmental trauma, and break free from patterns such as anxious or avoidant attachment, codependency,
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  people-pleasing, and emotional reactivity.
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  His approach empowers people to understand how childhood experiences shape adult relationships, and provides practical tools to create secure attachments, healthier boundaries, and lasting emotional resilience.
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  Welcome, Nima.
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  How are you today?
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  I am so delighted to be having this conversation.
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  Yeah, it's a very controversial one out there, so I'd like to shed some light on it, and I love that you're leading this conversation, Tammy.
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  Well done.
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  Thank you.
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  I think I think I agree.
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  It's one of those taboo subjects that nobody wants to talk about, and before it was kind of- Very charged stick everything under a rug.
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  Yep.
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  Yeah.
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  Stick everything in a rug, ignore it, pretend it didn't happen.
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  When you move out when you're 18, everything will be good, and it is so far- Yes from the truth.
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  Correct.
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  Yeah.
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  And you start to learn the impacts of those unresolved attachment wounds soon as you get into relational dynamics.
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  And I don't know if you can relate to this, but if you notice that after moving out of the house that your relationships became an absolute shit show like mine did, where in my case, constantly seeking, chasing, the
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  never-ending quest for more women and using women and extracting from them because I deeply felt this deep wound, especially with the mother and then Dad with, both of them, the whole thing growing up in that environment.
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  But I wanna preface this by saying they are the most loving parents.
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  They would die for their children and their grandchildren.
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  They came to Canada in the mid, in late '70s with the revolution.
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  They fled their countries.
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  They had to immigrate from and be in deep survival mode, and I am so profoundly grateful that I grew up in, in a beautiful country like Canada.
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  And two things can be true, that we got that, and at the same time there was some deep core wounding that was created and as a result led me down this path where I made choices.
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  I made those choices.
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  I was the one that chose, but I was doing it from a wounded place.
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  And so the relational shit shows on the other side of healing that, my relationships are amazing.
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  I can set boundaries, and my relationship with my parents is very boundaried.
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  I don't have to go no contact with them, but- There's, there are periods where we have to go limited contact, and we start to see, all right, are we able to repair this, and so verbally, I do...
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  it's challenging, but they're slowly demonstrating a little bit of a willingness to repair.
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  It takes a lot of courage to do the work, so Absolutely, and especially when you're talking- Diving in and I truly believe it's generational.
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  Like you said, it's you didn't wanna pass down to your children what got passed down to you, which probably got passed down to y- your parents from your grandparents.
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  Totally.
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  Totally.
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  So it's like at what point...
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  I always say that.
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  Be the cycle breaker.
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  Be the one- Yeah that just says- Yeah enough is enough.
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  Yeah.
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  And also- There, there's no blame with knowl- yeah with knowledge though because it's one thing for me to say, "I'm gonna do everything opposite for my kids than my parents did to me," but that's not the answer either.
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  There has to be a happy balance of actually- Yeah learning what is healthy.
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  Yeah, not everything they did was bad.
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  They did...
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  I am s- profoundly grateful.
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  They did an amazing job in making sure that they boundaried life around in the best way they could, faith through education, like high values, faith, education this kinda like duty and obligation to something, the faith, the cause, the
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  the family.
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  I love all of those things.
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  Those are really great.
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  And the one piece that I didn't know, w- I had no idea, 'cause, 'cause I was like we had an amazing childhood.
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  We had an amazing upbringing, but what would happen was I had to figure out why my twin brother, I have a twin brother who we were raised in the exact same environment, he is able to have relationships.
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  He's got a great marriage.
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  He's just on one path.
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  He's not seeking all these validation from all these women, and so he's in a stable marriage, got two kids, great dental practice, while his twin brother is just one epic disastrous relationship after another.
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  I had to look.
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  I thought, "Is there something wrong with me?"
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  And apparently when you...
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  I didn't realize when you are separated from your mother at the age of two, there is a...
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  I didn't know that a wound can also be separation trauma.
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  I thought trauma only means physical violence and- Oh sexual abuse, wh- I didn't experience...
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  there was the odd, volatility and physical thing that went a little too far, and, there was the odd time.
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  And there was a lot of volatility in like a codependent relationship where we had to be present and witness so much ruptures, but then everything was fine the next day, but there was no repair.
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  And I didn't know...
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  I just thought that was, that's just what we did, right?
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  But what I realized as I went through this search was I was...
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  It's like we're born into a fishbowl- Like we're fish born into a fishbowl of dirty water.
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  We don't know that it's dirty, but until we leave that environment and we go and we see what healthy looks like and what communication is supposed to sound like, and your relationship with your emotions and all of these
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  things that on the deep side s- superficially we had it all on lockdown, but then the deep stuff, the emotional connection, emot- things like emotional attunement, things like validating the experience of the child and validating the reality, things
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  like dismissing someone's emotions and experience, "Oh, you shouldn't feel that way."
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  And so those things I didn't know slowly shaped our characters, shapes who we believe we are, and that led me into finding relationships that had the same chaos- where my reality was not validated, this push and pull dynamic,
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  ruptures without real without real true repair.
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  So I was a perfect storm for a toxic relationship that, thank God, woke me up to this work.
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  And now after doing it on the other side of what I call becoming trigger proof, not trigger less, I have a great marriage.
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  My friendships, my relationships, my working relationships are totally different.
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  So the quality of our relationships is all about our relationship to our attachment wounding, and this is a, this is why it's such a worthwhile conversation for anybody that wants to clean house and then have relationships that are
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  aligned.
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  And it is amazing, going back to where you started there, with you not knowing, it had to be a big T.
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  That's why I can't stand when people talk about these big T, little T, middle Ts, all these different kind of traumas.
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  I'm like, when you were too young to process what was going on with you, anything that happened, any experience, everything that happened to you got stored in your nervous system.
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  You didn't know what to do with it.
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  You survived and adapted to make sense of it.
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  And it's not your fault, it's not your parents' fault.
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  But if it changed...
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  I always say, if it changed the way you look at the world or it changed the way you look at yourself, it is most certainly going to change the way you show up in the world.
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  And so if you're not showing up in the world- and what you can tolerate, what you can...
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  Yeah, absolutely, 100%.
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  So in that case, then it deserves exploring and being curious and not judging- Yeah yourself.
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  And definitely.
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  I think the distinction happens and the controversy comes in where the actual exploration, the actual naming of it, the actual discussion itself makes you an ungrateful child, right?
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  Parents are getting triggered.
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  They're feeling v- they're feeling attacked.
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  We did the best we could.
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  There's no such thing as a perfect parent.
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  We did the best we could.
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  Stop...
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  and this is not about expecting perfection, but this is about reconciliation.
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  This is about closing these open tabs that weren't...
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  There's a huge opportunity once we become aware of this and we deal with all the hurt, the grief, and the shame, and the guilt that naturally comes up.
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  If we can just stay with it for a moment and not react to it, and not try to dismiss it, and not try to stop it, but really practice staying with it, then we're able to create healing.
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  We're able to create empathy.
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  But if we can't sit in it, and we just react to it, and we try to dismiss somebody else's expressions and experiences, and we seek to be understood without at all making the effort to understand You know, if
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  we don't pay attention to that, we're gonna have a really rough time because everybody's carrying it, and unfortunately, when you don't address it, you then make the child responsible for the par- to become the parent, to become the
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  one to like validate and, oh, and so the, the, the, the parent becomes the victim towards the child's ungratefulness.
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  And then gets bitter and then resentful, and then that bitterness and resentment and that entitlement makes the child...
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  It just builds up more like duty and all that.
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  It just escalates, and it becomes so toxic and so heavy, and it passes down to the next generation.
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  And that's coming from a family where your parents loved and adored and did the best they could.
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  Then there's the family, like my family, who did not love and adore and teach me faith and happiness and joy and do the best they could.
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  They didn't even- really give an effort.
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  So there's two sides of the world where one is coming in going, "I have no freaking clue"- Yes because I was never even modeled an effort to show- Yes empathy and compassion.
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  Yeah.
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  See, two things can be true at the same time, is that our parents loved us the very best they could.
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  If, Tammy, your parents' nervous systems were so in survival mode that they were bracing all the time, that they were in shutdown, that they were like grinding, or they were like constricting, right?
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  That protective posture is read by the child.
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  Oh, of course.
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  So your ch- a mother's nervous system is becomes the child's nervous system.
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  So because of that, a, a parent can't give that emotional connection despite all of their best efforts.
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  So then even all of the material things are taken care of, if that emotional one isn't, you're gonna become something like an overachiever.
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  You'll then become a super-duper successful doctor, physician whatever.
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  And then constantly be in this experience, which I, when I'm working with leaders who are successful, is this push force energy to try to prove themselves all the time.
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  Because this wound of a lack of emotional attunement, it might not be like such an injury that it paralyzes you in life, a life of addictions or whatever, which it's a spectrum, I believe, but it can turn into
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  a workaholism.
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  It turns into a sex addiction.
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  It turns into some sort of a coping strategy to cope with the lack of emotional attunement, the feeling that no matter what I do, I'm not enough.
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  Absolutely.
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  And so that becomes our posture, and it's a nervous system issue.
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  So I had to really look at that.
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  Yeah with people who are willing to meet me where I'm at.
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  And that's- one of the hardest parts with this whole process is the self-reflection at this point, once you are aware that you're not showing up like you should be, could be, or want to be, then it's like, okay,
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  you can go back, you can look at it.
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  Just, I tell people, once you become aware, it is now your responsibility, and that self-reflection part, having gone through three different 12-step programs, that is the hardest part.
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  It is.
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  The, the tendency will be to say, to be in this little child type of pride, to say, "Take it or leave it.
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  This is who I am.
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  Take it or leave it," you'll hear this from the Baby Boomer generation, is, "It's who I am.
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  Take it or leave it."
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  And quite frankly, that attitude is not sustainable, it's like that attitude does not create sustainability in a relational dynamic.
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  Not at all.
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  So we're looking for sustainability.
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  If you and I are in a relationship, even a friendship, and conflict happens and the only way that you can stay in this relationship is to shrink yourself, you eventually g- collapse.
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  So it's not sustainable.
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  All I care about is the study and the application of skills that make relationships sustainable.
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  Perfect.
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  And that's what people need, is they need skills because they're not taught.
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  If you grew up like that or you even, And there's a lot of bad information out there, too.
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  You would like to think that everything out there is good information, and you can someone says it's like AA.
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  You take what you love and leave the rest."
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  But at the same time, there is some definitely bad information out there.
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  But yeah, you wanna have, you wanna be able to have those relationships, and skills are what we need.
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  Talk about your trigger, what's that?
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  Trigger...
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  I know you said- Trigger-proof it wasn't triggerless.
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  It was trigger-proof.
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  Yes.
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  Talk about that.
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  Trigger-proof doesn't mean triggerless.
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  No.
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  My wake-up call that led me into this work was I did a lot of personal development, and in my last relationship, it...
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  After my divorce, I went on a series of failed relationships, looking for validation through women, and I was really showing up very extractive in nature.
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  It's like whether it's with clients, whether it's my title, it's my whole identity is just about extracting validation.
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  Extract, using women as something that I must extract from.
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  Why?
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  Because of that paralyzing wound at the age of two where I separated from mom.
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  And by the way, how are we so different?
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  The main difference is, came from a wound where I at the age of two, my mom left to come to Canada, and because of that with my brother, 'cause she could only bring one of us, for three months
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  as a two-year-old boy, I was without my mother.
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  And I don't remember a damn thing, but my body remembered.
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  Your body remembers, for sure.
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  My body remembers, and how it shows up is this anxiousness with women, this deep paralyzing need to have more than one's attention just in case one of them abandons me just like my mom did.
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  That's what my nervous system was saying.
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  My mom did not abandon me.
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  She was doing the things she needed to do to help us immigrate that we didn't know anything about that.
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  But it still had an impact, and I constantly showed up in this neediness with women and this kind of push-pull dynamic where I would just play the field until I got married, and then I get divorced, and then
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  a series of failed relationships leading to this final one that was the most volatile with somebody who was a former sex worker.
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  And all of a sudden I am f- like completely hooked in.
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  We would argue the same way that I would observe at the home front in my home.
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  There was volatility, arguments.
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  I...
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  That was just normal.
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  It's just this is what a relationship is.
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  There was these just volatile, emotionally violent arguments.
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  Sometimes at 3:00 in the morning.
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  We were constantly having to play this weird kind of therapist role and try to see.
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  And what the gift of that experience was that I was able to see two different perspectives.
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  'Cause I would hear Dad's story and I'd hear Mom's story, and they were totally different, but I could see both of them.
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  They just couldn't see themselves.
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  They couldn't do it, but I could, and I was like, "This is my training."
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  I was being trained for this ever since I was a kid.
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  I didn't realize.
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  But the...
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  But they would always repair.
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  They're still together.
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  They love each other.
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  But there was no modeling of repair There was a rupture, but there was never repair.
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  There was never really hey, I wanna understand you, you understand me."
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  It was just let's forget it.
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  And so the built up of resentment, that just builds resentment, and I just thought that's just normal.
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  So when I saw this modeled in my last relationship, the red flags just d- came up, I just kept going, and 'cause the sex was great afterwards.
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  We would have amazing makeup se- makeup sex.
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  And so it just kept going, like argument, back together, argument, back together, makeup sex da.
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  And, I had left chiropractic and I was teaching these tools.
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  Teaching one thing, but having a totally toxic relationship on the other side, and this dichotomy of incongruency.
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  I didn't know how to, I didn't know how to deal with, 'cause I was too busy getting all this validation.
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  My career was taking off with this.
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  I'd left chiropractic.
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  The sex was great.
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  So let me, and the people around me would say, "Nima, this is unsustainable.
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  Nima..."
• 18:31
  Ilina, one of my, right hand in, in my a community, another coach and trainer does IFS work, just a, a very a gifted individual.
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  She would look me in the eye and say, "Nima, this is not sustainable."
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  But I was too busy riding the gravy train.
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  Yeah.
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  And so it wasn't until March 11th, 2018 where we got into an argument and I slapped her, and in that moment it was like, whoa.
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  I had never gotten like this in any relationship.
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  How did I get here?
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  How can I make sure that I don't ever do this again?
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  And that's where I realized I was using personal development work without dealing with the nervous system postures that happen as a result of these stories from the past.
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  All right.
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  I got into somatic experiencing, polyvagal theory attachment work, parts work shadow work, breath work, everything somatic, like I just went all in, and the concept of becoming trigger-proof was born.
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  And the concept is that when we are in relational dynamics, conflict is actually a good thing.
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  If there isn't conflict, it means one of the two are shrinking to be in the relationship, and that's unsustainable.
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  So what makes a relationship most sustainable is conflict, but with repair.
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  Repair.
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  And so I realized that I had to learn how to repair, and I learned how to repair.
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  And when you learn how to repair you regulate your nervous system, you integrate all of these younger parts of you that are active in this conflict that came up in, with my last girlfriend, comes up in my marriage,
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  integrate it, and then communicate for repair.
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  And just by repeating that every conflict, the relationship gets even deeper.
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  Absolutely.
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  We're even stronger together.
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  It's like a muscle.
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  It gets built, because as you're working it out little mini ruptures are happening in microscopic levels, and the rebuilding of it causes the muscle to be even stronger than before.
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  So that's what becoming trigger-proof does, is your relationships get stronger- That's awesome.
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  I had someone on my podcast not too long ago, and he was a marriage counselor, he helped people, and it was funny the way he described what you're talking about as He called it death by a thousand paper
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  cuts, and it made so much sense how each one, it just hurts a little bit, but you just, "Okay, just forget it."
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  Yeah.
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  And then all of a sudden you are so resentful, you have nowhere to go with it.
• 20:55
  Yeah.
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  And that's- I can't- not where you wanna be.
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  I can't be in a relationship anymore if there's a rupture and there's no repair.
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  Because what happens is in order to maintain the relationship, you have to put on a mask.
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  You have to pretend, but you're bracing the whole time.
• 21:11
  Yep.
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  So imagine you and I are in a relationship, and we get into a rupture, but there's no real repair.
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  You can say sorry, but it's not really a repair.
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  Sorry isn't actually repair.
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  This is the biggest myth.
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  I said I'm sorry, no.
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  No.
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  So repair means two people are really feeling understood.
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  There's a genuine effort to, hey, hear about the impact, to listen, to validate the other person's experience.
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  And so without that, you don't have repair.
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  And so if I just have rupture and no repair, rupture after the third or fourth time, when I hang out with you, I'm just like, "Ugh."
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  I have to brace myself to be around you because it's just, I feel like I'm abandoning myself.
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  And so it becomes a co-dysregulating relationship.
• 22:01
  Yep.
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  So when you're with somebody and just being around them dysregulates you, and you don't feel a sense of emotional safety to say, "Hey, I'm feeling some stuff here.
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  I'd like to deal with it."
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  D- I just sent a message to a, a, a mentor of mine from three years ago, I wanna read it to you.
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  I actually said this to him, and I said, "Hey are you open?
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  'Cause we might be working together on another project."
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  I said, "Before I go, and I just, there's something I've been withholding from you.
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  On our last experiences together I've had some things come up, but I have this story that, we're...
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  you're too busy.
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  And I know, I realize, I take full ownership that I, that was my own story, and I used that as an excuse not to reach out to you.
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  But I feel it's important that I do, and I apologize for withholding this from you.
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  Are you open to hearing me and p- possibly repair?"
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  And he was like, "Yes, and thank you."
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  And so that tells me that kind of a relationship is one that I wanna maintain.
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  And if we repair, and it does...
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  when we...
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  And I think we will.
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  I have a lot of respect for this guy.
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  If we repair, now, on the other side of this repair, there's a deeper bond and a deeper trust that develops.
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  So conflict and repair becomes the mechanism where trust is built, but you have to have the capacity to sit in it.
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  Because soon as there's conflict or some sort of an emotion- people either fade away or they collapse, they clench or they fricking push and force and fight.
• 23:36
  Yep.
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  And so none of those things create safety and resolution.
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  So that's all I care about now.
• 23:43
  Very cool.
• 23:44
  Is that...
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  And that's what all of your work is, revolves around?
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  Regulate, integrate, then communicate.
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  This is the Trigger Proof methodology.
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  There's a way when you really understand the mechanism of the nervous system.
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  You have to become a student of the nervous system.
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  You gotta learn how to master your own nervous system.
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  This whole concept of, ah, just take it or leave it, what you're doing is you're telling the people around you, you're saying, "This is who I am.
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  Take it or leave it."
• 24:11
  You know- In business, if you have a business, it's good to delegate the things that you suck at to people who are better.
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  That's smart business.
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  But in relationships, you can't delegate your emotional labor to somebody else.
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  That creates resentment.
• 24:26
  You put yourself in the baby position, that needing a parent, right?
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  Especially if you're a parent to adult children, for example, and you wanna learn how to repair.
• 24:37
  You gotta take ownership and become the parent.
• 24:41
  You gotta go...
• 24:42
  All the resentment you're carrying is 100% valid, but it is not meant to be dumped on your child.
• 24:49
  That's for you to work through with a professional so that you can show up as the leader to your child, right?
• 24:56
  Your, your child, your...
• 24:57
  Even if they're adults, they have kids, they don't want to feel like you're another, a, a burden on them.
• 25:04
  No, absolutely.
• 25:05
  And just the fact that half the time, like especially when your kids are younger, when your kids trigger you, it's usually not even the kid.
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  It's something, like you said- 100% it's something inside of you.
• 25:15
  It's not them.
• 25:16
  Yeah.
• 25:16
  It's something that stirred something old up inside of you.
• 25:19
  Correct.
• 25:19
  So it's like you can't project and get mad at them for being kids when it's- That- really mom's issue, not- That's it.
• 25:27
  Yeah.
• 25:27
  That's it.
• 25:28
  And what you're talking about is very true.
• 25:30
  As a father to a five-year-old child as on the recording of this, I...
• 25:36
  He triggers the hell out of me.
• 25:37
  But he- but the cool part about this is as the cycle breaker, we reframe parenting as I'm not here to teach him any more than he's here to teach me.
• 25:47
  He is here to teach me about parts of myself that I haven't loved.
• 25:50
  So when he triggers me, which he will, it's so funny because I have, the butting heads with my father he always wants it his way, and I want it my way, and I...
• 26:01
  He is my greatest contrarian.
• 26:03
  Every time I say, "I wanna do this," he says the opposite.
• 26:06
  And what's funny is that's my dad's victim story about me, is that you never listen, right?
• 26:13
  And he's right because I just wanna do it my way.
• 26:15
  So now that I have a five-year-old just yesterday like I was like, "Hey bud, do you wanna go golfing?"
• 26:22
  "No, I wanna do Lego."
• 26:24
  And I'm like- And then I turn to Di- my wife and I'm like, "Why does he never wanna do what I wanna do?"
• 26:30
  And then Diana says, "That's exactly what he said about you yesterday."
• 26:35
  And I was like, "Oh, geez.
• 26:38
  Wow, busted."
• 26:38
  You have a full cycle, man.
• 26:40
  I was b- I, it was just like a mic drop moment, and I'm like, oh my God, our children are our mirrors.
• 26:48
  They're a mirror.
• 26:48
  So then what did I do?
• 26:49
  Thank God that I knew that.
• 26:50
  Then I was like, "Hey, bud, do you wanna do some Lego?"
• 26:52
  Even though I just wanted to watch the game with him, watch the Blue Jays with him, right?
• 26:57
  And so sometimes to spend time with me, he'll come and he'll lay down on me cuddle into me, and then we watch the Blue Jays together, right?
• 27:07
  I know that he doesn't really care about the Jays as much as I do.
• 27:10
  He does, But we enjoy it together- because he likes spending time with me, right?
• 27:17
  And it's my job to be aware of that, to appreciate that, and to make it...
• 27:22
  Because I see him make that sacrifice, I go extra loving, and I'm like, "Hey, bud, thanks for doing this with me."
• 27:28
  And then I'll tickle him, and then I'll be like, "Oh look, Vlady Guerrero.
• 27:32
  He gets it up."
• 27:33
  And then we high-five each other, and I make it such an interactive thing so that even though he wouldn't choose to watch the baseball game over watching LEGO or whatever other- show that he's into, that I'm creating an
• 27:49
  experience where it's like I want to center around his experience when he's with me, without abandoning myself.
• 27:58
  Because it's not sustainable if I'm constantly giving and not receiving.
• 28:01
  Giving, yep.
• 28:02
  So it's this beautiful opportunity where I can understand boundaries and really see things from him, his perspective, really give him what I never had.
• 28:12
  My parents gave me everything they had, and I'm giving my son what they couldn't give me.
• 28:18
  And this is the beauty of this work.
• 28:20
  Yep, absolutely, and it seems like that's where a lot of people are doing this work.
• 28:23
  And I love that you're doing this work, 'cause a lot of people need- those tips and tricks and those relationship hacks because sometimes- Yeah it's just one thing that somebody says, and you're like, dang.
• 28:34
  Yeah.
• 28:34
  That it can change literally what you do, what I do, the podcasting.
• 28:38
  Correct.
• 28:38
  All of that can literally change a life.
• 28:40
  But- It's a framework.
• 28:42
  A- instead of thinking it as a hack, I want you to think of the trigger-proof work, this, this work to become, get activated by somebody in your family, but then return back home to safety.
• 28:53
  This is really what it is my son's gonna trigger me later today.
• 28:56
  I guarantee it.
• 28:57
  After, after i- it's around this time, and I'm making dinner.
• 29:02
  This is where he's most active.
• 29:04
  He's running around, screaming, jumping around, s- And I'm...
• 29:08
  and the dog is going off as well, and both of them, after I've been working with, people, walking them through their trauma, helping them through really difficult periods of betrayal and challenging times.
• 29:22
  Then I go to that, and I feel over-stimulated.
• 29:24
  So how to get, go through that without, jumping down his throat without losing myself, without going into dissociative rage.
• 29:33
  Hearing bad news that, oh, he got sent to the principal's office, and so I now have to sit there and go, "Holy shit," and I'm feeling all the shame, and I'm realizing that's what happened with me.
• 29:45
  I was always sent to the principal's office.
• 29:47
  So I could empathize what my dad was going through, and I could then go, "How would I wish that I had been approached?"
• 29:55
  Yep.
• 29:55
  And then with understanding.
• 29:58
  Yep.
• 29:58
  With a, "Hey, bud- With compassion, yep help me understand why you were being so rude to your teacher," right?
• 30:04
  And then after regulating and then integrating, bringing those younger parts of me that he's triggering, 'cause it's all my stuff, as you said.
• 30:14
  Yeah.
• 30:14
  After I do that, now I can communicate with him and go, "Hey, bud, I wanna understand you," instead of, the traditional way that our parents teach us.
• 30:25
  So these little subtle things are shaping his nervous system, are shaping his connection with himself, his d- his sense of self-trust, his sense of creativity, his sense of knowing who he is, his sense of self-worth, his sense of
• 30:41
  living h- to his truth rather than being a performer that's trying to seek validation.
• 30:47
  Yep.
• 30:47
  So- And wearing a mask depending on who you're with and wearing a mask.
• 30:47
  Exactly.
• 30:48
  And so my, the greatest gift is watching a little boy fully express himself to the point where he doesn't want...
• 30:56
  When he does, when he goes clothes shopping, Diana just told me today, he goes clothes shopping, and she's not allowed to pick his clothes.
• 31:02
  He knows exactly what he wants.
• 31:04
  He's five, and he's "I know what I want."
• 31:07
  And that's a victory for me.
• 31:08
  Amen.
• 31:09
  It absolutely is.
• 31:10
  And everybody needs to understand that the end of the day, that's all we're trying to do, is get back to safety.
• 31:15
  You can't think yourself to safety.
• 31:18
  You cannot.
• 31:19
  Your body has to feel safe.
• 31:21
  I tell people when, they're like, "I couldn't even stop."
• 31:24
  And I'm like, "By the time you think and process why you're even triggered, your body has already gone through a thousand physiological changes- of stress and knots and- hormones surging and all kinds of stuff has happened.
• 31:38
  I always say I can trick my mind, but I can't- trick my body.
• 31:41
  I can't lie to my body.
• 31:43
  Yeah.
• 31:43
  And those moments are where you hurt the ones you love.
• 31:46
  And you'll say something that penetrates their soul and their identity and, time will pass and cooler heads will prevail, but those, words that you choose to tell your child stays with them.
• 32:00
  That's why I always- And it formulates- Yeah formulates an opinion about themselves and self-worth.
• 32:04
  Yep.
• 32:05
  And I always say it doesn't take long.
• 32:07
  Once you learn to regulate your nervous system and get back to safety, it doesn't...
• 32:11
  There is so much power in the pause.
• 32:13
  That's, that expression came for a good reason, and just sometimes that's just a breath before you react, But I'm sure that's what your program has a lot...
• 32:22
  the breath is 100% truth, and that's literally the first surface level.
• 32:26
  Yeah.
• 32:27
  So- Yep part of regulation, we must go into the breath, and the exhale must exceed the inhale, for example Ah.
• 32:37
  And just doing that, even the physiological sigh can regulate and just- bring your prefrontal cortex a little bit back online, and then put the brake on...
• 32:49
  It's called the ventral brake on- the activation.
• 32:52
  But then what do we do with that, right?
• 32:55
  How do we, regulate is one thing, but then we have to really look at the contextual framework underneath the relationship dynamic that's causing us to be so dysregulated.
• 33:11
  And there's usually an argument with reality.
• 33:12
  There's usually a should, right?
• 33:14
  So my parents might have, no matter how much they regulate or whatever, if underneath there's a contextual belief that the child should soothe the emotions of the parent and make them feel good about themselves and only be positive
• 33:30
  and just be grateful and never have any feedback reality that then the child either ha- there's stuff that we're all grateful for, but certain moments there i- there are emotions that come up, challenges that come up which now
• 33:45
  violate the belief, violate the contextual framework of the should of the parent.
• 33:52
  Now that separation from hey what should be and what is causing the dysregulation.
• 33:59
  So now if I just have to do the breathing, but I don't examine these unco- unconscious covert agreements, these fantasies or delusions I have about human beings, myself, others.
• 34:12
  If I don't look at these, then I'm always gonna having to be regulated.
• 34:16
  Yes.
• 34:16
  Absolutely.
• 34:16
  So both are important.
• 34:18
  That's why we start there and we just keep going deeper.
• 34:19
  Oh, yeah.
• 34:20
  Yeah.
• 34:20
  That it's- But yeah, breathing is a big part of it, yeah.
• 34:21
  And it's a whole process.
• 34:23
  For the people- Oh, yeah out there listening that are just learning, that are just getting into this, Like he said it's a framework.
• 34:28
  What I just gave you was a hack, Yeah before you react, before you hurt someone's feelings, before you say something you don't mean to, like he said, one quick breath, one deep breath, one physiological sigh, any of that
• 34:41
  will bring you back into your prefrontal cortex- and not in the amygdala- Temporarily which is your reactive crazy brain.
• 34:48
  Temporarily.
• 34:49
  So- Temporarily.
• 34:50
  Yep.
• 34:50
  So yes.
• 34:50
  And so the trigger-proof work- And that sometimes that's, especially when I work with younger people and I'm like, "Oh, sometimes that's all I need," just to get me through right there to where I can be like, "Okay, Totally
• 35:01
  let's think about that."
• 35:01
  Totally.
• 35:02
  But then- And the deep- the deeper that we go with it, the more we access a state of freedom, right?
• 35:08
  And the ultimate freedom is not having your sense of okayness- be conditional upon the other person changing.
• 35:18
  Oh, yeah.
• 35:19
  Absolutely.
• 35:19
  That is freedom, and that's the goal of the work.
• 35:22
  That is complete freedom, yes.
• 35:23
  This has been super fun, Nima.
• 35:25
  So- I've had a great time tell people where they can find you if they wanna reach out and work with you.
• 35:29
  I'll give you the show notes.
• 35:32
  Sorry, in the show notes my team should provide a link that gets you the attachment style quiz.
• 35:38
  Okay.
• 35:38
  That's the best place to begin to really find out what that is.
• 35:41
  If you wanna get ahold of me, finish that and send me an email with your backstory.
• 35:45
  If you have a question, I'll read them all, and make suggestions of where to go from there.
• 35:50
  I might not be the right person.
• 35:51
  I...
• 35:52
  This one woman reached out and was like, I need to help someone who's gonna help my partner deal with the fact that he had enmeshment and emotional incest with his mother, and I need to find somebody for him
• 36:06
  to deal with that."
• 36:07
  And so my, my question was like why are you in this call rather than him?"
• 36:12
  That's the first red flag because.
• 36:15
  i'm not interested in working with somebody who isn't here asking me the questions.
• 36:19
  Then, but she just wanted to know for him, and then she got really uncomfortable when I started asking her, "Can I ask what this brings up in you, b- what his relationship is bringing with his mother is causing
• 36:31
  within you?"
• 36:31
  And she started telling me about some of her pain that she's experiencing, and she says, "I'm getting coaching for that," and all that, and I'm like, "Oh, okay."
• 36:40
  And then I asked her, I said, "Have you seen, is this a familiar feeling for you, this sense that you're not, your needs are not getting met and you always have to fight for them?"
• 36:48
  And she's like, "Yeah, it's always in this relationship."
• 36:50
  I said, "Have you experienced that?
• 36:53
  Like, how old do you feel, when you experience that?"
• 36:55
  She goes, "Oh," and she starts crying, and was like, "Happened when I was a child."
• 36:58
  And I'm like, yeah, he needs to do his work, but this is your work to do as well.
• 37:03
  And she never realized that there was a connection there.
• 37:06
  Giving me the backstory and telling me what you're dealing with and what outcome you wanna have, I can now see it and go, "All right, this is not the right place," or, "Yes, this is exactly-" work we can
• 37:17
  help with."
• 37:18
  Okay.
• 37:18
  Yeah, and socials are all there too.
• 37:21
  Perfect.
• 37:21
  So I'd love to hear...
• 37:22
  Absolutely.
• 37:23
  I will put all of that in the show notes, so everybody, if you're driving or you're not- gonna be able to write anything down, don't worry about it.
• 37:27
  It'll all be down there.
• 37:29
  And then before you go first of all, I wanna thank you very much, because I'm sure the listeners got a whole lot of wisdom out of that.
• 37:36
  So thank you for that.
• 37:38
  And before you go, though, you're not off the hook.
• 37:40
  Oh.
• 37:40
  I want you to leave the listeners with one piece of advice or one small change they could make right now that might make their lives a little easier, what might it be?
• 37:54
  Learn how to expand your capacity to be misunderstood.
• 37:58
  I love that.
• 38:00
  That's a superpower.
• 38:01
  If you can do that, which is what the whole goal of these practices and work is, you can speak your truth.
• 38:07
  You can lead and say the damn thing.
• 38:10
  You can ask for what you need.
• 38:11
  You have greater capacity to receive.
• 38:14
  You're okay when other people disagree, and you're okay with disagreement, and you become a master at authenticity.
• 38:24
  Amen.
• 38:24
  Because I'm gonna speak my truth, and you're might not gonna like it.
• 38:27
  You might not like it, and I'm okay with that, and that's the freedom...
• 38:32
  there's no freedom unless we move towards that.
• 38:36
  Thank you for that, and I love the way you worded it.
• 38:38
  It's true, right?
• 38:39
  And I loved the- It's true day I realized that.
• 38:41
  I don't care.
• 38:42
  I'm like, unless I am intentionally, purposely harming someone or being hateful, then I am me.
• 38:50
  Not my business.
• 38:50
  We're not gonna all have everybody liking us, and it's not even worth the struggle and the energy to try.
• 38:56
  Yeah, 100%.
• 38:57
  Love it.
• 38:58
  But I like the way you put it.
• 38:59
  Thank you so much, Tammy.
• 39:00
  That was a great way to put it.
• 39:01
  So thank you so much, and for everybody else- Okay out there, you all have a blessed week, and we will see you back.
• 39:07
  Thank you.