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374: Teaching the Body to Feel Safe, with Holly Bridges · Beautifully Complex

0:02
Speaker 1: Your kid's nervous system isn't broken, and it definitely isn't.
0:07
Speaker 2: Something that you can just tell to calm down.
0:10
Speaker 1: If you've tried every calming technique in the book and
0:14
Speaker 1: still watched your kid's body stay just as tense as
0:17
Speaker 1: it ever was, there's a reason for that. Today, we're
0:22
Speaker 1: rethinking what regulation even means with body-based nervous system expert
0:27
Speaker 1: Holly Bridges. She's the author of Reframe Your Thinking Around
0:31
Speaker 1: Autism and creator of the Anxiety Reframe Technique. Holly thinks
0:36
Speaker 1: of the nervous system like an octopus, sentient, sensitive, and
0:41
Speaker 1: impossible to force into calm. I'm Penny Williams, and this
0:47
Speaker 1: is Beautifully Complex. Welcome back, everyone, to Beautifully Complex. I
0:55
Speaker 1: am really excited. Just crazy excited to have Holly Bridges
0:58
Speaker 1: here with me to talk about the nervous system and
1:05
Speaker 1: really getting into some of the complexities of what might
1:08
Speaker 1: be happening for our kids and maybe some of the
1:11
Speaker 1: ways that we're starting to get it wrong and how
1:14
Speaker 1: we can pivot from that. Holly, will you start by
1:16
Speaker 1: letting everybody know who you are and what you do,
1:19
Speaker 1: and then we'll just get right into it.
1:23
Speaker 2: My name's Holly.
1:24
Speaker 3: About 15 or so years ago, I wrote Reframe Your
1:27
Speaker 3: Thinking Around Autism on the polyvagal theory and brain plasticity.
1:31
Speaker 2: I got very.
1:32
Speaker 3: Excited about it because it made a whole lot of
1:34
Speaker 3: sense of a whole lot of things. From there, I
1:37
Speaker 3: developed a modality of working with the body that was
1:41
Speaker 3: sort of motivated by that and helping people to become
1:44
Speaker 3: more aligned in their system. I started with autism, but
1:48
Speaker 3: it has branched out very much past that into psychology.
1:52
Speaker 3: people when they have dysregulated states for want of better language,
1:56
Speaker 3: but it moves into ADHD, it moves into trauma, it
1:59
Speaker 3: moves into long COVID now and.
2:01
Speaker 2: All sorts of things.
2:03
Speaker 3: But it's about working with the body and the whole
2:07
Speaker 3: person so that you're inviting it to move into a
2:10
Speaker 3: different state. And then I use polyvagal kind of language
2:14
Speaker 3: because I find that's the most useful model we've got
2:18
Speaker 3: so far. to allow us to imagine what's going on
2:22
Speaker 3: inside and how to talk to it.
2:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I remember my first mention, like the first
2:30
Speaker 1: time I read polyvagal theory, and I didn't read the
2:33
Speaker 1: actual theory, but I read about it. And I was like,
2:36
Speaker 1: holy moly, so much makes sense to me now. Because
2:40
Speaker 1: I didn't have the nervous system and dysregulation on my
2:44
Speaker 1: radar as a parent until like my kids were probably
2:47
Speaker 1: teens when I started learning about this. And It really,
2:50
Speaker 1: to me, is kind of the foundation of living life
2:53
Speaker 1: and finding your joy and success and feeling good in
2:58
Speaker 1: your body and in your environments. It's so very important,
3:03
Speaker 1: and I think we all need to know about it.
3:05
Speaker 1: And even young kids, we need to start teaching them
3:08
Speaker 1: about their body and their nervous system. And so, yeah,
3:12
Speaker 1: it's really exciting stuff, but it can be really complicated
3:17
Speaker 1: and complex, too. And so I find myself a lot
3:21
Speaker 1: of times trying to find that balance between being true
3:25
Speaker 1: to the neuroscience and also... being able to talk about
3:31
Speaker 1: it in kind of everyday language, if that makes sense.
3:35
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk to us a little bit first,
3:37
Speaker 1: just kind of a foundation of like, what is this complexity?
3:41
Speaker 1: What are we talking about when we talk about the
3:43
Speaker 1: nervous system in terms that I think will maybe better,
3:48
Speaker 1: you know, as before we started recording, we were talking
3:50
Speaker 1: about the fact that the term regulation isn't great really anymore.
3:56
Speaker 1: And Where do we go from there, I guess, is
3:59
Speaker 1: what my question is. How should we be talking about it?
4:03
Speaker 1: What do we need to know? Because our listeners here
4:05
Speaker 1: are parents and teachers. Yeah, it's interesting.
4:10
Speaker 3: When I wrote the book, I made it like a Dr.
4:13
Speaker 3: Seuss book. That's a while ago now. Because I do
4:17
Speaker 3: stick figures and it's a way of, it's a shorthand
4:20
Speaker 3: for this is, you know, this represents this, this and this.
4:23
Speaker 3: And a lot of people love it. A lot of
4:26
Speaker 3: kids grab it and show their teachers and things because
4:29
Speaker 3: it's explaining the physiology and I'll give you a potted version,
4:32
Speaker 3: but I just, I can't help it. It's like, while
4:35
Speaker 3: it's really, people just go, that makes so much sense.
4:39
Speaker 3: Others have slammed the book and, you know, a lot
4:42
Speaker 3: of people went on Amazon and wrote terrible reviews about
4:46
Speaker 3: how unacademic this is and all sorts of things.
4:49
Speaker 2: But I don't care.
4:50
Speaker 3: It can't be academic when you want people to be
4:53
Speaker 3: able to digest it. It has to be immediately digestible
4:57
Speaker 3: and resonant. And resonance really difficult for individual brains, like
5:04
Speaker 3: to make sense of it for different people is hard.
5:07
Speaker 3: And then also the complexity of it. If you actually start,
5:11
Speaker 3: you know, people try and draw maps of the polyvagal
5:14
Speaker 3: theory and And they put all this stuff in. You
5:16
Speaker 3: can't even read it. Your eyes don't know where to go.
5:18
Speaker 3: It is just so full of information because the complexity
5:21
Speaker 3: of the internal system is just, it's worlds upon worlds
5:27
Speaker 3: in that way. And so I'm always trying to teach that,
5:30
Speaker 3: the layers of it, so you understand the layers of it.
5:33
Speaker 3: But at its simplest, I use the polyvagal theory as
5:37
Speaker 3: a map because it allows us to have a shorthand.
5:41
Speaker 3: So the shorthand is you have The vagus nerve, it's
5:44
Speaker 3: the longest nerve in your body. It runs sort of
5:47
Speaker 3: all the way from all the organs.
5:48
Speaker 2: It's like a tree.
5:49
Speaker 3: It's like a tree trunk. It goes into all the
5:51
Speaker 3: organs of the body with the roots. And then it's
5:55
Speaker 3: the 10th cranial nerve. It runs alongside the spine, goes
5:59
Speaker 3: up through the brainstem, and then it branches out to
6:01
Speaker 3: all these other little cranial nerves. For people who appreciate evolution,
6:06
Speaker 3: because I had someone mention this yesterday and I thought
6:08
Speaker 3: it was really relevant. The theory is at an evolutionary level, Well,
6:14
Speaker 3: you've got all these other cranial nerves which are new
6:16
Speaker 3: and they allow you to operate your tongue, eyes, ears,
6:18
Speaker 3: head turning, muscles, socially engage with people. And so when
6:23
Speaker 3: this long one is, it can put you into flight
6:27
Speaker 3: or fight. It can immobilize you and drop you out.
6:30
Speaker 3: It's like it's highly responsive to the environment, the internal
6:35
Speaker 3: and the external. So it allows you to mobilize into
6:38
Speaker 3: different states. I see it like a nice piece of
6:42
Speaker 3: bamboo when it's working really efficiently. It can mobilize, you know,
6:46
Speaker 3: all these things sort of turn off and on and
6:48
Speaker 3: it's chatting to all the organs and all the, you know,
6:51
Speaker 3: it's a big conduit. But when it's under duress, it
6:55
Speaker 3: goes like a taut guitar string. It seizes the gut
6:59
Speaker 3: and it seizes all these here. So you see when
7:02
Speaker 3: people get really stressed, their face looks stoic, their eyes
7:05
Speaker 3: go rigid, they can't tolerate noise. They can't digest food,
7:09
Speaker 3: heart rates up, and they're like they're walking in a headwind.
7:13
Speaker 3: And then some people just live like that and get
7:15
Speaker 3: used to it. But it's really fascinating to bring a
7:20
Speaker 3: lot of those kind of symptoms back to the fact
7:24
Speaker 3: that the body is under duress. So it's really interesting
7:27
Speaker 3: at that level. And I'll stop there.
7:30
Speaker 2: No, I'm fascinated.
7:31
Speaker 1: I love to hear you talk about it because you
7:32
Speaker 1: talk about it in different language. And like the idea...
7:36
Speaker 1: of it chatting, you use the word chatting, and I'm like, oh,
7:39
Speaker 1: this is so good, right? Because all these little bits
7:42
Speaker 1: of our body are talking to each other, and that
7:47
Speaker 1: is then giving information to the nervous system whether we're
7:49
Speaker 1: safe or not, right? And then it's going to respond
7:52
Speaker 1: to that.
7:53
Speaker 3: I think of the nervous system like an octopus. It's
7:58
Speaker 3: got tentacles everywhere. It's sentient. It's really smart. And you
8:04
Speaker 3: can't tell it what to do. It's like you can't
8:07
Speaker 3: regulate an octopus. It's not interested. It can get frightened
8:13
Speaker 3: and it can hide under a rock and not want
8:15
Speaker 3: to come out. And so there's a way in which
8:19
Speaker 3: it's highly willful. It's also very, very, very sensitive. And
8:24
Speaker 3: so the whole point is a lot of the language,
8:28
Speaker 3: which we've just borrowed from, you know, 100 or more
8:31
Speaker 3: years of psychology and dogmatic thinking and pathology thinking, And
8:37
Speaker 3: putting things in categories and neat little boxes and making
8:41
Speaker 3: the whole mechanistic understanding of the body, none of that
8:44
Speaker 3: actually fits very well with what's actually going on. So
8:48
Speaker 3: you actually need a little bit of something to interface
8:51
Speaker 3: with this so that you can properly engage with the system.
8:56
Speaker 3: And so what I find is because I don't come
8:59
Speaker 3: in with, we're going to do this and we're going
9:02
Speaker 3: to teach you this, whether it's the person and or
9:05
Speaker 3: always their nervous system. And then you aren't dealing with
9:09
Speaker 3: their symptoms and the things they're doing wrong or their
9:13
Speaker 3: emotional state or fixing anything in terms of all the
9:17
Speaker 3: narrative of their life and all the things they may
9:21
Speaker 3: or may not feel that they do well.
9:23
Speaker 2: I don't really focus on.
9:24
Speaker 3: Any of that. I work with the octopus. And then
9:27
Speaker 3: how you work with the octopus, because it sounds really
9:29
Speaker 3: silly to say octopus. But if you think the sentience
9:33
Speaker 3: of the nervous system, you have to talk body. You
9:37
Speaker 3: have to work with the body because that's what it
9:40
Speaker 3: is and that's what it understands. You can't do it
9:43
Speaker 3: at the expense of the person because they need to
9:46
Speaker 3: be implicit in it. I always talk to the person
9:49
Speaker 3: and the octopus, but there's an alignment you're trying to
9:52
Speaker 3: get at, you're trying to inspire, and everyone has to
9:57
Speaker 3: be on board with curiosity. So there's this sort of
10:00
Speaker 3: weird weaving of relationship with the nervous system, with the person, that,
10:09
Speaker 3: as you said, being in a body in this world,
10:11
Speaker 3: in this planet, you want it to work as well
10:13
Speaker 3: as it can. And it kind of hijacks you. And
10:16
Speaker 3: the point of the polyvagal theory is it will hijack you.
10:19
Speaker 3: It will just, for a lot of good reasons, it
10:23
Speaker 3: can have learnt to retract. It can have learnt to,
10:26
Speaker 3: like an octopus, go hide under a rock and not
10:28
Speaker 3: come out. And then people are working with a nervous
10:31
Speaker 3: system that's got a very small map and it just
10:34
Speaker 3: bites back to that and they can't get out of it.
10:37
Speaker 3: And a lot of our therapies are top down. They're
10:39
Speaker 3: trying to talk. They're trying to manage symptoms. They're doing
10:42
Speaker 3: all this stuff and they're just banging on the door
10:45
Speaker 3: of this, you know, locked heavy door. And for me,
10:49
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter what you do here if you don't
10:50
Speaker 3: get this bit right and invite this to open and
10:53
Speaker 3: learn and do something new. And then what I find
10:55
Speaker 3: when I do is very swiftly lots of things change
10:59
Speaker 3: for people. And that can be kids, but it can
11:02
Speaker 3: be teens. Teenage boys love my work. I work with 30-year-olds.
11:06
Speaker 3: I work with 50-year-olds. It's really interesting just what happens
11:10
Speaker 3: when if you just take this system-level understanding of If
11:15
Speaker 3: the system has been hijacked or has a very trigger-happy
11:19
Speaker 3: nervous system response into shutdown and you give it more
11:23
Speaker 3: information and a better road to work on, it'll take
11:26
Speaker 3: it because it's more efficient. The body likes to be efficient.
11:29
Speaker 3: But somehow if it's happened really early, it just doesn't
11:33
Speaker 3: know it's there.
11:35
Speaker 2: It grows around that.
11:38
Speaker 3: As a knowing. So I work with people who have
11:41
Speaker 3: had really early surgeries or birth issues and things like that.
11:45
Speaker 3: And it's not always the case, but sometimes it is.
11:49
Speaker 3: And it's very clear then there's this real retraction of
11:52
Speaker 3: the system as a learned pattern of knowing. But again,
11:57
Speaker 3: you start talking like that, it's so delicate. It can't
12:01
Speaker 3: just charge in and go, well, we're going to do
12:03
Speaker 3: this with you. It's like, that's who you know, that's
12:06
Speaker 3: what you know as your whole self. So the the
12:11
Speaker 3: level of relationship to get to the point where you
12:14
Speaker 3: can invite that system to think about doing something else is.
12:17
Speaker 2: Very, very delicate.
12:19
Speaker 3: So I can hand to mime it up quite a
12:21
Speaker 3: lot in order for it to make enough sense and
12:24
Speaker 3: be interesting and different language to all the language we
12:30
Speaker 3: use with other stuff. But then when you actually get
12:32
Speaker 3: to the work, it's very, very delicate, gentle work because
12:35
Speaker 3: it's so private. It's a person's inner being in a sense. Mm-hmm.
12:41
Speaker 3: Like my exercises class, which is my exercises look really easy.
12:46
Speaker 3: Like I use a gym ball. You start with sitting
12:49
Speaker 3: in your chair, put your feet on the gym ball
12:51
Speaker 3: and push kind of thing. The ball's soft. It looks
12:54
Speaker 3: really simple. So people will go, oh, that's nothing. Or, oh,
12:57
Speaker 3: I can go and run a class on that. But
12:59
Speaker 3: it isn't because the exercise has to be simple so
13:04
Speaker 3: that you're not overwhelming the system. And so someone who's
13:07
Speaker 3: in a highly shut down state can access it. And
13:10
Speaker 3: it doesn't overwhelm them too much. And even that can
13:12
Speaker 3: overwhelm people hugely. But it's the relationship with it that
13:17
Speaker 3: you're working with. It's a tool to talk to the
13:20
Speaker 3: octopus in that sense. See where it will come out
13:24
Speaker 3: and see where it just goes no. It just says no.
13:26
Speaker 3: And then you go, awesome. And you just wait and
13:28
Speaker 3: you step back because you're trusting that it's smarter than you.
13:33
Speaker 3: And then we see what it needs. So there's a
13:36
Speaker 3: submission to the whole thing. There's a submission to the
13:39
Speaker 3: intelligence of it, there's a submission to the sentience of it,
13:43
Speaker 3: and then an invitation. And all of those words are very,
13:47
Speaker 3: very different. I love how we deal with people, you know?
13:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, we use words. We use words, we try to fix,
13:58
Speaker 1: we try to fit, right? And what you're talking about
14:02
Speaker 1: sounds more like a dance without words to me. I
14:06
Speaker 1: wrote down all sorts of things as you were talking.
14:09
Speaker 1: You were talking about how you can't tell the octopus
14:12
Speaker 1: what to do. And I'm like, oh, yes, exactly. There's
14:15
Speaker 1: those words again. And there's that top-down approach that does
14:19
Speaker 1: not work when the nervous system doesn't feel safe, right?
14:22
Speaker 1: When it feels like there might be threat. Very sensitive.
14:26
Speaker 1: So the octopus is very sensitive. I think that is
14:30
Speaker 1: really relatable to a lot of our parents who are
14:33
Speaker 1: listening for neurodivergent kids or kids with anxiety. Like, I
14:38
Speaker 1: have anxiety myself. It's very sensitive, right? Like, it can
14:42
Speaker 1: be so easily triggered, but I've learned over time how
14:46
Speaker 1: to feel safer more often, kind of, right? To do
14:50
Speaker 1: that dance myself with what my body is trying to
14:54
Speaker 1: tell me. Invite it. You said invite it a couple
14:57
Speaker 1: of times. I love that. I love the idea of
15:01
Speaker 1: an invitation to invite kids to go on a journey
15:05
Speaker 1: with us. I interviewed Mr. Chaz, who's a child development
15:09
Speaker 1: expert and has a big social media presence a few
15:12
Speaker 1: years ago, and I remember him saying, it's really stuck
15:15
Speaker 1: for me, the idea that we want kids to go
15:18
Speaker 1: on the journey with us willingly. We don't want to
15:21
Speaker 1: drag them on the journey. We want to go on
15:25
Speaker 1: the journey together, right? And that kind of, It just evokes, again,
15:29
Speaker 1: that invitation that you're talking about. And it's so powerful
15:34
Speaker 1: when we stop trying to force and pressure and give
15:37
Speaker 1: external motivation, right? And we just meet them where they are.
15:41
Speaker 3: The words that I'm writing down while you're talking, one
15:45
Speaker 3: is freedom. It's about freedom. It's a very different word
15:49
Speaker 3: to regulation. Yes. And then you have to offer something.
15:54
Speaker 3: While you want them to come on the journey with you,
15:56
Speaker 3: you have to offer them something worthwhile. And that comes
16:00
Speaker 3: back to language again. It's like to language the complexity
16:03
Speaker 3: of the polyvagal theory so that it makes enough sense.
16:07
Speaker 3: Because it doesn't matter if a mum drags someone into
16:10
Speaker 3: my virtual room, I mostly work online, to do the
16:14
Speaker 3: work if it doesn't make sense to the kid or
16:17
Speaker 3: the 20-year-old or whatever.
16:18
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
16:19
Speaker 3: They do because I go, this is what I think
16:22
Speaker 3: I'm doing. This is how I think I'm doing it.
16:25
Speaker 3: And this is what I think is actually going on
16:27
Speaker 3: for you. And they're like, oh, no one's ever actually
16:29
Speaker 3: articulated that. That makes sense to me. I want that.
16:34
Speaker 3: So offering them something that is worthwhile and then having
16:38
Speaker 3: something that's going to produce reasonably swift results, and results
16:43
Speaker 3: is an interesting word, It's very important if you want
16:46
Speaker 3: your kids to come on board. There's got to be
16:49
Speaker 3: a reason why. And then results are a shift in
16:53
Speaker 3: the body. They become outside results very well, but you
16:57
Speaker 3: start to have a very interesting engagement with what's happening
17:02
Speaker 3: for the person. But again, like with what you're saying,
17:05
Speaker 3: it all very much then becomes about them and a
17:08
Speaker 3: level of interest and almost a treasure hunt, which is
17:11
Speaker 3: a very different orientation to Let's get it right. I
17:16
Speaker 3: think a lot of the stuff with, you know, with
17:19
Speaker 3: parents and teachers and everyone is the way the world's
17:22
Speaker 3: set up. Everyone's trying to be safe and everyone's worried
17:26
Speaker 3: their kid's not going to be safe and be okay
17:29
Speaker 3: in the world. And so they're trying to make them fit.
17:32
Speaker 3: It does actually make perfectly good sense. It's just it
17:34
Speaker 3: doesn't work.
17:36
Speaker 2: It's not a wild octopus.
17:38
Speaker 3: But also I really feel like my job, I really,
17:43
Speaker 3: know my job is actually to help the world have
17:46
Speaker 3: that octopus.
17:48
Speaker 2: But these kids are brilliant. They're so brilliant.
17:52
Speaker 3: And they're here to bring in the new world, not
17:54
Speaker 3: squish themselves into an old one that I think is
17:58
Speaker 3: very much being transmuted and where things are coming alive.
18:05
Speaker 3: But they're so bright that trusting that is really interesting.
18:11
Speaker 3: And working from my end, working with them with that
18:15
Speaker 3: in play as an understanding, not, not necessarily articulated, but
18:19
Speaker 3: it means then you're working with the body and you're
18:21
Speaker 3: just working with what is so that they become more
18:24
Speaker 3: physiologically functional at a flexibility, internal flexibility level. Then they
18:30
Speaker 3: can be their best selves. Then they decide what that
18:33
Speaker 3: is and you're not then harnessing them. And it's really interesting.
18:38
Speaker 3: It's what you were saying with that chap and then
18:40
Speaker 3: just stretching it a little bit so you're not harnessing
18:42
Speaker 3: and you're really trusting that they're here for really good
18:46
Speaker 3: reasons at an energetic level. And I find that so
18:50
Speaker 3: important when you're working with someone because you can't want
18:54
Speaker 3: something from them. If you want something from an octopus,
18:57
Speaker 3: it'll squirt water in your eye.
18:59
Speaker 2: Right.
19:03
Speaker 1: I love this analogy that you can't force it because
19:07
Speaker 1: we do. And what you're talking about is this love
19:10
Speaker 1: and this wonderful intention of helping our kids feel good
19:15
Speaker 1: in the world and find success in the world. But
19:18
Speaker 1: what happens is the more we push and force, the
19:22
Speaker 1: more the octopus kind of retreats, right? And hides behind
19:26
Speaker 1: that lock and key.
19:32
Speaker 2: Hey there it's Penny.
19:33
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19:56
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20:00
Speaker 1: nervous system feels safe enough to let the thinking brain
20:04
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20:50
Speaker 2: Now spots are capped.
20:51
Speaker 1: I only do two cohorts of this program a year
20:54
Speaker 1: with 25 families each. So if this is calling to you,
20:58
Speaker 1: I hope you won't wait. Head to schoolstudiness.com to learn
21:02
Speaker 1: more and to secure your spot. I would love to
21:07
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to help your family on this journey.
21:20
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like, what language do you use to talk
21:23
Speaker 1: to kids about their body and their nervous system?
21:27
Speaker 3: I find language that is appropriate developmentally.
21:33
Speaker 2: And what.
21:35
Speaker 3: They can accommodate, because when you're in a, when your
21:39
Speaker 3: body's stuck in a really immobilized state, while all of
21:42
Speaker 3: these cranial nerves retract, constrict, it also constricts access to
21:47
Speaker 3: executive functioning and working memory, speech, all sorts of things.
21:51
Speaker 3: And so sometimes it's really hard to take information in.
21:55
Speaker 3: So being highfalutin isn't useful. So I have to find
21:59
Speaker 3: language that'll work for the person. But I typically... And
22:02
Speaker 3: this is what I've got in my book. I've got
22:04
Speaker 3: stick figures and I go, you know, this is when
22:07
Speaker 3: everything's working really well. Not when you're at your best. It's,
22:10
Speaker 3: you know, we have a lot, people have a ladder
22:12
Speaker 3: model with the polyvagal theory where you're at your best,
22:15
Speaker 3: you're in ventral vagal and dorsal vagal is the worst
22:18
Speaker 3: and you sort of climb up and down the ladder
22:19
Speaker 3: or slip down the ladder.
22:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:21
Speaker 3: I don't think it's a very nice model. I think
22:22
Speaker 3: it's very simplistic. So it doesn't fit an octopus. You just,
22:26
Speaker 3: they don't go together. So I draw a triangle and
22:29
Speaker 3: I say, you can, you know, this one's when everything's
22:33
Speaker 3: working really well and you're at your most efficient, and
22:35
Speaker 3: this is when things are down, but you play on
22:37
Speaker 3: this side of the triangle. Whereas this side of the
22:40
Speaker 3: triangle is deep state safety at a body level, not
22:44
Speaker 3: an emotional level. At a body level, I don't think
22:46
Speaker 3: the body knows how to do that. That's actually what
22:48
Speaker 3: we're teaching. But when we teach it, then the body
22:52
Speaker 3: knows how to go up and down the other side
22:54
Speaker 3: of the triangle. it's much more efficient. So I sort
22:57
Speaker 3: of find language like that and I'll draw stick figures
23:00
Speaker 3: if necessary so that they get a feel for what
23:04
Speaker 3: it is, the game in a sense of what we're doing.
23:08
Speaker 3: You're languaging it in a way that is clearly submissive
23:13
Speaker 3: I'm submitting to their needs. I'm submitting to what needs
23:17
Speaker 3: to be. I'm creating enough space. So I'm making the
23:21
Speaker 3: rules of there's no rules. Like I know what I'm doing.
23:25
Speaker 3: I'm the guide, but I'm not in charge of all
23:28
Speaker 3: of this and taking you here. So again, it's multidimensional,
23:33
Speaker 3: which is, I think, where we're moving to as a world.
23:36
Speaker 3: We're getting cleverer. We're starting to understand the internal states
23:41
Speaker 3: of the body. And, you know, this new map I
23:43
Speaker 3: keep writing about, I got so excited, of the vagus nerve,
23:47
Speaker 3: because it starts to make it look like a tree.
23:49
Speaker 3: And I've always thought about it like a tree, but
23:51
Speaker 3: we've kind of been taught it's just pipes and, you know,
23:54
Speaker 3: mechanistic kind of thing we can zap with a vagus
23:58
Speaker 3: nerve stimulator and away we go that very much showed
24:03
Speaker 3: that you actually don't know what you're stimulating you don't
24:07
Speaker 3: even know where it's going because all of these wires
24:10
Speaker 3: are so intertwined it's so complex but we're learning to
24:14
Speaker 3: understand that complexity and then we're learning to understand you
24:17
Speaker 3: know duality which is i'm in my body but i'm
24:20
Speaker 3: not my body i'm more than my body And the
24:23
Speaker 3: thing is as well with these kids and adults that
24:26
Speaker 3: I work with or, you know, semi-adults, they know they're
24:29
Speaker 3: not in their body. They know their body doesn't work
24:31
Speaker 3: very well. And their consciousness, they're very deeply connected to.
24:35
Speaker 3: So they have a very high order consciousness. And I
24:38
Speaker 3: love the telepathy tapes and things like that. So it
24:41
Speaker 3: fits in nicely there. But you have to allow for
24:46
Speaker 3: the voluminous consciousness that you're working with at the same time.
24:50
Speaker 3: So again, it's finding the language for that person and
24:55
Speaker 3: then they might speak and you've still got to appreciate
24:58
Speaker 3: all of that is true and find a way. So
25:03
Speaker 3: I will talk about it to the mum so that
25:06
Speaker 3: they don't have to deal with it. I might get
25:08
Speaker 3: the mum to model or the dad or whoever to
25:11
Speaker 3: model the exercise and do it so I can go, see,
25:13
Speaker 3: this is what I'm asking. Is this interesting to you?
25:17
Speaker 3: Can I make this interesting to you? So you think
25:20
Speaker 3: I'm worth your time. And see, I think that's a
25:23
Speaker 3: really different lilt to come into therapy with than we're
25:28
Speaker 3: going to do this and I know what I'm doing.
25:30
Speaker 3: We're going to take you here. You know, right from
25:34
Speaker 3: the get-go you have actually a huge list of assumptions
25:38
Speaker 3: and have-tos. Yeah. And then the key thing is working
25:41
Speaker 3: without that because people have a lot of safety in
25:44
Speaker 3: that line of functioning and reasoning. Mm-hmm. I consider myself
25:49
Speaker 3: on the spectrum, neurodivergent, autistic. I don't like being put
25:54
Speaker 3: in a box. So I really appreciate what other people don't.
25:59
Speaker 3: And I appreciate, as you can see, my wacko brain
26:02
Speaker 3: being allowed to run free.
26:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:07
Speaker 1: There's so much goodness in that. So what I'm hearing
26:11
Speaker 1: maybe is that we trade the word regulation for And
26:15
Speaker 1: making regulation the goal for safety and making this felt
26:21
Speaker 1: like body safety more of the goal. Your body feels settled.
26:26
Speaker 1: You feel good in your body. Is that still oversimplifying?
26:30
Speaker 2: It is.
26:31
Speaker 3: It's your right to try and find the goal. And
26:35
Speaker 3: it is really hard to find language because the interesting
26:38
Speaker 3: thing is we're not necessarily calming the body down. It's
26:44
Speaker 3: very delicate work. I do do single sessions, but I
26:47
Speaker 3: prefer intensive. So we do a block of time and
26:50
Speaker 3: then catch up for some weeks afterwards so that we've
26:54
Speaker 3: got some safety for that octopus to actually come out
26:56
Speaker 3: and want to play because it's very delicate work. And
27:00
Speaker 3: so at that point, that octopus is actually learning to
27:04
Speaker 3: come out and feel safe. it's not learning how to
27:08
Speaker 3: feel nice. It can be quite disruptive. It's used to
27:11
Speaker 3: being locked down or like a grumpy bear behind a
27:14
Speaker 3: really big door and you're knocking on that door and
27:17
Speaker 3: it's very annoyed. It doesn't want to. And so that's
27:21
Speaker 3: where the delicacy is. You have to make it inviting
27:26
Speaker 3: so that that bear wants to poke his little head
27:28
Speaker 3: out and think about there might be some sunshine and
27:31
Speaker 3: it might be worth his time. And in that, the
27:34
Speaker 3: polyvagal theory makes sense because It talks about mobilization. It
27:39
Speaker 3: talks about how the body goes into a freeze state.
27:42
Speaker 3: For people like that, a large element of them is
27:45
Speaker 3: always in that freeze state. They're working without the capacity
27:50
Speaker 3: to do the other stuff. They're working with that as
27:51
Speaker 3: their base camp. It's what they know. So when you
27:55
Speaker 3: ask them to relax or calm down, that's about as
27:57
Speaker 3: far as they can go. They don't necessarily have the
28:01
Speaker 3: pathways to calm, deep calm. That's what I'm teaching them.
28:06
Speaker 2: So the goal is more.
28:08
Speaker 3: Teaching your body to feel safe.
28:11
Speaker 2: That is probably more appropriate.
28:13
Speaker 3: Language in that sense. Or teaching flow state, I like
28:17
Speaker 3: as well. Both of those words are more active as
28:21
Speaker 3: well than calm or relaxed, which is almost meaningless for
28:25
Speaker 3: people who don't know what it is. It's just like,
28:28
Speaker 3: what am I supposed to do with that? I get
28:32
Speaker 3: floored when I do this work because there's They have
28:35
Speaker 3: had such a chronic early life with a lot of
28:39
Speaker 3: early surgeries and so the body, it retracts and it's very,
28:44
Speaker 3: very hard to work with. They were able to actually
28:49
Speaker 3: feel happy and calm and safe in their body for
28:52
Speaker 3: the first time. Their mum was next to them going,
28:56
Speaker 3: I don't know what this feeling is because he's emanating
29:00
Speaker 3: this energy it's almost hard to find a word. You know,
29:04
Speaker 3: it was almost like joy, just the body, just this peace.
29:07
Speaker 2: And it's never happened.
29:08
Speaker 3: He's always constricted, therefore she is, because then, you know,
29:12
Speaker 3: you've got a 20-year-old and you're still doing this together because.
29:15
Speaker 2: You have to.
29:15
Speaker 3: So the freedom's one word. But it was just this
29:18
Speaker 3: beauty of this calm because his body finally worked it out. Now,
29:24
Speaker 3: that's taken an enormous amount of work and the depth
29:29
Speaker 3: of it has been enormous. really complex and the psychology
29:33
Speaker 3: of it's complex and all the way you're articulating I
29:35
Speaker 3: think this is happening with the ding ding ding so
29:38
Speaker 3: that you're not just working on the body It's not
29:40
Speaker 3: like craniosacral where you lie down and someone does stuff
29:42
Speaker 3: to you, which craniosacral is awesome. It's engaging all of
29:46
Speaker 3: the time so that they know exactly where they're going.
29:49
Speaker 3: I more liken it to like on a cliff and
29:54
Speaker 3: the waters down below. And so I'm teaching someone with
29:59
Speaker 3: a ladder all the way down. I'm teaching them to
30:02
Speaker 3: get there by themselves and actually be able to come
30:05
Speaker 3: down the ladder and know how to get up and
30:07
Speaker 3: down the ladder and where they are, as opposed to
30:09
Speaker 3: just sort of flying them off and putting them on
30:11
Speaker 3: a boat and going, oh, we're here. You've got no
30:14
Speaker 3: idea how you got there. Yeah. And so I don't
30:17
Speaker 3: like doing that for people. They need to understand what
30:20
Speaker 3: this is for themselves. And it's really, for me, the
30:23
Speaker 3: only way the nervous system will actually say yes if
30:26
Speaker 3: it's got this incredible degree of safety. So the work
30:30
Speaker 3: can look really easy because it's just a ball and
30:33
Speaker 3: you're just using acupressure points or different ways to mobilize
30:38
Speaker 3: the body. But it's not. You're inviting the body to
30:41
Speaker 3: move into a state of safety and you're seeing where
30:44
Speaker 3: it goes. I can't do that. I can't go there.
30:48
Speaker 3: And that point of that kind of cross point, That's
30:51
Speaker 3: the most interesting thing. You're inviting the eye to notice
30:55
Speaker 3: that because it doesn't notice it because when it's immobilized,
30:58
Speaker 3: it doesn't feel. The actual work is very, very deep.
31:03
Speaker 3: But you can't stop. You go, hi, I think we're
31:05
Speaker 3: doing this, you know. It's tricky.
31:09
Speaker 1: You have to start where they are, right?
31:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. You have to start where they are. You also
31:13
Speaker 3: have to start with like a sub stack. I sent
31:16
Speaker 3: it to you.
31:16
Speaker 2: I wrote yesterday about the new map.
31:19
Speaker 1: We'll link it up.
31:20
Speaker 3: The complexity and the simplicity of talking about the polyvagal
31:24
Speaker 3: theory you have to start simple but it isn't simple
31:28
Speaker 3: it's really complex what's going on and if it was
31:30
Speaker 3: simple these people would work it out and get on
31:34
Speaker 3: with it we'd all feel good if you're allowed to
31:37
Speaker 3: talk about it at this level there's a whole lot
31:39
Speaker 3: of complexity you understand but you'd you step down into
31:43
Speaker 3: that as well. So it's not overwhelming. So you start
31:46
Speaker 3: nice and simple and then you, and then you find
31:48
Speaker 3: your way. But the freedom that you get when you
31:50
Speaker 3: get it right, which I do get it right, not
31:53
Speaker 3: always that fast. You know, these people I've been working
31:57
Speaker 3: with for about a year and a half, but in
32:00
Speaker 3: pockets of time, not every week, we need a chunk
32:02
Speaker 3: of time and then we leave it and the body
32:04
Speaker 3: kind of catches up and stabilizes. And then we do
32:07
Speaker 3: a little bit more. So you're always moving it out
32:09
Speaker 3: of its comfort zone and then it has to adjust
32:11
Speaker 3: and When it's talking to all the organs of the body,
32:15
Speaker 3: the whole body's got a pattern of retract and what
32:18
Speaker 3: its map is. And you're asking it to go off
32:21
Speaker 3: the map. All this stuff has to integrate. And then,
32:25
Speaker 3: you know, this is the complexity. The interface between all
32:29
Speaker 3: of this that's going on, like a wild quantum computer
32:33
Speaker 3: that we are, then interfaces with the world and all
32:36
Speaker 3: that sensory information comes in and all those relationships. You
32:40
Speaker 3: change this one. All those ones change. People's eyes shift.
32:45
Speaker 3: They get more peripheral vision. People's pupils work properly. All
32:49
Speaker 3: sorts of things happen, which means that they then have
32:51
Speaker 3: to integrate that, like putting a piece of software on
32:54
Speaker 3: a computer and it has to catch up. And so
32:57
Speaker 3: you normalize all of that, stabilize all of that, and
33:01
Speaker 3: then come back in and do some more when you can,
33:03
Speaker 3: which is, again, deferential to the system, not oh, we're
33:08
Speaker 3: going to do this to you and you're going to
33:10
Speaker 3: be like it. Because there's a whole person in there
33:13
Speaker 3: and there's a soul. I don't even care saying it anymore.
33:17
Speaker 3: I really feel like I'm midwifing people back into their body.
33:21
Speaker 3: That's what it's like when it happens. It's the most
33:24
Speaker 3: beautiful thing because these wildly amazing people don't kind of
33:30
Speaker 3: ever quite land in their body because it's quite uncomfortable
33:34
Speaker 3: to be in. And it has all its uses. But
33:37
Speaker 3: it's also very hard to live like that.
33:41
Speaker 1: Very hard. Very hard. And I think if you don't,
33:44
Speaker 1: you really have no idea what that is like. And
33:48
Speaker 1: the work that you're doing, I think, is helping all
33:50
Speaker 1: of us to find ways to try to understand, to
33:55
Speaker 1: try to meet them where they are, and to try
33:58
Speaker 1: to help facilitate a journey to feeling more comfortable in
34:03
Speaker 1: their body. Does that make sense?
34:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, exactly.
34:08
Speaker 1: It's so fascinating. I could talk to you for hours
34:10
Speaker 1: and hours about this. I love all of this stuff too.
34:14
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, we're already at the end of our time together.
34:17
Speaker 1: I am going to link the Substack article that you
34:21
Speaker 1: wrote about mapping the vagus nerve in the show notes
34:25
Speaker 1: for everyone. So please take a look there for that
34:28
Speaker 1: and Holly's Substack so that you can learn a whole
34:30
Speaker 1: lot more. as well as website. You want to tell
34:34
Speaker 1: everybody what the website is?
34:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I call my therapy ART, anxiety reframe technique. So
34:42
Speaker 3: it's just arthollybridges.com.
34:45
Speaker 2: Perfect.
34:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
34:46
Speaker 1: And I'll link everything up, like I said, for everyone. Anything,
34:49
Speaker 1: any thoughts you want to leave everyone listening with as
34:53
Speaker 1: we go?
34:54
Speaker 2: No, I just want to say thank you, actually.
34:56
Speaker 3: Like it's so nice to be able to talk at
34:59
Speaker 3: this level. about it and depth to it. And then
35:03
Speaker 3: you can see even, if I may, just the way
35:06
Speaker 3: that you were able to have a summation about what
35:09
Speaker 3: we're talking about with quite a lot of confidence. Because
35:13
Speaker 3: what I've said has made enough sense that it intrinsically
35:17
Speaker 3: connects with your authority and your understanding.
35:20
Speaker 2: It's in there.
35:22
Speaker 3: So it's kind of nice because then you're not actually
35:24
Speaker 3: struggling to find the words because you know what you're
35:27
Speaker 3: referring to. So it's kind of in there as you're
35:30
Speaker 3: calling that part of people in a sense. And then
35:34
Speaker 3: everyone's on board after that.
35:37
Speaker 1: We're inviting everyone, right? We're inviting everyone to understand this
35:41
Speaker 1: better and to try to do this work and at least,
35:46
Speaker 1: you know, with your own kids or your own students,
35:48
Speaker 1: if nothing else.
35:49
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:50
Speaker 1: Thank you, Holly. I always love talking to you. It's just,
35:54
Speaker 1: I always leave with some sunshine in my heart. And
35:58
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. So I will see everybody next time.
36:03
Speaker 1: Take good care. Visit beautifully-complex.com for more resources, coaching, and
36:11
Speaker 1: parent training. And help another kid by sharing this with
36:14
Speaker 1: someone who could benefit from listening.