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344: What to Do When You Run Out of Compassion, with Melissa Corkum · Beautifully Complex

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: I think there's also a point where we think, well,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: surely if I do this, this or this, this will stop.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: There's got to be a way to stop this cycle.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We're compassionate to a point and then you know we're human,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and then it's just exhausting to continue to have compassion
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: for the same thing over and over again.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Beautifully Complex, where we unpack what it really
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: means to parent neurodivergent kids with dignity and clarity. I'm
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Penny Williams, and I know firsthand how tough and transformative
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: this journey can be. Let's dive in and discover how
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: to raise regulated, resilient, beautifully complex kids together. Oh and
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: if you want more support, join our free community at
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: hub dot beautifully complex dot life. Welcome back to Beautifully
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Complex everyone. I am really excited to have Melissa quorcome
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: here with me. She is the founder of Rise to Regulation,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about what to do when
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: you run out of compassion as either a parent or
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: an educator. Sometimes our nerd virgin kids can be a
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: lot as far as just being hyperactive and being just
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: full of energy, or a lot because there's so much
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: more that we have to do and so much more
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: that we end up stressing about. So we're going to
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: talk about what to do when we run out of
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: that capacity and why it happens. Melissa, you start by
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: letting everybody know who you are and what you do.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Penny, thanks so much for having me. So I am,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: for lack of shorter words, a nervous system coach. I
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: specialize in burnout, specifically as it pertains to folks who
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: work with kids, parents, caregivers, educators, folks in child wealth.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And I specialize in a really specific type of burnout
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: called blocked care. And I didn't name it. It was
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: named by Jonathan Balen and Dan Hughes. But I have
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the privilege of walking families through that experience, training professionals
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: who work with caregivers and parents working in the child
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: welfare space. And I got here kind of by accident
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: through experience. I think a lot of us in the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: space ended up in the spaces that we are because
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of our personal lived experience and seeing a gap in
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: services and help in a place where there's a lot
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of need.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Tell us a little bit more about what blocked care is.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So blocked care is I think the most important thing
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to know about it is it's a self protective mechanism
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: in the nervous system. So if you're experiencing it, there's
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: a good reason you're not a bad person. It's not
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: something you're deciding to do. And the flip side of
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: that is there is hope. There are things that we
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: can do to affect it, which is the work that
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I do. And it happens when our nervous system experiences
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: chronic stressors again and again and again, and I think
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a couple things happen. I think one, we are under
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: educated and under equipped as a culture to do something
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: that's called completing the stress response cycle. Right, So we're
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: often stressed, and if we don't have the skills, or
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: if the stress is chronic, sometimes we don't come off
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of the stress response, the physiological response that our body
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: has to that stress response or to the stressor, or
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: it's just seems constant. You know, if we're full time
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: caregivers or parents to kids that have higher needs, that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: are neudivergent, that need us to help coregulate them, who
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: need us to provide extra accommodations, who struggle with their
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: own self regulation, you know, it is like you said,
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  Speaker 1: it's a lot on a nervous system, and if we
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: don't have the skills to manage all of that, then
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: what happens is our bodies are built to survive, and
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: that stress starts to signal like, oh, we might die,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Like if we don't get out of the situation soon,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it's not going to go well. And so we start
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: to shift where our resources and our nervous system are going,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: and they move towards that survival mode. And one of
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the things that happens is our nervous system takes resources
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: away from those systems that allow us to provide continuous
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: compassion care for the children we're in charge of.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Gotcha. So it's a complex biological response to stress. Basically,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: To kind of simplify it as we get started and
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: going deeper on it, I want to maybe start with
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the idea of compassion fatigue. I think that that's a
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  Speaker 2: terminology that a lot of folks who are listening have
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: heard before and maybe know how to relate to. What
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: is compassion fatigue?
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I think compassion fatigue, right, if we just kind of
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: break down those words, we're we want to show compassion
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: in our cases to our kids, however they're showing.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Up in the world, right, Right, But we're.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Also fighting against cultural messages and logic around what behavior is,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: how it could or should be managed. So like, as
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: an example, right, if you have a child who is
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: defiant a lot of the time, right, And I have
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: come far enough in this parenting journey and my professional
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: journey where I can come up with a lot of
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: reasons to feel compassionate for.
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  Speaker 2: A kid being defiant.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, it doesn't feel great to your nervous
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  Speaker 1: system when you're asking someone to do something and their
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: immediate response is to scream or refuse or throw something
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  Speaker 1: at you. And we want to have compassion for that,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: but it takes a lot of energy. And I think
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: there's also a point where we think, well, surely if
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I do this, this or this, this will stop. There's
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: got to be a way to stop this cycle. We're
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: compassionate to a point, and then you know we're human,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and then it's just exhausting to continue to have compassion
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: for the same thing over and over again. I mean, like,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: as a analogy, it's like, you know, emotional pain actually
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: registers in the same part of our brain as physical pain,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: which I find incredibly interesting and if you think about
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: doing something physically painful, maybe it's like touching a hot stove.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: You know, you put your hand down, there's a pain,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and you immediately, you know, pull back, and then there's
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: something in your nervous system that makes it so you
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: don't really want to do that again. Right. We don't
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: keep going back to put our hand in that same position,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: and we don't judge ourselves for that either, right, because
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: we understand like, yeah, that doesn't feel good, I'm not
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: going to do that again. And so it's kind of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: similar blocked care and compassion fatigue. We stuck getting the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: dopamine hit, the endorphin hit, like the chemical response for
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: doing the thing. Instead it's negative. There's a negative feedback
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  Speaker 1: loop there, and we're just not wired to keep going
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: back for things that don't feel good.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, it's that protection that's built into all
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: of us, right, That's what our nervous system is for.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: So you talked a little bit about like why we
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: run out of compassion, how we get into this loop
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: with our nervous system. If we've recognized that that is
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: the point at which we're at, what is next? What
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: can we do?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: It's like the million dollar question, right.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And I know it's different for different people, because you know,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: everybody's nervous system responds to stress in different ways. But
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: you know, I can see that it's very easy to
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: get stuck there, and it's very hard to get unstuck, probably,
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: And so what is like the very first tiny little
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: thing we might be able to do to move into
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: a different direction.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: So my favorite exercise for this is called points of Joy.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Before I tell you what that is, though, I want
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to caveat something here that I think is important because
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I think, given this audience, this is going to apply
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: to at least a percentage, a decent percentage. Some of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: us have kids that are having behaviors that are significant
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and dangerous, for lack of a better word, or potentially unsafe. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And so what I want those people to hear is
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: we're not trying to turn off your nervous system's protective function.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So, like it's the right thing to be cautious around
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: a child who's getting ready to throw something at you, sure,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: or trying to hit you or be aggressive or sort
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: of in some other way. But my experience in parenting
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: is that the nervous system tends to create like a
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: confirmation bias. And so sometimes when you have a child
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: who has that history, our nervous system is protective from
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: them all the time. And sometimes those kids have really
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: sweet moments or they come off of a big tantrum
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: or a rage, and then they make some kind of
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: bid for connection, like they all of a sudden they
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: want to hug. And it's those moments when our kids
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: are actually okay and they're more regulated, and our nervous
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: systems like just develop this kind of carte blanche, like
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get close to this.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Kid ever, kind of blocked care.
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  Speaker 1: That's where we want to be able to be a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: little bit more resilient in our nervous systems and be
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: able to objectively evaluate, you know, can I make a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: connection here? Is it okay to make a connection here
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  Speaker 1: in this moment? And so one of the things that
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: we can do is learn how to send cues of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: safety to our nervous system when there isn't an actual
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: threat going on, right And so points of Joy is
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a practice of noticing and or intentionally experiencing seven things
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: that bring you joy every day. And it seems almost
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: silly that it would make such a big difference, but
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  Speaker 1: it's the subtle message to your nervous system. You still
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: have some semblance of control. There's sole locus of control.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: The narrative often in our life when we're in blocked
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  Speaker 1: care is everything's hard. My kid is a problem all
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: of the time. Right, we kind of get to those extremes.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: You know, nothing I do is good enough. There's no
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: connection left. And you know, I've worked with thousands of
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: families and that's never been true. Even for the hardest cases.
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  Speaker 1: There's still these like little pieces, And even if the
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: relationship with your child is really really hard and complex,
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  Speaker 1: there are still things with in your control as a
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: parent to experience joy. Right, Like I can make myself
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a hot cup of tea, I can diffuse my favorite
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: essential oil. I can notice how glorious it is to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: slide into clean sheets, you know, freshly washed sheets, or
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: feel the sunshine on my face. We're recording this and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: kind of like an arctic blast, but it's sunny outside,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and you know, I'd rather it be sunny and twenty
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: degrees than cloudy and twenty degrees. Right, there's joy in
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: just like the blue sky and the beauty of the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: snow and just noticing those things helps my nervous system.
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  Speaker 1: Remember like the nuance of yes, there are some things
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: in life that are really really hard and two things
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  Speaker 1: can be true at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And we're wired to focus more on the
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: hard stuff again. Is that self protect right? And I
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: remember when my own kid was really young, and we
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: would go for doctor appointments like meds checks once a
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: month or so, and the doc would look at me
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: and say, Okay, how's it going. I'm like, everything is bad,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: everything is horrible. Something has to change, and he'd say,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: but what specifically, and I would think, no idea, all
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: of it, all of it's bad, you know. And I
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: had to really teach myself. And what I did was
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: start taking notes about my day every day so that
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I could start to pull out as you're talking about,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: oh there were some good points, and oh these are
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: really the things that are a struggle. These things are
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: a struggle, feel overwhelmingly hard, but like we need to
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: build that awareness. Without that awareness, I think our body
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: is wired to say you're not safe. You're not safe
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: because everything feels as sort of intense as some of
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: those moments.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Do. Yeah, do that makes sense? Absolutely? Absolutely, And so
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I think reframing that narrative that there are always places
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that we do have a little bit of control. Now,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: we don't have control of our kids behaviors one hundred percent,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that's not true, right, we just don't. But I think
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: when we can figure out what we do have control over,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: it's kind of grounding. It's really regulating in our own
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: nervous system, and it helps us find the places of
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: regulation when there's not current stressors, right, It helps us
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: complete the stress cycle. We react to a stressor you know,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: maybe a kid yells at us or throws something at us,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: but then they retreat to their room, right, And then
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that's the space where we have to care for our
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: nervous system in a way that says, yeah, I recognize
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that happened, and that was scary, and you know, the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: adrenalines pumping, the neurochemicals all released, and then we have
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to do something to kind of reset from that, to
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: let our nervous system know, if it hasn't figured it out,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: that stress's over, and maybe do something to release some
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of that chemistry. Right. So I'm such a huge fan
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of movement, right, like shake it out, do some jumping, jacks.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, just like literally shake it out, you know,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: be goofy. I'm pretty religiously connected to my ritual of
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: taking a thirty minute walk around my neighborhood every single day,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: even when it's this cold. You know, I bundled up yesterday,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I put my snowpants on and my ski jacket and
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: my balaclava and the whole thing. But there's something about
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: even a walk in the cold, you know, it's refreshing.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: It kind of helps reset, and then you're moving, You're
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: moving some of that chemistry out and your body just
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: feels better afterwards.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: When my son was young, I spent years trying to
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: track all the very to determine what was actually working medications, therapies, routines,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: school accommodations, but there was no system or structure to
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: help me capture it all. I dreamed of an app
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that could help me see the patterns that I knew
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: were there but I wasn't finding on my own. And
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: that's exactly what Village Metrics does. Here's how it works.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: You open the app, press record and just talk about
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: your child's day. That's it. The AI pulls out patterns,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: it tracks what's working, and it connects insights from everyone
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: in your child's life, the therapist, teachers, other caregivers are
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: all in one place. Within weeks, you'll see things that
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: you have been missing, what's triggering the meltdowns or shutdowns,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: what's actually making a difference. You finally stop second guessing
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: yourself because now you know. Now you have the data.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: It takes two minutes to set up, and there's a
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: free trial, so you've got nothing to lose. Village metrics
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: dot com and try it today. That's villagemetrics dot com.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I think when you choose to move when things are
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable or hard, like when it's super cold out and
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: you're doing it anyway, you're sort of illustrating to your
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: nervous system that there are still some things I have
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: control over. Yeah, the temperature is terrible. I don't really
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: want to be out there, but I have the control
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: to do this and make it work for me, and
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do it regardless. You know, I think
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: our bodies and our brains remember those experiences also and
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: can really help us to Yeah, have that sense of control.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: My therapist tells me all the time. You know, when
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I go in, I'm like, everything's bad. Apparently this is
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: a theme for me. I'm still doing it, but like,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: right now, a lot of things are not great in
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: the world, and she'll be like, well, you got to
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: find one thing you have control over, whatever it is,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I don't care what you know. If it's the way
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: you put your socks on in the morning, Hey, you
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: had control over that, right, Like, find some stuff that
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: you do have control over and lean into that, and
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: how can you create more of it? Like, are there
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: activities that you can do where you actually have control
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: of that. Do more of those things, right, so that
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: we at least get a balance, But we have to
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: really be mindful and aware and intentional right now, I
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: think to do a lot of those things when things
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: are hard, which relates back to parents and when things
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: are really hard at home with your kids, find that
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: that piece of piece almost right, Like, find that thing
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: that gives you that sense of control that helps to
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: settle your nervous system.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And I mean I think it is a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: practice to the heart things which are eventually the work
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that took me years to figure out was I'm in
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: control of which things that are going on with my
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: kids that I care about, you know, I think we
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: often feel like we're being forced to care about certain things,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: and in some ways we are. But I think we
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: have more choice as parents than we often feel like
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: we do, for sure, and we can learn to make
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: choices that are good for our nervous system and that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: we don't have to be forced to care about or
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: die on more hills than we have the energy or
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: regulation to do.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so picking your battles, so to speak.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And you know a lot of people say like, well,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: but I have to do this or this school told
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: me I have to do this or this, that and
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the other thing, and you know, every situation is a
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: little bit different. But I think there's a lot of pressure,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: societal pressures that make a lot of things in parenting
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: feel important and urgent that maybe don't have to be, or.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: That make us feel like we don't have a choice
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: when maybe we do.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: You know, like when kids have school avoidance or refusal,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: we feel like, well, they have to go to school,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: but they are all alternatives. There are you know, there
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: are accommodations, there are things that can be done. So
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: it isn't always as sort of black and white as
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I think that society wants us to think that it is.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: And sometimes we just have to give ourselves permission. We
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: have to give each other permission to do things differently
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and to protect our own nervous systems and our kids
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: nervous systems, and those needs that are basic. You know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: it's a basic need to feel safe when you go
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: to school, Yeah, or and you're at home with your kid. Like,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: we're talking about some really difficult stuff, but it boils
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: down to that need for safety. Yeah. Can we talk
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: a second about like the interplay of self compassion here
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: in this conversation, because you tell me, I would think
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: if we're running out of compassion for others, we've long
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: run out of compassion for ourselves at that point. Yeah,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: and then you know, the self blame and the very
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: negative internal narrative starts. How do we in those times
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: also either protect or heal some of that self compassion too?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you're absolutely right. It does not feel
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: good to admit out loud. I don't like my kid,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: or I don't like parenting, or I resent the kind
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of parenting that I have to be doing, or you
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: know whatever that sounds like. And I've literally heard it all,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and they're not things we tend to air in public.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we're not even saying them to our closest people.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we're not even saying them to our spouses or
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: our closest girlfriend.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, Brene Brown talks about shame grows in
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: dark spaces, right, Like, it's really easy to shame spiral
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: in isolation, and so I think it is really easy
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: for our self talk to also start sounding like, well,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you're a bad mom, or you're a terrible person who
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't like a kid, who doesn't like their own kid,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: who doesn't like a five year old. Why can't I
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: get a four year old under control? You know, I'm
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: a terrible person for just counting down the days until
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: my teenager turns eighteen. And I'm not responsible anymore, you know,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: all the things. So I think a big part of
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: overcoming blocked care is self compassion, and I think it
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: has to actually start there. When we first started this work,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I think logically it was like, well, if parents are
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: have trouble liking their kids, we tend to want to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: like go after that problem. Yeah right, I mean it's
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: just like behaviors. Whenever there's a behavior, we're like, make
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that thing stop, and sometimes we need to just zoom out.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: If you're in blocked care and you're really like done
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: with parenting, it's really not helpful for someone to come
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: along and be like, well, you need to try harder,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: or here's some little thing to do to try to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: help you reconnect with your kid. It kind of feels
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: like it minimizes or trivializes, like how deeply overwhelmed our
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: nervous systems are by the time we are in blocked care.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Invalidating can feel invalidating.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you know, it turns out that we
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: have to back up a little bit and start with
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: compassion for ourselves, our own nervous systems and kind of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: put a pin in like, yeah, I know you feel
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: really disconnected from your kid, let's put a pin in that.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: A lot of times when we're seeking out services and
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: all the accommodations for our kids, that's where the focus is.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: And you know, what would it mean to parents when
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you go into the principal's office for the fifteenth time
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: or you're you know, you're doing your parent meeting with
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: your child's therapists or whatever, and they just looked you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in the eye and we're like wait before we jump in, like,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: how are you doing.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Burst into tears?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what like literally, that's what happens to everyone. Yeah,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that's what people tell me. And then when I do
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: that with parents, that's exactly what happens because we don't
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: realize how unseen we are, and sometimes that alone is
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: enough to help us turn the tide. Yeah, I'm getting
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: ready to start a series of I'm calling them regulation circles,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and they're just support groups for parents. It'll have a
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: little bit of like a flavor of like almost like
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a twelve step meeting and that there will be just
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: like a grounding exercise, but then just a space for
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: parents to share their lived experience, not because we're claiming
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: we can fix it or that we're going give advice.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: You know. It'll be like no cross talk, no advice,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: you know, like no interrupting. People just get to say
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: their peace. Well, I'll just hold space for it. And
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I think just that alone, right, Like people just need
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a space to do that.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be themselves in a space that isn't going
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: to judge, that is going to accept it and reflect
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: back that they have you, they see you, they get it.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: You know, it's it's so valuable. I talk all the
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: time about how if I hadn't created a Facebook group,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you know, fifteen years ago probably now that like, where
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: would I be? Because I didn't know anybody in real
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: life who had a kid who was neurodivergent. It was overwhelming.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: It was a struggle. I had to find people to
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: connect with that would understand. And if I said, I
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: really don't want to be around my kid today, I
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: really can't take it or whatever it is, you know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: And that makes a huge difference for our own mental
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: and emotional well being. And I think, you know, those
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: folks can help you flip that script in your head
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: that is the self blame and shame. It kind of
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: gives me goosebumps to think about it because I could
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: have used it way back when, for sure. And I
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: don't think you realize how powerful it is until you're
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: in it, until you experience something like that. And you know,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: for me, I have social anxiety, so being in a
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: group of people I don't know is like terrifying. But
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: I was in a place where I was like, I
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: have to find people who get this, like I need that,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And it made a huge difference despite it being really
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: difficult for me to do. So I love that. I
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: love that you're not trying to fix anything in your group.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: You're just going to like let everybody be who they
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: are and be accepted that way. It's amazing.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and like to your point, when people hear
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: about the term blocked care, it's not super well known.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: You know, most spaces I go into that are new.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: People say, oh, I've never heard of that before. But
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: when you define it to a group of parents who
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: are experiencing it, I think it. Dan Siegel says, name
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: it to tame it, right, I mean, over and over again,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: people say to us, as soon as you told me
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: that my experience had a name, I immediately felt the
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: shame like start to melt away, because I thought, if
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: there's a name for it, then I can't be the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: only one, right, Yeah, then there's been enough people to
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: have this experience that there has to be a name,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: and so just name it. I mean it's crazy, right,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: just naming it. People are like, oh gosh, phew, Like
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: it's not just me. I feel so much better just
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, yeah, so amazing. Tell everyone where they
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: can find you online. They can learn more and potentially
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: you work with you or be in one of your groups.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: So on Instagram, I'm Melissa Quarkham with an underscore at
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the end. But if you get as far as the
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Melissa corkamb all on word, you'll find me. My website
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: is Rise to Regulation all spelled out. And for folks
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: who are listening, who are like, they talked a lot
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: about this, but I'd kind of like to know more,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: there is a I'm gonna make an assessment to your
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: folks free. They can just it's like ten quick questions.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: It takes under thirty seconds. You just rate like there's
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: like a statement, you know, like you know, I feel reasonful,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and then it's like never you know, all the way
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: up to all the time, right, So answer ten of
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: those statements and your folks can get that by going
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to my website Rise to Regulation dot com slash beautifully complex,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: all one word spelled out, and just kind of get
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a like a self reflection that the scores don't they're
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: not going to go anywhere. It's just like it's gonna
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: spit you back a score and tell you something about
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: what that means. And one small thing you can do,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: and you can come back and take it as many
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: times as you want. Right, you can kind of gauge like, Okay,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I started this points of joy thing that they talked about,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: does it really work? You know? Take an assessment today,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: do a week of points of joy, take it again
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and see did any of those things change.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm going to link all of that up in
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the show notes too, for everyone which are at PARENTINGADHD
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and autism dot com. Thank you Melissa for being here
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: and having what can be a difficult conversation and something
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: really difficult for folks to think about and reflect on,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: but so worth it. As to your point early on
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: when you said, like, if we just keep resisting for
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: not really leaning into how we're feeling, we're just trying
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: to put everything away, it is not going to feel
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: any better. So I encourage everyone to check out your
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: work and connect with you, and I will see everyone
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: in the next episode. Take good care. I see you
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: doing hard and meaningful work and you don't have to
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: do it alone. If you found this episode helpful, share
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: it with someone who needs it and leave a quick
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: review so others can find this support too. When you're
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: ready for next steps. The Regulated Kids Project is here
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: with the tools, coaching, and community to help you raise
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: a more regulated, resilient child. Get more info at regulated
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: kids dot com.