Latest / Pretty In Pink Again / Episode 69: Understanding Your Nervous System | Why You’re Not “Too Sensitive” with Therapist Lindsey Howard, LCSW

Transcript

Episode 69: Understanding Your Nervous System | Why You’re Not “Too Sensitive” with Therapist Lindsey Howard, LCSW · Pretty In Pink Again

• 0:00
  I'm Christina.
• 0:00
  And I'm T.
• 0:01
  And this is the Pretty and Pink Again podcast.
• 0:03
  Where motherhood meets rediscovery.
• 0:06
  Today Christina and I are going to be sitting down with Lindsey Howard to break down the nervous system in a way that actually makes sense.
• 0:12
  We hear regulate your nervous system all the time, but what does that really mean?
• 0:16
  Why does your body react before your mind sometimes?
• 0:19
  And how can understanding what's happening help women feel less anxious and overwhelmed?
• 0:24
  Welcome, Lindsey.
• 0:25
  Hi, Lindsey.
• 0:26
  Hi.
• 0:26
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:26
  How's your nervous system doing right now on your first podcast?
• 0:28
  I actually feel a little bit nervous, actually.
• 0:30
  I've never done one of these before.
• 0:32
  Oh.
• 0:32
  Thank you- Yeah, I've never had a camera on me.
• 0:34
  I've never had a microphone, so we'll see how it goes.
• 0:36
  Well, thank you for being here today, and thank you for doing this.
• 0:39
  This is a very highly requested episode.
• 0:42
  Our listeners have really liked therapists, specialists, anything that is in the family of anxiety.
• 0:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 0:49
  So I think that this topic of the nervous system and the science behind it is going to be a good one.
• 0:56
  Good.
• 0:56
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:57
  So thank you for being here.
• 0:58
  So I guess the obvious question in the room is like what is the nervous system, and how does it play into anxiety?
• 1:05
  The nervous system is the part of our body that is responsible for automatic body functions.
• 1:13
  When you think of breathing, when you think of your heart beating, think of sweating, all of those things are happening without conscious control.
• 1:21
  So the nervous system helps maintain equilibrium.
• 1:25
  It also ensures our survival, and it creates our entire experience, whether we move towards something or back away from it, whether we move in connection with someone or we isolate.
• 1:39
  That's all determined by our nervous system.
• 1:42
  Its function is to help keep us safe whether there's a real threat or a perceived threat.
• 1:49
  It's responsible for our ability to experience joy and presence and rage and depression and everything in between.
• 1:59
  Okay.
• 1:59
  Wow.
• 2:00
  So it's responsible for a lot.
• 2:02
  Yeah, and it's important to know that the states of our nervous system, which we might get into later they change from moment to moment.
• 2:09
  You know, people tend to say, you know, I'm an anxious person." You might be an anxious person, but you're not necessarily anxious all the time.
• 2:17
  These states change from moment to moment, and they're supposed to.
• 2:20
  We come out of regulation into dysregulation and then back into regulation all the time.
• 2:27
  If you think about just a really simple example.
• 2:30
  Let's say it's a beautiful day out and you got your kids off to school and you're feeling good, and let's say you wanna go drive to get a coffee or meet a friend, and there's a song on the radio and you're feeling, like, great.
• 2:44
  And then you look in your rear view mirror and you see a police cruiser racing up behind you.
• 2:49
  Mm.
• 2:49
  You hear the sirens.
• 2:50
  Mm.
• 2:50
  Your hands start shaking.
• 2:51
  Your heart starts beating.
• 2:52
  You might start sweating, and you start worrying, like,"What did I do wrong?" You pull over.
• 2:58
  It races by you.
• 3:00
  You notice that your heart starts to calm down, and let's say you call a sibling or a friend and you say,"The scariest thing just happened to me.
• 3:07
  I almo- I thought I was getting pulled over.
• 3:09
  I don't know why." And this sounds like something a sibling would say, you know,"I'm surprised you didn't get pulled over.
• 3:15
  Your, your driving is terrible." And you kind of, like, start to feel yourself disconnecting maybe from that person, wondering why you bothered to call, you know, what was the point of that?
• 3:26
  And let's say then you pull into wherever you're meeting your friend, and your friend hears the story and gives you a hug and says,"Oh my God, that's so s- you know, I'm so sorry that happened," and you start to kinda come back into connection.
• 3:38
  So that's just an example, and that was maybe, what, in your life- Yeah seven or eight minutes- Right where we came in and out of regulation So it does change from moment to moment.
• 3:48
  So when people say to you, their pa- your patients say to you like,"I'm so anxious." Do you often try to then find out, like what is keeping them in states of dysregulation?
• 3:59
  Is that like where your mind goes?
• 4:01
  That's one of the places my- One of the places my mind goes, for sure.
• 4:05
  That's so interesting.
• 4:06
  That's such a great story, like, such a good way to visualize.
• 4:10
  Right.
• 4:10
  'Cause I can think of my day today and how I was in and out of regulation in, 13- Right minutes or less.
• 4:16
  Ri- absolutely.
• 4:17
  Absolutely.
• 4:18
  And I think that that's a good example, but to me, that would be like a very valid example of why you would start to panic in those situations.
• 4:27
  But I find myself, especially after becoming a mom, being in that state very often for either a really kind of silly reason, or I don't even, I can't even identify the reason, and I feel like I'm in that- fight or flight, panicked state, spiraling, and I don't even know exactly what got me into that situation That started happening to me a lot more after becoming a mom, you always hear,"Oh, your nervous system is very dysregulated.
• 4:59
  You can't get it back online.
• 5:00
  You can't figure it out." And I hear about that a lot of the times from other moms.
• 5:05
  So I wanna also tackle like why that sort of happens, and if that's something that other women feel too.
• 5:11
  Yeah, for sure.
• 5:13
  And I think I know that it's, first of all, not just women, but it's very common.
• 5:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:18
  I think we can get into a state of chronic dysregulation.
• 5:23
  Yeah, it's chronic.
• 5:23
  And- Right we are just sort of, We're just activated all the time, and once we're activated, everything feels bad, you know?
• 5:32
  And- It's, it's almost like the opposite, where you find yourself dysregulated, and then sometimes you're finding- Mm-hmm yourself regulated.
• 5:39
  And the goal is to obviously be regulated as much as possible with, of course, some of those- Mm-hmm dips and, you know, but it's natural to be able to come back out of it when you realize that you're not in danger.
• 5:50
  Right.
• 5:50
  I see reels, like, on Instagram all the time where it's like, I wish my nervous system could tell the difference between, like, being in actual danger or if, like, my baby's crying because they're awake," you know?
• 6:01
  It's like- Yeah your body stops being able to identify the actual danger- Right sometimes when you're just always in that state.
• 6:08
  Well, stay tuned,'cause we're gonna talk a little bit about that.
• 6:11
  I know.
• 6:11
  I wanna hear all about that.
• 6:12
  I'm fascinated- Yeah by- I know.
• 6:14
  I know.
• 6:14
  I mean, like a- How, how that even happens, you know?
• 6:16
  Like, a school pick-up line can be scary at times.
• 6:19
  But not scary enough to make me, not want to ever do it.
• 6:22
  Or feel like you're being- You know?
• 6:23
  Or feel chased chased by a lion, there has to be a difference.
• 6:26
  But somehow, us moms and us women, I think it's very common, like, we just get ourselves into a frenzy all the time, and it's hard to come back from it.
• 6:33
  There's a word I keep hearing or seeing on social media now called exhaust-overwhelmed-ulated.
• 6:39
  Oh.
• 6:39
  And it's I wrote it down, the feeling of being exhausted, overwhelmed, and overstimulated all at once.
• 6:44
  All together.
• 6:44
  That's literally- Yeah I've never heard that- Yeah but that could not identify me more.
• 6:49
  I know.
• 6:49
  Like, that's the state I'm in.
• 6:51
  Yeah.
• 6:51
  Can you- Exhaust-overwhelmed-ulated r- can you repeat that?
• 6:54
  Exhaust-overwhelmed-ulated.
• 6:54
  Is that it?
• 6:55
  I don't know.
• 6:56
  That's it.
• 6:56
  Yeah.
• 6:56
  I don't know.
• 6:57
  Okay.
• 6:57
  That's my new word.
• 6:58
  Yeah.
• 6:58
  Yeah.
• 6:59
  Oh, man.
• 7:00
  So before we go on, I just wanna say that what we're gonna talk about a lot today is based on the polyvagal theory, and that's the work of Dr.
• 7:07
  Stephen Porges, who's a researcher and professor of psychiatry.
• 7:11
  He presented his polyvagal theory in 1994, and then in 2011, a social worker named Deb Dana converted it into a clinical model.
• 7:21
  And while some of it is under scientific debate, it is still a widely used clinical framework in terms of u- understanding our adaptive reactions to stress.
• 7:31
  So I just wanted to- Yeah kind of say that's where a lot of this comes from.
• 7:35
  I lo- I love all the science.
• 7:36
  Yeah.
• 7:37
  Bring it on.
• 7:38
  Well, okay, so then speaking of science, we can't really talk about the nervous system without talking about the vagus nerve.
• 7:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:45
  It's the longest cranial nerve in our body, extending from our brain stem to our abdomen.
• 7:50
  It contains both parts of the parasympathetic nervous system.
• 7:54
  So if you've ever heard of rest and digest that's what the parasympathetic nervous system does.
• 8:00
  So the vagus nerve is responsible for down-regulating our response to stress.
• 8:05
  And it does lots of things in our body.
• 8:08
  From the diaphragm up, it does things like regulates our heart rate, our breathing rate pupil dilation and constriction.
• 8:15
  From the diaphragm down, it influences organs primarily responsible for digestion.
• 8:21
  And even though it's a nerve, it functions like a muscle.
• 8:24
  And what do we wanna do with muscles?
• 8:26
  We wanna tone them.
• 8:27
  So we might talk a little bit later about how some things we can do to tone the vagus nerve.
• 8:32
  And when you say tone the vagus nerve, does that mean, work it or- Mm-hmm we want, we wanna bring tone to it so it can work as well as it's supposed to.
• 8:43
  Okay.
• 8:43
  So it's not stuck in chronic dysregulation.
• 8:46
  Got it.
• 8:46
  I understand.
• 8:47
  I remember you had given me a tip once about, bouncing the tennis ball- Mm-hmm on the racket.
• 8:51
  That's right.
• 8:51
  Or there was, like, a couple of different tips to help- Yes work with the vagus nerve.
• 8:56
  Yeah.
• 8:56
  That, those are examples of, toning the nerve.
• 8:58
  Yeah.
• 8:59
  Yes.
• 8:59
  Um- And I have, um- Very interesting.
• 9:01
  So the components of the nervous system, I've heard it described as sort of your own personal security detail.
• 9:08
  If you see a celebrity walking around, let's say, New York City, you're gonna see a security team around that person.
• 9:15
  So your nervous system is sort of your, your own version of that.
• 9:21
  I've also heard it described as sort of a surveillance system so its only purpose is to keep you alive and safe, and a lot of what we experience in terms of anxiety, and depression, and panic, and fear, and hopelessness can be considered active self-protection.
• 9:39
  I was working with someone recently, and, he is going through a terrible breakup, and he is a n- like a nervous wreck.
• 9:46
  His hands are shaking.
• 9:48
  He can barely concentrate on work, and it's keeping him away from the grief of the relationship ending.
• 9:55
  So it's sort of protecting him'cause he doesn't have a big enough container yet to deal with the grief.
• 10:00
  That's just an example.
• 10:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:02
  And so in terms of the nervous system, everything starts here: our thoughts, our feelings, our behavior our sensations, how we see everything and everyone, and how we move through the world, also how we show up in relationships.
• 10:16
  So our mind is sort of narrating what's happening in the nervous system.
• 10:21
  That's why it's important to understand where we are, what state we're in in the nervous system, because then we can cultivate resources to shift that experience.
• 10:30
  Like I'd said, it's constantly looking for whether something or someone is safe, dangerous, or a life threat.
• 10:38
  And the way we do this is something that we have internally called neuroception.
• 10:43
  Neuroception is sort of considered a threat detector or a threat detection system.
• 10:49
  It is below conscious awareness.
• 10:51
  It's subcortical, so it's before the brain has even understood the meaning of an experience, it's determining if something is safe, dangerous, or life-threatening.
• 11:02
  So for example, if you look out in the yard and you see a deer sort of eating and grazing, and it stops and it kind of brings its head up, and let's say then it returns to eating, it had sensed something without seeing a bear, a car, anything.
• 11:19
  It sensed something.
• 11:20
  So that's an example of neuroception.
• 11:22
  So this happens with us, too.
• 11:24
  So it's reflexive.
• 11:26
  And without any awareness of any cue.
• 11:29
  It is heavily influenced by our trauma history and our experiences in the past.
• 11:36
  So a lot of times our nervous system will sort of operate not knowing the past is over and sort of living the present from the past, and it's looking at our internal database of all of our lived experiences.
• 11:49
  So it's an automatic interpretation of safety and danger.
• 11:54
  So for example, if abandonment was ever a wound for you, somebody's absence or their silence might feel unsafe to you now.
• 12:02
  If you have been reprimanded in your life in a way that felt really unsafe and uncomfortable, then a very direct email from a spouse or a partner or a boss saying,"I need to talk to you at 3:00 PM," can start to feel unsafe.
• 12:18
  If you, for example, did a lot of caregiving of a parent as a child, we have a lot of parentified children and adultified children.
• 12:25
  If you did a lot of caregiving for an adult, then a needy friend, for example, or a needy partner is going to feel maybe causing you to shut down Is it common that you don't always know, though, that that happened to you- Mm-hmm w- in your earlier years?
• 12:40
  Sure.
• 12:41
  But things are popping up now in your life that is putting you into this dysregulated state, and you're trying to figure out- Yes what it is.
• 12:49
  Yes.
• 12:50
  And that's, I don't mean to plug therapy, but Yeah.
• 12:54
  One of the benefits of, of working on therapy- Of u- yeah, uncovering some of that.
• 12:58
  Because you might- Uncovering not even know, to your point, you might not even know I don't know if trigger is the right word- Mm-hmm but, like, some of these trigger points where you don't even know what's getting you into this state, just something doesn't feel right, and you start spiraling, therapy for me has been very helpful in, like, uncovering the why, right?
• 13:15
  And connecting the dots.
• 13:17
  Exactly.
• 13:18
  And reminding yourself that, that was then, this is now.
• 13:22
  And there are o- tons of strategies and tons of work people can do in therapy to sort of uncouple the past from the present.
• 13:29
  So we're not walking around in a triggered state.
• 13:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 13:31
  Right.
• 13:32
  But that explanation is so meaningful because if something is occurring in your day-to-day that wouldn't necessarily prompt you to have this response- Mm-hmm understanding that it your body already made that mental note of it, like your body remembers, maybe, your mind sort of forgot.
• 13:49
  We said muscle- Yeah the muscle memory.
• 13:51
  Right.
• 13:51
  That's what I kept thinking when you used the word muscle.
• 13:54
  It's like muscle memory, in a good way and in a bad way.
• 13:57
  Right.
• 13:57
  Sometimes something could come up, and you're like, Your body reacts before you even have time to react, and it's because you've been there before.
• 14:05
  So your body's- Right just going to that state easily.
• 14:08
  Yeah.
• 14:08
  People talk about cellular memory.
• 14:10
  Right.
• 14:10
  And there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score, which is a book f- from Dr.
• 14:14
  Bessel van der Kolk on trauma.
• 14:17
  So yes, all of that is really important.
• 14:19
  'Cause we're not just reacting, we don't live in a vacuum.
• 14:22
  We come with a million experiences before this moment.
• 14:26
  So the way that we determine safety, danger, or life threat is we are constantly, again, looking for sensing cues in our environment, and we pick up on everything.
• 14:40
  Somebody just told me about this really interesting study where there were participants who were asked to smell the sweaty clothing of one group of runners and another group of skydivers.
• 14:53
  Oh.
• 14:53
  And this is very loose.
• 14:55
  I didn't read the study, but it's sort of paraphrased.
• 14:57
  When smelling the sweaty clothing of the skydivers, they reported a sort of, or saw brain activation and reported feeling anxious So consciously they smelled sweat, but unconsciously or subconsciously they smelled fear.
• 15:15
  And that kind of discusses the concept of a fear pheromone.
• 15:17
  I mean, animals smell fear all the time.
• 15:19
  So do we.
• 15:20
  We're not any different.
• 15:22
  We have the same nervous system, and we're t- going back hundreds of millions of years.
• 15:26
  When you get a, a direct email or you've, almost get in an accident and your nervous system starts dysregulating, that's the same nervous system that if you were a cave woman and a lion walked into your cave, we have the same responses.
• 15:43
  Now we get them from an email.
• 15:45
  Right.
• 15:46
  But, you know, But it's the same.
• 15:48
  Or potentially, like, a group of people that you have to be around in that pickup line that I'm referring to.
• 15:55
  That seems like a real challenge for you.
• 15:57
  I was gonna say, the pickup line is, must be very stressful.
• 15:59
  You said pickup line.
• 16:00
  The pickup line is so stressful.
• 16:01
  I've worked past it.
• 16:02
  But for, like, the longest time I was like,"No, you're taking the bus, not just for convenience factor, but I cannot stand in that pickup line with all of these people." Well- I'm glad that you made that choice.
• 16:13
  So another example of how we pick up on cues is in one of Deb Dana's books, there's an eye contact exercise, and it won't work as well with you two because I'm gonna walk you through it so you know it's coming.
• 16:25
  But if I were to look at you and I were to glare at you- or look you up and down, and you didn't know this was coming.
• 16:33
  Right.
• 16:33
  Just imagine what your neuroception would tell you about me.
• 16:36
  Am I safe or dangerous?
• 16:38
  You're a threat.
• 16:39
  Right.
• 16:39
  Yeah.
• 16:40
  If I look at you with a completely neutral expression- What does your nervous system tell you about me?
• 16:46
  And then if I look at you and I smile and I wave and I kinda gesture for you to come over here so I can hug you, what is your neuroception telling you about me in terms of safety or danger?
• 17:00
  So it's just really interesting, and there's so much m- more to this.
• 17:05
  There was a professor out of UCLA in the'70s, Mehrabian, I think was his name, Mehrabian, and he determined when people were talking about their feelings or attitudes, that 93% of communication is non-verbal.
• 17:20
  So 7% is verbal, that's the words that you use.
• 17:23
  38% is vocal, which is your voice's tone- Tone, right rate, inflection, rhythm, et cetera, and 55% is body language.
• 17:35
  So eye contact, where your feet are pointed in a room, if your arms are crossed, et cetera.
• 17:42
  So it's a massive part of communication, and our neuroception is picking up on all of it.
• 17:49
  Annie Sarnblad, who has done a ton of work on microexpressions, she reminds us that a smile is not really initiated in the upturned corners of your mouth.
• 17:59
  A smile is actually- Your eyes in your eyes and your upper cheeks.
• 18:03
  And so if I say,"Christina, it's really great to see you," and I give you just a little upturn of my mouth- Yeah, that's not doing it that's incongruent.
• 18:11
  So my words and my f- face don't match, and your neuroception is gonna pick up on that Do you think that- people are sophisticated enough to train their own body language to tell a story?
• 18:23
  That's a good question.
• 18:25
  I think our body shows what we're not saying a lot of the time.
• 18:29
  Yeah.
• 18:30
  Mm.
• 18:30
  I was gonna say- Yeah That's a really good answer if you're...
• 18:32
  Because if you think about it from the other person- Yeah if you're giving off these cues that are making someone else uncomfortable, it's most likely because you're uncomfortable, right?
• 18:42
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:42
  So if you're kind of crossing your arms, or if you have a weird expression on your face, it's probably because you're the one internalizing, and you're uncomfortable, and then that's sending a message to somebody else and making them uncomfortable.
• 18:54
  But it's gotta stem from something.
• 18:56
  It's interesting, there are some people who, you know, talk about dating or couples or couples therapy, and they say you're basically, your nervous system is dating their nervous system.
• 19:06
  Yes, that's- So, yeah that's true.
• 19:08
  Like, one of the worst things I hate when somebody will say, like,"I didn't say that.
• 19:13
  I didn't say anything." It's like, well, you don't have to say anything.
• 19:16
  Like, it's written all over your face and your body.
• 19:18
  And this is also, I think, why sometimes parents put in some work to teach kids, and t- and schools do this all the time.
• 19:25
  They'll say,"Look at my face right now.
• 19:28
  Do I look happy that you made that choice?" Or even, you know,"Look at my face right now," you know?
• 19:32
  Yeah.
• 19:33
  "I'm so happy you did," and the last thing I'll just say about, about body language is just this other really interesting tidbit about your palms.
• 19:40
  So palms are typically a signal of safety, and I think it's probably adaptive from our sort of evolution.
• 19:48
  If I, if you can see my palms, you know I'm not holding a weapon to hurt you, which is probably also why law enforcement says,"Show us your hands." Yeah.
• 19:57
  And so palms can be a signal of safety.
• 20:00
  I'm sort of reminded, I've worked with kids for a lot of years in a lot of different settings, and one of the interesting things about kids is when they either misbehave or they're having a problem, it touches a lot of hopelessness and powerlessness in parents and adults, and that creates a lot of"I'm gonna exert power over this." So for example, I worked with kids who were feeling unsafe, let's say, in a school building or in a therapeutic setting, and they'd wanna run out of the building, which is not safe because there's a street right there.
• 20:35
  And so what a lot of adults do is they get very stern and firm, and they have almost no expression or a grimace on their face, and they cross their arms and they block the door like that.
• 20:47
  That's not showing a kid that there's safety in the building.
• 20:50
  We had much more success when And we were still definitely blocking the door, but we would get down on one knee, you know, sort of eye level, and we would give a big smile and open our arms and sort of say like,"Come to me," you know, and see if we could get them to come and we could hug them because that feels safer That's so interesting.
• 21:11
  So it's like every time your body is reacting, it's always r- looking for safety.
• 21:15
  It's always trying to come home to safety.
• 21:17
  You keep using that, term over and over again, whether it's, like, with kids or with us, we're looking to be safe.
• 21:23
  And even when you're looking at other people's expressions, like the most approachable person is gonna look the safest.
• 21:28
  And that's a really good segue into maybe talking about the three main states of the nervous system, because when we're in some of these stress responses or some of these survival modes, we're not feeling safe.
• 21:40
  And even on a cellular level, we're not in a sort of a repairing and healing, resting, and digesting state.
• 21:48
  So we are always looking for safety.
• 21:50
  That's, I think, the most preferred and ideal state we can be in.
• 21:54
  So there are six states of the nervous system that I can touch on.
• 21:57
  There are three main states and three blended or hybrid states.
• 22:02
  They're not strictly separate.
• 22:05
  They can shift very quickly, as we saw in some of those examples- Mm-hmm based on context.
• 22:10
  One is not better than the other.
• 22:12
  Some feel better but one is not better than the other.
• 22:16
  So the first one I think I might talk about is called the dorsal vagal complex.
• 22:23
  This one is where we have sort of an I can't energy, like I just can't do it.
• 22:31
  Seeking safety by disconnecting and immobilizing, and through energy conservation.
• 22:37
  So if you see an animal walking toward the woods with prey in its mouth, and that prey is sort of flopped over, that animal is in the dorsal vagal state.
• 22:48
  Is that the bottom?
• 22:49
  Well, we're trying to not have it in a hierarchy- because one isn't better than the other.
• 22:53
  Okay.
• 22:53
  Okay.
• 22:53
  But, but it is the bottom in terms it's the most extreme form- Okay of self-protection.
• 22:59
  Okay, so that's...
• 23:00
  Okay.
• 23:00
  Exactly.
• 23:00
  So this almost seems like depression.
• 23:03
  Yes.
• 23:03
  So w- if we're s- feeling safe and we have part of the...
• 23:08
  This is part of the parasympathetic nervous system.
• 23:10
  So if we have this online and we're feeling safe, it can feel tranquil or almost meditative, right?
• 23:19
  If you think about immobilization, parasympathetic, maybe you're getting a massage and you're sort of not moving.
• 23:25
  When you're feeling unsafe, this starts to feel like dissociation- Defeat withdrawal- right depression, sadness, despair lives here.
• 23:36
  There's not a, a lot of energy running through your system.
• 23:39
  The world can feel empty and dark.
• 23:41
  You can feel unreachable in this state.
• 23:43
  And again, each state is adaptive and serves a role, so they're not linear.
• 23:49
  What this might sound like is,"I'll never have a healthy relationship," or,"Everyone leaves me, so what's the point in trying?" Or,"I'm so tired I can't move." And we'll talk a little bit more about how you can kind of listen in for what state you're in when you hear yourself or somebody else making these comments.
• 24:10
  Some of the interesting things that are associated in terms of the body with this state are decreased heart rate, decreased blood pressure, decreased muscle tone decreased attunement to the human voice is an interesting one decreased immune response, and an increase in painkilling endorphins that numb and raise the pain threshold.
• 24:32
  So in that prey in the predator's mouth, mercifully, that's what's happening with that animal.
• 24:39
  And when people are in this state and they say to me,"I feel numb," I say,"I bet you do," because those same painkilling endorphins are running through your body, too.
• 24:50
  And then the next one is the sympathetic nervous system.
• 24:52
  You've heard of, of fight or flight.
• 24:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:55
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:55
  And just so you know the distinction, you, you probably already have thought about this, but fight is moving toward a threat- and Flight is moving away from a a threat.
• 25:04
  So you're seeking safety.
• 25:06
  So whereas the dorsal vagal was seeking safety by immobilizing and conserving energy, in the sympathetic nervous system, seeking safety is through mobilization and action.
• 25:17
  Where there, in dorsal was not a lot of energy, there's a lot of energy in sympathetic nervous system.
• 25:23
  Okay.
• 25:23
  Then I wonder if that term gets used a little too frequently,'cause I feel like a lot of people say that they're in...
• 25:30
  You know, you feel the feeling of fight or flight, So there's survival through movement or action.
• 25:35
  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 25:35
  There's an I must or I have to energy to this.
• 25:38
  In terms of the body, there's increase in heart rate, increase in adrenaline.
• 25:43
  There's a lot of cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine running through your body when you're in fight or flight and increase in defensive responses.
• 25:51
  You feel very on, like all the time.
• 25:53
  You feel very on.
• 25:54
  Right.
• 25:54
  So when you're safe and you have some sympathetic running through you, it can feel like energy.
• 26:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:00
  It can feel like you're being active.
• 26:02
  It can feel like you're motivated.
• 26:04
  When you're feeling unsafe, it's gonna feel like fight or flight, anxiety, panic, irritation, Rage Like very ungrounded Anger Right?
• 26:12
  This is where a lot of people live.
• 26:14
  Yes.
• 26:14
  A lot of people are sympathetic dominant.
• 26:15
  A lot of people live- Yeah and they're probably safe, but they have a feeling as though they're not safe.
• 26:21
  Right.
• 26:21
  Something is- Triggering triggering them- Yeah.
• 26:24
  Mm-hmm or eliciting this unsafe response, and then you live in this for far too long.
• 26:29
  Correct.
• 26:30
  That's exactly right.
• 26:31
  And so what this might sound like in the wild is"I need to figure this out and fix it as soon as possible," or,"I can't relax," or,"I don't even know what happened.
• 26:40
  They must be mad." You can hear that energy, that, like, I must, I have to energy.
• 26:46
  And then flight or fleeing is moving away from a threat.
• 26:50
  So it looks slightly different.
• 26:52
  You can see workaholism, overthinking perfectionism, hypervigilance.
• 26:59
  Avoidance is a big one here in flight when you see somebody doom scrolling on their phone for hours- Mm-hmm.
• 27:05
  Mm-hmm and you wonder what that's about.
• 27:08
  So you might be numbing here to distract or to flee.
• 27:13
  Are they together a lot?
• 27:14
  Because we use the phrase fight or flight- Right as one state.
• 27:18
  Right.
• 27:19
  But then you kind of broke them down.
• 27:20
  Right.
• 27:21
  So you have fight, which we, I think makes a lot of sense, and then flight.
• 27:25
  But do people live in both at the same time?
• 27:28
  Yes.
• 27:29
  It, it's all under- Are we using it wrong?
• 27:30
  Are we using that t- that phrase wrong maybe?
• 27:33
  No, because they're both, I think, under the umbrella of the sympathetic nervous system.
• 27:37
  Okay.
• 27:37
  So if you were to say,"I'm in my sympathetic m- I'm sympathetic dominant right now." Yeah, that the umbrella.
• 27:42
  That's the umbrella.
• 27:43
  Right.
• 27:43
  Okay.
• 27:43
  Right.
• 27:43
  Okay.
• 27:44
  Yeah, exactly.
• 27:45
  Exactly.
• 27:46
  So it, the, again, what this might sound like is,"If I slow down, I'm gonna get behind.
• 27:51
  I can't stop.
• 27:52
  I can't relax.
• 27:53
  I have to get away from him or her or this or them." And just so you know, any objectively neutral event is going to feel different if you're...
• 28:02
  And I just described three stress responses, right?
• 28:04
  Dorsal vagal, fight, flight, or- Mm-hmm two, two states, dorsal vagal and sympathetic.
• 28:09
  And based on the state you're in, any objectively neutral event is going to feel different.
• 28:15
  If you have to go to the dry cleaner and you're feeling like you're sympathetic dominant, you know, what you're gonna say to yourself is, why is everyone here?
• 28:26
  Why doesn't anybody iron their own clothes anymore?
• 28:28
  Why am, why can I never find a par-" You know, on and on.
• 28:32
  You know,"If they, if that person backs up and hits my car, I'm calling the poli-" that kind of thing.
• 28:36
  If you're in dorsal vagal and you're going through an objectively neutral event, like going to the dry cleaner, you might say,"I'm never gonna pa- find a parking spot.
• 28:44
  I'm not even going.
• 28:46
  Forget it." So what is the state that you just are going to the dry cleaners to pick up your clothes, and then you're moving on with your day?
• 28:52
  Like, what state is that?
• 28:54
  I'm so glad you asked that, so that is our most regulated state.
• 28:58
  I don't know,'cause I don't live there.
• 29:00
  I know.
• 29:00
  I, I mean, I can tell you what I've read about it, but like I've never- Not speaking from personal- Yeah, yeah.
• 29:06
  Personal experience or anything.
• 29:08
  The book says, the book says...
• 29:09
  But tell us what, what's her name again?
• 29:11
  Dana something.
• 29:12
  Dana.
• 29:12
  Yeah, Dana.
• 29:13
  So Dana, tell us.
• 29:14
  So the other part of our parasympathetic nervous system is called the ventral vagal state.
• 29:19
  This is our most regulated state.
• 29:22
  This is what feels the best.
• 29:24
  This is, I've heard it described as in the terms of Goldilocks, everything feels good here.
• 29:30
  Everything feels just right here.
• 29:32
  This is where we're calm and open and curious and present and grounded.
• 29:37
  This is where joy lives.
• 29:39
  What it sounds like is I want a partner or a job who blank, and I know I can have that.
• 29:46
  My pace is just right.
• 29:48
  I emailed them a week ago, and I can wait for a response.
• 29:52
  So that sort of calm energy is sort of what you're talking about here.
• 29:56
  There are different chemicals running through your body here.
• 29:59
  So before there was a lot of cortisol and adrenaline and, a- and norepinephrine, and here there is a lot of dopamine, which is the reward chemical, oxytocin, which is bonding and connection, serotonin, which is mood stabilizing, and endorphins, like if you think of the, a runner's high.
• 30:17
  So lots of things feel good in this state.
• 30:19
  When we talk about trying to regulate, this is where it is.
• 30:22
  And we all have this experience, some of us more often than others.
• 30:25
  And then I wanna just talk quickly about the three blended states,'cause we also experience these all the time.
• 30:32
  So when we have sort of a blend of the ventral vagal, which is the most relaxed state, and the sympathetic, which is mobilization, Where that shows up is when we play, when we're doing sports, when we're dancing, when we're performing.
• 30:48
  Another one is when we have both parts of the parasympathetic nervous system, the ventral vagal and the dorsal online.
• 30:55
  That's stillness, cause we're immobile but we're safe.
• 30:58
  That can also happen during intimacy.
• 31:00
  And then there's one that feels a lot less comfortable, which is the dorsal vagal and the sympathetic together.
• 31:06
  Anxiety and depression together.
• 31:08
  Yeah.
• 31:08
  Right?
• 31:09
  And it's called freeze.
• 31:10
  The way a lot of people describe it, is when if you were a car, the gas pedal and the brake pedal would be pressed down at the same time.
• 31:17
  So there's sort of immobilization, but the need to mobilize and it can be really uncomfortable.
• 31:23
  This is where we see ourselves having difficulty making decisions and thinking, feeling stuck, feeling trapped, shutting down, feeling frozen, feeling panicked.
• 31:34
  And another sort of interesting thing about this is, something we call functional freeze, and I see a lot of women in what what we call functional freeze.
• 31:43
  They're sort of a tired but wired feeling.
• 31:45
  Yes.
• 31:46
  You're sort of doing all of your responsibilities, but then at the end you might come home and just collapse.
• 31:52
  You might have, feel sort of psychologically immobilized and later on maybe physically immobilized once you get done with your routine.
• 32:01
  But there's an emotional disconnection in there as well.
• 32:03
  Freeze is also where what we see with a deer literally in the headlights.
• 32:08
  So what you're seeing in them is...
• 32:11
  Well, you can't see the inside, but there's a lot of activation on the inside, and on the outside there's what we call tonic immobility.
• 32:18
  So with us, our bodies keep moving, but we can feel that, that immobilization.
• 32:24
  And then the other thing I just wanted to mention, which is not a state of the nervous system, but it is a stress response, is something called the fawn response.
• 32:33
  It's a common response that's sort of intended to neutralize danger- and sort of keep you safe with an unsafe person or in an unsafe environment.
• 32:43
  So it can be the easiest to miss.
• 32:46
  It can be an expected social behavior in Western culture.
• 32:50
  It can even be taught mostly to women and girls.
• 32:52
  Be agreeable.
• 32:54
  There's people pleasing.
• 32:55
  There's a lack of identity.
• 32:57
  There's saying yes when you wanna say no.
• 33:00
  There can be a lack of boundaries here.
• 33:03
  Dr.
• 33:04
  Arielle Schwartz actually defines it as abandoning yourself for the purpose of attending to the needs of others if you are fawning and you're in your sympathetic nervous system, so that sort of activation, that fight or flight activation, you might agree to something and then drop everything right away to make sure it gets done.
• 33:21
  If you're in freeze, you might say yes and then get stuck or trapped, like not know w- how to find your way through that.
• 33:30
  Um, and if you're in dorsal and you might sort of find yourself saying yes to whatever you think the situation requires of you, but then just sort of shutting down or dissociating, disconnecting.
• 33:42
  I wonder if your society and maybe men are conditioned or children are conditioned to seeing somebody fawn on somebody else.
• 33:51
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:51
  So if you see somebody who's maybe slightly more boundaried and assertive, if you then take that as an unsafe person and somebody fawning as a safe person.
• 34:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:00
  Like, I wonder if those two get- I think women are becoming more comfortable maybe doing less of this fawning.
• 34:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 34:06
  But, I certainly always thought, you know, you have to just be agreeable, figure it out on the back end.
• 34:13
  Don't be inflexible, try to be malleable.
• 34:15
  Like, those are all things that I thought were valuable- Right you know, qualities to be had.
• 34:21
  But- apparently it's not good on your nervous system to do that.
• 34:26
  Well, it's not good if you're feeling unsafe.
• 34:28
  Plenty of people can be flexible and boundaried.
• 34:32
  So there is a way to hold a boundary and do something for someone.
• 34:36
  We see this too in- if you've ever seen a movie, let's say, or you know of a family with, like, an abusive parent, and you see, let's say, the oldest child come home from school and start cleaning and cooking for kids, Everything that they do is to stay safe in that environment.
• 34:56
  I wanted to give you a couple of things that we probably hear ourselves saying a lot.
• 35:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:00
  Yeah.
• 35:01
  And if now that you know a little bit about some of these states, you can kind of focus in on what, what you're saying to yourself.
• 35:08
  Or if you're in relationship with someone and they say it, you might have a little bit more of an idea.
• 35:14
  If someone says,"You know, everything feels impossible," or like,"Whatever, I don't care.
• 35:21
  Do what you want," or why doesn't anything slow down?
• 35:25
  I can't, I can't catch up.
• 35:26
  I can't...
• 35:28
  I'm falling behind.
• 35:29
  I can't catch a break," you can feel in the first few there was sort of that dorsal- Mm-hmm kind of collapse in it, and in the other ones, there was sort of that activation.
• 35:40
  "I can't, but I have to.""It's never gonna happen for me.
• 35:43
  Everything feels so hard," or,"I'm so exhausted I can't sleep," that might be m- more of a freeze one, right?
• 35:53
  And j- and getting back to the one Christina wanted to know about the more regulated state, so if we say, like, I'm running out of time," that's sort of more, activated, more sympathetic dominant.
• 36:04
  If we say,"It's over, I've missed my time," that can kinda feel like dorsal.
• 36:10
  And if you were in ventral, you might say,"I have plenty of time." So your language is interesting and, and what I w- in my work, I do focus a lot on people's language.
• 36:21
  And then getting back to sort of, there was a question at the beginning when you said something about your nervous system.
• 36:29
  We see a lot of funny things on Instagram or social media now about like,"How do I tell my nervous system that I'm not being hunted for sport?" Yes.
• 36:37
  Right.
• 36:37
  "How do I tell my nervous system- Right the difference between being kidnapped and the school pickup line?" Yeah, exactly.
• 36:42
  And so it's kind of a trick question because we can't really tell it, we have to show it.
• 36:47
  This is all happening in the body, so we have to use the language of the body.
• 36:52
  We have to show our nervous system that we're safe.
• 36:56
  So we can talk a, a little bit about- Yeah, so how do you do that?
• 37:00
  Yeah.
• 37:01
  You have your kid take the bus and then you wait- at home with your iced coffee.
• 37:04
  Right.
• 37:04
  "Hi." Right.
• 37:05
  No.
• 37:06
  So one of the ways we can do that is we can orient to the present.
• 37:09
  So first of all, if we look around, and I have, I have my clients do this a lot of times, like just look around the room, notice that it's daytime.
• 37:18
  In this room, we can see the horizon.
• 37:21
  And we're looking around because when we're stressed or in a stress response, we get sort of tunnel vision.
• 37:26
  100%.
• 37:27
  So even- Right just the fact that we're looking around can kind of let our body know that we're safe.
• 37:33
  Like, you're actually here.
• 37:34
  I'm here.
• 37:34
  The present.
• 37:35
  Right.
• 37:36
  Exactly.
• 37:37
  A lot of those mindfulness techniques, like when was the last time that you ever noticed what your back felt like up against a chair like that?
• 37:44
  Right.
• 37:45
  People are like,"I didn't even realize-" You're so away.
• 37:46
  Yeah, you're so in your own head about a million other things, you don't stop to notice what's here- Right what you're feeling, sensory right now.
• 37:53
  Right.
• 37:53
  Exactly.
• 37:54
  You can notice the temperature of the room.
• 37:56
  Right now, if I were to stop talking, I can hear...
• 38:00
  Banging.
• 38:01
  The banging.
• 38:01
  The, the roofing that they're doing.
• 38:03
  There's also a humming, it might be like an air conditioner- Mm-hmm condenser- Mm-hmm compressor, whatever.
• 38:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:09
  You know, so bringing ourself into the present because in the present, nothing bad is happening.
• 38:14
  And also anything that we do that feels good, that one- when we do it, we feel present.
• 38:20
  You know, and anything grounding, like gardening or sitting with our feet in the grass with- Just like taking your shoes off.
• 38:26
  Yeah.
• 38:26
  Taking your shoes off.
• 38:26
  Being where your feet are.
• 38:27
  Exactly.
• 38:28
  Exactly.
• 38:29
  Wow.
• 38:29
  There are many, many more of these.
• 38:31
  When we talk about practices that can support regulation and flexibility of your nervous system.
• 38:37
  So anything with rhythm.
• 38:39
  So bouncing a ball.
• 38:40
  This is also great if you're with a kid who's dysregulated, and it's called co-regulation.
• 38:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:45
  You know, so bouncing a ball, let's say, on the sidewalk or on a driveway.
• 38:49
  Using a rocking chair, or a lot of times office chairs have the ability to kind of go back and forth now.
• 38:55
  And the reason that's regulating is, when they are babies and they're crying- Mm-hmm we pick them up and we- We rock them rock them.
• 39:01
  And what we're doing is we're bringing them into our rhythm because we're bigger with a bigger nervous system.
• 39:07
  So that can be really regulating to us.
• 39:11
  Again, anything with rhythm, so dancing, singing, rolling our wrists, our ankles, and our shoulders around can be helpful.
• 39:19
  Humming, gargling, and voo breathing.
• 39:22
  Voo breathing is just saying the word V-O-O on the exhale.
• 39:25
  So, like, voo.
• 39:27
  And all the, those three things actually cause vibration here in the neck, which stimulates, tones the vagus nerve.
• 39:34
  Wow, okay.
• 39:35
  So this is toning the muscle.
• 39:36
  That's toning.
• 39:37
  That's one of the ones, toning the muscle.
• 39:39
  There's a million breathing exercises, four, seven, eight breathing, box breathing.
• 39:45
  Sometimes people are really dysregulated, so I'll just say to them,"Just try to exhale more than you inhale."'Cause your bo- your brain is sort of monitoring your carbon dioxide levels.
• 39:54
  These are all things that you can do and nobody would notice you were doing them either.
• 39:58
  Right.
• 39:59
  They seem pretty private.
• 40:00
  So if you had to do it, it- Right amongst other people- and there's no one way to do this.
• 40:07
  You know, if you are in your sympathetic nervous system, logic may dictate that a high intensity workout might feel better.
• 40:16
  But if you say to me,"I'm so activated and I'm so in fight or flight, I'm gonna go do yoga," I would say whatever works best for your body.
• 40:25
  Is it you find what works for you?
• 40:28
  Like, you might have a couple of these tools in your back pocket that calm you down or get you back to the state that you wanna be in?
• 40:35
  Or do you recommend kind of having multiple, where then you can pull what you need?
• 40:42
  Well, what I usually do is I will text my clients a whole long list of things and say,"Could you try a few?" You know, somebody might say to me,"I was so dysregulated, I was so activated, I was so in fight or flight, and, you know, I wanted to really lay down and meditate, but, like, I couldn't get my body to do that." Right.
• 41:00
  And I would say,"That makes total sense,'cause you have too much energy in your system to feel comfortable laying down.
• 41:07
  But if you really wanna meditate, how about a walking meditation?
• 41:11
  Or how about a meditation once you're more regulated?" So it's really not everything will work for everyone.
• 41:18
  Right.
• 41:19
  So you kind of have to find the, what works for you- and then be able to pull them.
• 41:23
  I find it very hard when I'm in any of the two, I guess, tough states where you're feeling very low or you're feeling very wired.
• 41:32
  I find it very hard to pull those, like, at my disposal when I need them.
• 41:38
  That's the truth.
• 41:39
  I know the tools, but I can't access them when I'm in that state.
• 41:44
  You know what I mean?
• 41:45
  Mm-hmm.
• 41:45
  There's a disconnect from that, where I can feel myself anxious, wired, and I know I should try to sit down and breathe, or I know I should y- ground myself, but I just, like, can't even get there.
• 41:57
  Well, you just bring up something that I think I forgot to say, which is important, that when you're in one of those stress responses, you're gonna notice that your executive function is offline.
• 42:09
  It, you're offline, right.
• 42:10
  Exactly.
• 42:11
  Yes.
• 42:11
  That's, yeah.
• 42:11
  So that's your frontal lobe.
• 42:12
  Right.
• 42:12
  And so your ability to make decisions, think clearly, plan, organize, prioritize are gone.
• 42:20
  So then it would make sense that you're having trouble accessing your toolkit.
• 42:23
  So what do you do then?
• 42:24
  So the good news about a lot of this stuff is- I don't wanna sort of sound reductive, but you don't necessarily need to think about it.
• 42:33
  If you were to just go out on your driveway and I worked with someone yesterday and it was a beautiful day, and I said,"If you could just go out on your driveway for three minutes, just notice the sun on the back of your shoulders." Mm-hmm.
• 42:47
  You know, and I've worked with her before with something similar, and she said,"You know, I found myself just, I decided to walk and go get the mail." She doesn't have a driveway this long, but it's long enough, and there's been another day where she kind of picked up the pace a little bit.
• 43:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 43:00
  And that felt better for her.
• 43:01
  I find it easier, I'm looking at this from, like, a mom perspective, right?
• 43:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 43:06
  A mother perspective.
• 43:07
  I find it easier to do those things when I have to worry about myself, right?
• 43:12
  So if I'm anxious and I'm agitated and in a bad state, I can step outside.
• 43:19
  I can ground myself.
• 43:20
  I can s- sit down and breathe, or I can get myself back online.
• 43:25
  But when I'm with the kids and there's so much chaos going on, and I feel like a lion's chasing me because I'm not only worrying about myself, I'm worrying about the dangers for the kids.
• 43:37
  I'm so exhausterwelmulated.
• 43:38
  That too.
• 43:39
  That too.
• 43:40
  That I can't access those things because there's so much going on.
• 43:45
  I'm, like, not only worrying about myself, I'm worrying about them.
• 43:48
  There's noise.
• 43:49
  It's chaotic.
• 43:50
  Someone's screaming.
• 43:52
  Like, it is so hard for me.
• 43:54
  So that's when I feel offline the most, and I can't- And it's hard to get back online I cannot even get online.
• 44:00
  Right.
• 44:00
  Well, and honestly, it may not even...
• 44:03
  Like, if this room were to fill up with smoke right now It's not gonna help any of us to stay calm.
• 44:10
  Right.
• 44:10
  We have to- That's when I said some of these states don't feel good, but these are very necessary adaptive states.
• 44:17
  Right, right.
• 44:17
  So it may be that in those moments you need to stay on guard.
• 44:21
  If you're with little kids by a swimming pool, I'm never gonna say to you,"You know what?
• 44:25
  I think you should close your eyes- And just calm down and like calm down." Right, right.
• 44:29
  You're on guard.
• 44:29
  It may be that you do your best to breathe from your belly, your diaphragm, you know, while you're in this state if you can, and then when the threat is over, when the kids are out of the pool, let's say, or whatever is happening, then you're able to bring yourself back in.
• 44:46
  But how do you regulate yourself?
• 44:49
  Like, a trigger for me is, getting everybody out of the house.
• 44:52
  I have no idea how T does it,'cause she has to get, like, four people out of the house every single day.
• 44:56
  Some of these things seem so silly.
• 44:58
  Like, they don't even seem like real problems, but they are.
• 45:00
  You know, it's just something that you are tasked with doing every single day.
• 45:04
  So getting everybody out of the house is chaotic at my house.
• 45:09
  It's, I have two little kids.
• 45:10
  It's stressful, literally, to get everybody out of the house.
• 45:14
  There's a lot on my plate.
• 45:16
  I'm trying to, round everybody up, have what we need, be prepared, I'm responsible for, like, making sure everybody is, safely put in the car seat.
• 45:25
  I'm making sure while I'm putting one in the car seat, the other one isn't darting off and doing something.
• 45:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:29
  So I find myself in those situations feeling like I am literally being attacked by a lion at that point.
• 45:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 45:37
  And that's when I kind of explode usually.
• 45:40
  Like, I cannot regulate myself.
• 45:42
  I'm so stressed out.
• 45:43
  I know I'm stressed.
• 45:45
  Like, I know.
• 45:45
  It's not that I'm not aware of the stress.
• 45:47
  I just, I can't access any of the things I need to calm myself down- Mm-hmm at that point in time.
• 45:53
  So there's moments like that that aren't, quote-unquote, like, life or death.
• 45:59
  You know, it's not like you're by the swimming pool.
• 46:01
  Of course, I would, like, lose my mind in those situations, too, but, points like that throughout the day where I'm just like- Mm-hmm this is crazy.
• 46:08
  It seems to be when I'm trying to get the kids out of the house and when I'm trying to get everybody settled for bed.
• 46:13
  It's just chaos.
• 46:14
  My mind is all over the place, and I don't know how to ever get out of fight or flight at that point.
• 46:20
  It almost just seems like, I have to ride it, and then I can come down from it, but it's very unhealthy.
• 46:26
  I think I hate having my kids see me in that state of stress- Mm-hmm over something that's not stressful.
• 46:32
  Like, we're not by a pool.
• 46:33
  Yeah.
• 46:34
  I think anybody can understand that.
• 46:35
  Yeah, but it's still, but you're, you're naming two transition points of the day, and I think that transition points are stressful.
• 46:41
  Like, even the coming home from school- Yes in the afternoon before you transition into the afternoon activities, and I think that- Something that it, like Lindsay said, the, one of the first things she said in the episode today was you can get your kids off and be driving, and then something happens.
• 46:57
  Like, I don't think that you're meant to live like this, like a flat line.
• 47:01
  Right.
• 47:02
  Like, I think you're supposed to have, like, these ebbs and flows in the day.
• 47:05
  Yeah, and you said that people- So I guess- you can come in and out of these pretty rapidly.
• 47:09
  And that's kind of how I feel.
• 47:10
  And maybe I never thought about it like that until now, that it seems like I could be regulated, regulated, regulated, and then when there's one of these transitions, I'm completely dysregulated, and then once it's transitioned, I'm, I can regulate myself again.
• 47:25
  But I guess I can't regulate myself through- Right those transitions.
• 47:28
  One idea could be to try to go into that state, you know, c- go into that situation more regulated.
• 47:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 47:36
  Like, can you preload?
• 47:37
  Can you- I t- I've tried those.
• 47:39
  Right.
• 47:39
  I have, I have- been tasked with that before, and I can, and it just seems like I can hold on for as long as I can- Mm-hmm and then I'm off.
• 47:48
  Yeah.
• 47:48
  Like, it's like I c- so maybe if I'm, if I'm going in happier, like if I...
• 47:53
  We always said, what was the when we had Christine Lang on and we talked about, like- Prepared being prepay- preparing yourself- Yes to go through these, where you're like- Pause, prepare you ha- right, you have these kind of tools- Yeah at your disposal, where you're like,"Okay, I'm gonna have, like, a little dark chocolate, a little treat for myself.
• 48:10
  I'll listen to something to calm me down." That will work, right?
• 48:14
  But then it works until it doesn't work.
• 48:16
  Right.
• 48:17
  The other thing that you could think about, I'd be curious what you're telling yourself about these times of day.
• 48:24
  You know?
• 48:24
  What the narrative is, because the narrative- I'm going into them stressed, I could tell you that.
• 48:28
  Exactly.
• 48:28
  Because it's because of the muscle memory of like, okay, well these have always been a hard point of the day.
• 48:36
  Right.
• 48:36
  So I- it's like my mind- It's the past and body is trained now to go into those so stressed out already, and I'm already reg- I'm trying to regulate- like going in,'cause I'm already stressed.
• 48:46
  This is so crazy,'cause this is exactly what you said word for word in the beginning of the episode.
• 48:50
  Yeah.
• 48:50
  You're living the present from the past.
• 48:51
  I'm living the p- yes, exactly.
• 48:52
  And the messages that you're telling- Yes yourself- Correct.
• 48:55
  And so- Right.
• 48:55
  Yes messages that you learned from the past.
• 48:56
  Right.
• 48:56
  So some of your work might be to uncouple the past from the present there- Mm-hmm and sort of become really aware of what that narrative is.
• 49:04
  If you wake up and you're like,"Holy shit, I gotta go," you know,"It's a shit storm again." Yep, yep.
• 49:09
  Right.
• 49:09
  Yes.
• 49:09
  You know, like you're already priming yourself for what that's gonna be like.
• 49:15
  And you had actually said something a little earlier where you were like, you tell yourself some things, right?
• 49:20
  And sometimes I'm a very vocal person, so when I'm- Mm going through something, like even to my husband, I notice that I'll say, it's great, right, it's a nice thing to be able to vocalize how you're feeling, but I almost think it makes you live in that place when you're always vocalizing it, when I'm like,"Ugh, this is gonna be stressful right now." Mm-hmm.
• 49:40
  And then it's like you're programming yourself to stay s- in the stressful situation, instead of just kind of like swallowing it down and just being like, okay- we don't have to talk about everything.
• 49:50
  I think that's...
• 49:51
  I almost got too comfortable vocalizing, because it almost like makes you live in that space.
• 49:57
  Well, it, it's sort of like an affirmation in that way.
• 49:58
  And you're like saying it out loud.
• 49:59
  Yes, it's an affirmation.
• 50:00
  Yeah.
• 50:00
  Like- So like even if- Right you were to play around with like I'm gonna go in with what's called, the not knowing mind.
• 50:06
  Right.
• 50:06
  I'm gonna go in with just I'm gonna see what this would be like for me if I drop the narrative.
• 50:12
  I still have a lot to do.
• 50:13
  I'm gonna see if I can drop the narrative- Yeah and just try that.
• 50:16
  You know, there's a lot of things that- That could try to shift this for you Yeah You know?
• 50:22
  That's very interesting.
• 50:23
  Yeah.
• 50:23
  Yeah.
• 50:24
  If you're gonna tell yourself a lie, tell yourself a good lie.
• 50:27
  Yeah.
• 50:28
  We don't.
• 50:28
  Our brains are- Yeah I think- Our brains are smarter than our- wired to be negative.
• 50:31
  Yeah And I think that is protective.
• 50:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 50:34
  If we go worst case scenario, it helps us stay safe.
• 50:37
  Yes.
• 50:37
  It's probably rooted- Yes in a lot of what we're talking about.
• 50:40
  Yes.
• 50:40
  So then y- your hard parts of the days are always the parts that you feel like pose a threat to- Yes the kids.
• 50:47
  The transition here, the out the door here, the going here, the they need to sleep, otherwise if they're not going to sleep, they're not gonna be safe, or, you know, all these different things.
• 50:57
  Yes.
• 50:58
  Thank God we have a specialist- I know here and a- Yeah therapist available for you.
• 51:03
  Well, I'm sure that other people can relate to that.
• 51:05
  Oh, please.
• 51:05
  You know?
• 51:05
  Because- Yes like, we know especially with kids, like, transitions are tricky, and it's, you know, there's, there's a lot of responsibility on the mom, the parents And now there's so much pressure to stay regulated.
• 51:19
  Like, now I have that in the back of my mind also, where it's like I don't know if our parents had the pressure to stay regulated.
• 51:28
  They were just probably able to go through the motions and maybe not stay regulated, and then just went back to- Well, look what happened to the offspring Well- Of that generation, you know?
• 51:37
  I'm saying that's, yes.
• 51:38
  It's not a good thing.
• 51:38
  I know, but I'm saying that's also now in the back of my mind.
• 51:42
  Now I'm not only trying to stay regulated for my own self, feel the pressure to stay regulated and not have that sort of explosion in front of the kids because I'm worried about what it's teaching them and what it's doing to their- Right nervous systems.
• 51:56
  Right.
• 51:56
  So it's just like a whole cycle where- Right I get myself all wound up around these things, but then once they pass, it passes, yeah.
• 52:06
  Lindsey's like,"I've heard this once or twice before." There may be some work you can do around this and even the pressure piece that you're talking about is a piece of work.
• 52:16
  Yeah.
• 52:17
  To sort of change how that feels in your body.
• 52:21
  Mm-hmm.
• 52:21
  You know?
• 52:22
  I believe in rupture and repair with kids.
• 52:24
  Yeah, yeah.
• 52:24
  So if you freak out, you're able to come back in, in a responsible way, not l- not unload on them- Yeah but sort of talk about what happened there and, I even think understanding that this is all normal- Yeah is also just very helpful.
• 52:38
  So maybe for our listeners, sometimes if you beat yourself up over how you react to certain things, like it's very normal.
• 52:45
  It's not normal to always live in a stressed state, but it's part of our biology to be stressed at different points and it's okay.
• 52:53
  Absolutely.
• 52:54
  So I think even just knowing that, that's helpful to know.
• 52:58
  Yes.
• 52:58
  You know?
• 52:59
  I think so too.
• 52:59
  And I lived in this state for many years.
• 53:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:04
  And I don't live in it all the time anymore because I put in a lot of work- Mm-hmm to figure out- Mm-hmm well, why was it so stressful to transfer?
• 53:13
  Why was it so stressful to, have the kids home?
• 53:16
  Why is that so stressful when we're all around the kitchen at like, why are these pain points in my life?
• 53:21
  Like, I do think there's some work involved in it.
• 53:23
  For sure.
• 53:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 53:24
  And I, you know, that's the hard truth.
• 53:26
  Like, you can't just go through your life being like,"Well, it's okay to get frustrated,"'cause that's normal and that's the ebbs and flows.
• 53:32
  Like, you can change.
• 53:34
  You can do some work around it and fix it so it doesn't have to be so- right, so it doesn't feel like it owns you.
• 53:39
  Doesn't, yeah.
• 53:39
  Right.
• 53:40
  Yeah.
• 53:40
  Right.
• 53:40
  Absolutely.
• 53:40
  That makes sense.
• 53:41
  Absolutely.
• 53:43
  So just sort of getting back to some of the things we were talking about in terms of, some of these strategies that support regulation.
• 53:51
  Balancing a ball, a, let's say a ball, a racket ball or a tennis ball on a paper plate or on your open palm, or on a tennis racket held horizontally, balancing on one foot, those are all toning to the vagus nerve.
• 54:05
  Anything bilateral, so walking, running, so right then left, then right, then left.
• 54:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:10
  Even butterfly tapping on your upper arms.
• 54:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 54:12
  No, I've seen that one.
• 54:13
  Yeah.
• 54:14
  And I don't wanna oversimplify.
• 54:16
  Nervous system regulation can be more involved.
• 54:19
  There can be brain retraining involved.
• 54:21
  There can be things like eye yoga and applied neurology and pattern interruption.
• 54:27
  So just these are things that people can try on their own.
• 54:30
  And are these things that, that you would do when you're not in a stressed situation?
• 54:34
  Like, these are things that you would do when you're in a calm s- state, or are these things that you do To get yourself back to a calm state I think it can be Both.
• 54:44
  I think it can be both.
• 54:46
  Right,'cause if you're toning a vagus nerve, you know, like if you go to the gym, you have a great workout, you don't stop going to the gym- Right'cause you had a great workout.
• 54:53
  Right, right.
• 54:53
  You keep toning.
• 54:54
  You know?
• 54:55
  Okay.
• 54:55
  And you ke- anything you do, like you keep wanting to ground yourself in the earth.
• 55:00
  And these things, by the way, are not to be confu- so when I said anything that makes you feel good when you do it is good f- good that's not to be confused with some of our more maladaptive strategies that we, and we all do them.
• 55:15
  So you might say to me,"I'm relaxing.
• 55:17
  I'm on the couch scrolling on my phone." But I promise you, you're numbing at that point.
• 55:22
  Yes.
• 55:22
  Oh.
• 55:22
  You're not more present, and so that's not helping your nervous system.
• 55:29
  I- I'm so guilty of doing that it's helping you flee.
• 55:31
  Right.
• 55:31
  It's helping you flee- It's a, yeah which you might need to do.
• 55:34
  Right.
• 55:34
  It might be protective in that moment.
• 55:35
  Right.
• 55:36
  But just so you know, when we come back, we try to do something that r- that supports regulation because that, that does not.
• 55:42
  When you said earlier about put, put your feet on the ground and look out the window and be aware of where you are- Mm-hmm if you're on your phone, that puts you in tunnel vision and you're- Mm-hmm somewhere else on your phone, you know?
• 55:54
  Right.
• 55:54
  You could be in another country in war on your phone.
• 55:57
  Mm-hmm, right.
• 55:57
  Like, you don't know what you're looking at- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm if it's real, if it's AI.
• 56:00
  Right.
• 56:00
  You know, it kind of almost puts you back into more- It does fear.
• 56:03
  I mean, those really sh- short, what are they called?
• 56:06
  Those little bursts of whatever they are, dopamine or whatever.
• 56:08
  Yeah, soundbites or whatever.
• 56:10
  Yeah.
• 56:10
  It's, yes, it's not good for our nervous system, and we can very easily get vicariously traumatized.
• 56:17
  There are things that show up on my feed that I've never searched that are so disturbing.
• 56:23
  So even if our feet are in the grass, you know- Right we're still sort of taking- Right in a lot of this information.
• 56:28
  Right.
• 56:29
  So I think, you know, sort of in wrapping up I would just say to you that this is, this work is the foundation of our healing.
• 56:37
  You know, if we wanna be in a rest and digest and repair and heal state, even for on a cellular level.
• 56:45
  So it's really important, for us to do that, and it's also really important, I think, to, like I had said before, it's not the goal to be calm all the time.
• 56:56
  You know?
• 56:56
  If this room sh- shoots up in flames, we shouldn't be calm.
• 57:01
  But it's important to have an adaptive nervous system, one that's flexible, one that's even resourced so we can come out of dysregulation a million times a day and then come back into regulation, and we don't get stuck in that sort of chronically dysregulated state.
• 57:18
  I also wanna just say that, there's a very famous doctor in the trauma world.
• 57:23
  His name is, um, Dr.
• 57:25
  Gabor Mate.
• 57:25
  And one of the things he says, and h- one of his quotes is,"Safety is not the absence of threat, it's the presence of connection." You know, being able to be with an empathetic witness, being an empathetic witness to a child, this is also very regulating to us.
• 57:41
  We're social beings.
• 57:42
  We're wired for connection.
• 57:44
  So a lot of these things that we're talking about, we can try on our own, but we're doing those in isolation.
• 57:51
  So there is something to be said for being in connection, and how regulating, potentially that can be.
• 57:58
  You had said, like, phoning a friend sometimes could potentially, be that connection that you're seeking.
• 58:04
  That can sometimes help.
• 58:05
  But did you see during the Olympics, they had, I think it was Simone Biles' dad wear a heart monitor while she was doing her routine, and his heart rate was just as high as her heart rate was, and she was the one doing the Olympic...
• 58:19
  Like, she was the one doing the floor routine, and he was, like, just watching her.
• 58:23
  It was like this response he had watching his daughter, I don't know.
• 58:27
  I just think it's- Mm-hmm it's so cool how you react- Yeah to others and- It is you know?
• 58:33
  And I think getting some of this into your life, incorporating some of this into your life, is really, I think, the biggest gift you could give yourself, and I think it's the biggest gift you can give anyone around you.
• 58:45
  I don't remember who wrote this, but I, I took a screenshot a long time ago, and it was like"A regulated nervous system is the biggest flex." Yes.
• 58:53
  It really is- It really is because then you feel like,"Okay, I can handle- Yeah whatever's coming my way." Yeah.
• 58:59
  "And I know that if I come out of dysreg- of regulation, I can come back in." Mm-hmm.
• 59:04
  So it is really a gift.
• 59:05
  And it, there are things that we can do.
• 59:07
  We don't just have to shrug our shoulders and say,"Well-" I'm dysregulated- Yeah and that's my life.
• 59:13
  So is this something that you would advise through therapy, or are these exercises that you could do without therapy?
• 59:21
  The examples we went through, anybody can try.
• 59:23
  Mm-hmm.
• 59:23
  And there are lots of things that we didn't mention that people can do on their own.
• 59:28
  I'm probably biased.
• 59:29
  I think that working on your triggers is the word you used- Yeah uh, our trauma histories, you know, things that are in our database of lived experiences- Yeah that are coming up and making our nervous system dysregulate, I think that's work to be done in therapy.
• 59:45
  I think that helps connect the dots- Of course so that you can really figure out- Of course like maybe why, because I think the why is- Little objectively- Yeah neutral- Right situations are sending you off- Right, right for not only 15 minutes, but for the rest of the day, which bleeds into the next three days.
• 1:00:01
  I think that some therapy could be helpful in uncovering why when you just go to the grocery store to pick up a few things- Mm-hmm why, you know, you would be...
• 1:00:10
  Like, my husband and I often joke that we could live the same exact day, and I'm like,"It was a great day," and he would be like,"It's the worst day ever." Yeah.
• 1:00:18
  You know?
• 1:00:19
  And it was just, it's just how we're, the two of us are wired.
• 1:00:22
  Yeah.
• 1:00:22
  So what type of therapy would somebody look for for this?
• 1:00:28
  I would say if you're looking for a therapist, say that I'm looking for help with nervous system regulation.
• 1:00:34
  Okay, okay.
• 1:00:34
  And then, you know, can you help with that or do you have any training in that?" So you're a therapist.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah.
• 1:00:40
  For our listeners, do you see, patients virtually?
• 1:00:44
  Yes, I see them- You- virtually so that's great.
• 1:00:47
  Where can our listeners find you?
• 1:00:50
  I have a website and I have an Instagram.
• 1:00:52
  Okay.
• 1:00:53
  And I...
• 1:00:55
  Yeah, we'll make sure- We can share everything in the show notes.
• 1:00:57
  Yeah.
• 1:00:58
  It's gritandgrowth.com.
• 1:01:00
  And it's an N instead of an A-N-D.
• 1:01:02
  So we close all of our episodes with our pink spotlight, and we share a person, place, thing, tip, mantra.
• 1:01:12
  Sometimes it's a product.
• 1:01:13
  Sometimes it's, like, something we did that we just kind of close our episode out with that we all share something.
• 1:01:20
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:20
  It could be, like, a quote or- Mm-hmm you know, something that you can tell yourself.
• 1:01:23
  Product that you're loving.
• 1:01:24
  Yep.
• 1:01:24
  So we'll go first, if you want a second to think over what you want to share.
• 1:01:30
  I didn't actually know that was coming, but I have a beautiful quote that I think sums up what we've talked about today.
• 1:01:35
  Oh.
• 1:01:36
  Please share with us.
• 1:01:37
  So I...
• 1:01:37
  Yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Okay.
• 1:01:38
  So this quote is by Laura Larios.
• 1:01:40
  And this is what she wrote:"Your nervous system is your legacy.
• 1:01:43
  Your leg- your legacy is your ability to be fully present with your clients, team, and family, your ability to remain calm under pressure, your ability to provide stability under great change and uncertainty, your ability to be patient, your ability to respond rather than react, your ability to be empathic to those who are stressed or struggling, your ability to be flexible, agile, and adaptable, your ability to calmly pivot when the market shifts, your ability to see possibilities and think bigger, your ability to solve complex problems, your ability to be with dis- discomfort.
• 1:02:21
  This is the power of your nervous system.
• 1:02:23
  This is your legacy." Oh, wow.
• 1:02:25
  Wow.
• 1:02:26
  Wow.
• 1:02:26
  Isn't that beautiful?
• 1:02:27
  It is.
• 1:02:27
  That's beautiful.
• 1:02:28
  Wow.
• 1:02:28
  Wow.
• 1:02:29
  And I think, I, I'm thinking- In my life of people that I think have extremely, like, strong nervous systems and how you end up gravitating towards the people that really ground you.
• 1:02:43
  And so I think that's so true.
• 1:02:45
  If you just think through your life on anybody that has- People that you're drawn to?
• 1:02:48
  Yes.
• 1:02:49
  Yeah, and just the appreciation for those types of people, that- are able to do that and that kind of co-regulation, you know?
• 1:02:56
  Yeah.
• 1:02:57
  And I would guess that at least some of them have done some work building capacity- Yeah for discomfort.
• 1:03:03
  Yeah.
• 1:03:03
  So their container can hold what they're feeling.
• 1:03:06
  Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  And they don't have to flee from it.
• 1:03:08
  They don't have to shut down from it.
• 1:03:09
  Right.
• 1:03:09
  Yeah.
• 1:03:10
  Right.
• 1:03:10
  Wow.
• 1:03:11
  Well said.
• 1:03:12
  I like how you wrapped, wrapped it up like that.
• 1:03:14
  Yeah.
• 1:03:14
  I feel like that's a great way to sort of wrap up- Yeah, for sure like all of this information from this episode.
• 1:03:19
  What about you, T, what do you have for us today?
• 1:03:20
  Mine's a silly product.
• 1:03:21
  Yeah.
• 1:03:21
  Well, it's not a silly product because I'm wearing them right now and I really like them a lot.
• 1:03:25
  Yeah.
• 1:03:25
  So mine is CAKES.
• 1:03:27
  Have you ever worn CAKES?
• 1:03:28
  No.
• 1:03:29
  So they're like nipple covers.
• 1:03:31
  Well, that was- I'm really like switching gears that was, I was gonna switch it up too.
• 1:03:35
  I'm switching gears.
• 1:03:36
  So I just got a new set of CAKES sent to me, and they're sticky.
• 1:03:41
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:41
  So my other CAKES that I've had are like the silicone rounds.
• 1:03:44
  The grippies.
• 1:03:45
  And these like stick to you, so they don't go anywhere.
• 1:03:49
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:03:49
  So that's my product for the week.
• 1:03:51
  I like those.
• 1:03:51
  And I have a code, I'll put it in the show notes.
• 1:03:52
  Nice.
• 1:03:53
  But I just ordered like the round ones.
• 1:03:54
  I, these are gr- the ones I have now are like the triangle ones- Mm-hmm that would fit into a bathing suit.
• 1:03:59
  But they make like all different shapes, sizes, whatever.
• 1:04:02
  Love it.
• 1:04:02
  And then she just launched CUPCAKES, which is for like pre-teens and teens for the first time they're wearing a bra.
• 1:04:09
  So I want my daughter, she's probably a little too young for that right now, but like as she gets a little older and she's like in the dance world and whatever, and they have to wear- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm that kind of stuff under their outfits, I want her to have them too.
• 1:04:21
  CUPCAKES?
• 1:04:21
  CUPCAKES.
• 1:04:22
  So cute.
• 1:04:23
  So cute.
• 1:04:23
  Isn't that cute?
• 1:04:24
  CUPCAKES.
• 1:04:24
  Actually, she can even wear the CAKES for some of her dance outfits right now.
• 1:04:28
  Love that.
• 1:04:28
  Okay.
• 1:04:28
  Mine is actually a product this week too.
• 1:04:30
  Sometimes we have like beautiful quotes or mantras, and then sometimes we have, the products making life a little bit better.
• 1:04:36
  But I ordered myself an automatic makeup brush cleaner.
• 1:04:40
  Mm.
• 1:04:41
  Because I am guilty of not cleaning my makeup brushes a lot, and I just feel like sometimes I'm like,"What am I doing with myself?
• 1:04:50
  This is gross." So I, I got a little automatic one, and I like it because I've had issues before where you're trying to like rub your makeup brushes, and it really ends up kind of messing them up.
• 1:05:02
  It messes up the bristles.
• 1:05:03
  So this one you like dunk in, and it spins around almost like a washing machine and gets the brushes really clean.
• 1:05:10
  And I just cleaned all my makeup brushes, and it was the most satisfying feeling ever, and rinsed them out and there was like no makeup.
• 1:05:18
  You know, when you like rinse them again- Mm-hmm and like makeup's still coming out.
• 1:05:21
  There was nothing, and it was great.
• 1:05:23
  That's a good tip.
• 1:05:24
  'Cause I always buy like very inexpensive makeup brushes,'cause then I just throw them away'cause I don't know how to clean them.
• 1:05:29
  And I feel like that's so wasteful.
• 1:05:31
  It is.
• 1:05:31
  Just to like throw something away'cause I just can't figure out how to clean it.
• 1:05:34
  Yeah.
• 1:05:34
  I'll link this one for you.
• 1:05:35
  All right.
• 1:05:36
  Good tip.
• 1:05:37
  Well, thank you for coming on today.
• 1:05:40
  Thank you for sharing this with us and all of our listeners.
• 1:05:43
  This, I feel so calm- I know after listening to you talk about this.
• 1:05:47
  Yeah.
• 1:05:47
  And inspired to get my nervous system under control.
• 1:05:51
  That's how I feel.
• 1:05:51
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah.
• 1:05:53
  Thank you for being here.
• 1:05:54
  Thank you.
• 1:05:55
  Okay.
• 1:05:55
  Bye.
• 1:05:56
  See y'all next week.
• 1:05:57
  Bye.