[SPEAKER_01]: Therapy chat podcast episode four ninety one.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the therapy chat podcast with Laura Regan LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, here's your host Laura Regan LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host Laura Reagan.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this week, I'm sharing with you a beautiful conversation with a guest who's been on Therapy Chat a few times before the wonderful Deb Dana.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our conversation, we talked about the profound impact of polyvagal theory on our understanding of emotional regulation, co-regulation, and connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about the role of nature and fostering a sense of safety.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the significance of recognizing micro moments of joy and connection in our daily lives, which are happening, even when things are hard, awful, horrific, terrifying.
[SPEAKER_01]: There can be moments, tiny moments of joy and connection, and that's what helps us sustain our connection to our humanity.
[SPEAKER_01]: in such difficult times.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about the importance of vulnerability and relationships and how challenging it is to navigate dysregulation, especially when we're traumatized.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also touched on the idea of hacks and the pretty strong messaging on social media
[SPEAKER_01]: about regulation and somatic regulation, which is only part of the picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about how do we find our way through these times that we're living in.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as always, when speaking with Deb, I felt connected to a sense of hope that a better world is possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: One human connection at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you will enjoy this conversation and I hope you will find some inspiration here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you as always for listening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Laura Regan, and today I'm so happy to be joined again by one of my favorite guests to speak to someone who's been here on Therapy Chat multiple times, Deb Deena.
[SPEAKER_01]: Deb, thank you so much for coming back to Therapy Chat today.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am really happy to be back and I have to say when when when I show up and I see your face and your smile, my nervous system just feels very welcomed.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's what people say about you that and it's not just your smile.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's literally your presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like being around you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been around you, so I've felt it myself in person, but also even here, just through the screens.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like there's a groundedness and a warmth that comes from you, and that's what I think, you know, I think of when I think about how polyvagal theory is really powerful because we're drawn toward that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we're talking about that beautiful ventral energy and when I teach him, when I talk to people, I say, ventral energy is an unimposable force, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You feel it and you get drawn toward it and then your system begins to resonate with my system and we co-regulate, which is again, the joy of being human is finding safe others to be with and connect with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I love that it's driven by our biology.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I tell people is every human has a ventral vehicle system wired into their biology.
[SPEAKER_02]: And once we learn to find our way home to it and be in it a bit longer or a bit more frequently, we then put that energy out into the world, which is a lovely thought right now in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: It ripples out into the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I've been alluding to this kind of lately by mentioning to listeners that at any time, but in this current time as well, when everything feels scary and unsafe, what we can do, even when we feel like there's nothing we can do, is to connect with others.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we connect, you know, it does have a ripple effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does ripple out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think, you know, we talk about connection, we talk about what's the, you know, opposite of that is loneliness and loneliness is a worldwide epidemic and loneliness again is is felt in your physiology has physiological impact as well as psychological impact.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if we can find others that we feel that sense of safety with
[SPEAKER_02]: then our nervous system comes into that place of regulation, and we begin to have access to curiosity, compassion, and problem-solving, and organization, and all the qualities of a regulated nervous system that are only possible when we have, you know what I like to say, a to hold in that state of regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think if we think about toe holds, I'm happy that my nervous system can find regulation for short moments in time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because even today, as I was saying earlier, I get up thinking today's a good day.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get a good to do list.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to work my way through and not too far into my morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: My system was feeling heavy and drained and some of that other energy, the dorsal collapse energy of
[SPEAKER_02]: Why bother?
[SPEAKER_02]: Give it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're never going to get there, which I find so fascinating because I'm really good at noticing naming and even finding my way back to home and ventral to regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been doing this a long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what I teach, but my nervous system just regulates as easily as everybody else is in these days we're living in right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, it did not take much for my resilience to be tested and for me to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm not sure what I need to do right now, but it's not my to-do list.
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, it was take a moment, you know, organize this stack of papers so that at least feels organized and look out my kitchen window where I could see the nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: those to me, organizing and seeing nature brought me enough of a sense of regulation so that I could then keep going.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's those tiny moments, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the tiny moments are, I think what we should be looking for right now, not great, big, huge, long experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know about you, but I don't find those very often.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-uh, especially lately.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What you just shared.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was so much that came up for me when you were sharing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when you said about organization and looking out the window at nature, I feel like you're describing, you know, as your polyvago ladder, you came up with that concept and it's
[SPEAKER_01]: Literally, the most helpful thing for me about Polyvagal theory to understand from the beginning as a therapist and as a human.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're talking about how you were in Dorsal and then the organizing is like a more mobilized energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the sympathetic activation, like bringing you up out of Dorsal and then nature, which I'm looking at my window at the trees and my backyard, which are
[SPEAKER_01]: So grounding to me throughout every day, we can connect with nature as another being.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's a living nature itself is a living being and a living energy that we can tune into ventral with.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't even have to have another human there.
[SPEAKER_02]: We co-regulate with nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: We co-regulate with others with nature with our own inner experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: We with the parts of us we can co-regulate and with spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are lots of pathways that we can think of as co-regulating.
[SPEAKER_02]: We do need to remember that we need another mammalian nervous system in that menu of curriculum.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, choices.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nature trees flowers are wonderful and we need self energy or inner wisdom that we're tuning into through connecting with nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think I know lots of people have a dear friend who, you know, really feels the co-regulation with trees as you as you may as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I believe that it is, you know, it is it to him to you perhaps trees are living beings that you are co-regulating with.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just want to add in.
[SPEAKER_02]: We also want a million system that has this social engagement piece wired in.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a both hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not an either or.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, yeah, every, every way.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm an ocean person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so probably for me, when I am by the ocean, I feel the rhythm of the waves and I feel, I can feel it in my being.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's a, you know, co-regulation with the sea, I suppose, which is lovely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's like the pulse of earth, you know, I mean, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people are probably like, what is she talking to?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, when I'm at the ocean or any body of water,
[SPEAKER_01]: the tide and the rhythm of the waves and the sound and the ground there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like my system.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always say it's a soul home.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't, yes, I can't be disregulated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though I may be upset about something, it may not change what I am
[SPEAKER_01]: grappling with emotionally, but I'm tuned in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm grounded and feeling what is here in myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tuning into.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like for me, it's mountains, trees, and water.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You are multi-tasking there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mind really is by the sea.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is my place.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also call it a soul home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a place where when you're there, you just know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's an embodied knowing, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I didn't know you said that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just say it because it's what it feels like.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like it's something I've heard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I like how you talk about the pulse, I think a lot about rhythm, rhythm is the way I think about how I'm moving through the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so if we think about that, my rhythm this morning when I woke up was like this, it was this lovely sort of flow and it had a beautiful rounded shape to it and I could feel it and then
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, by the time it gets sort of jagged and I could feel it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought, what's going on here?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it went to that, you know, and it's still this still moving a bit, but it's very flat sort of for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so then you're right, it came back up with some organization and then back to
[SPEAKER_02]: summer them and then with you it's this right I can feel this the your system in mind you know communicating which is which is lovely but you know that's all in the course of like you know two and a half hours right think about we do that all the time every day right
[SPEAKER_01]: our systems are always responding to what's happening internally and externally.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be curious about that, to be accepting in some way, to know that is normal and expected, that getting to regulation is lovely, but it's not the end product we're looking for, we're looking for knowing where am I,
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I need in this moment and then how do I find my way back to regulation?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you think you have to be regulated to be healthy and regulated all the time to be healthy, that is one of the things you probably should just give that up now because it is impossible to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: not not and we don't even want to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to appreciate our nervous system as it moves down and up that ladder because it's doing that in response to what it's taking in through neuroception to say, are you safe or not?
[SPEAKER_02]: What needs to happen now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's so many things about this that I think are still really hard to grasp when we especially when we've had trauma and we kind of live in a space of maybe we aren't familiar with the feeling of not feeling unsafe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't even know how much we're operating from that, you know, our system sensing danger and threat much slash most of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, right now,
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many signals for a traumatized nervous system to feel very unsafe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And many of them, you know, they're not just overreactions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many of them are real threats.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything that's unpredictable or unfamiliar is pretty commonly acute danger for any nervous system.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for a nervous system that is still holding under solve trauma, you know, that sensitive nervous system, the world is filled with cues of danger right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is for most everybody, but especially if you're holding that that early experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the familiar cues of danger come up all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we are nervous system simply takes us into an adaptive survival response, because it's belief that that's where you'll be safe, whether it's sympathetic anger, anxiety, or whether it's torsible collapse disconnect, or we do this down and up, down and up all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is going on in the world, all over the globe right now, because of what's going on in our world, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a disregulated world.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have disregulated nervous systems, then we have collectively disregulated nervous systems which
[SPEAKER_02]: This is really hard to be around because you feel it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, below the level of conscious awareness, you feel the disregulation and then your brain makes up a story to try and make some sense of what's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the brain's job.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you said most or much of the time in feeling under threat,
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where these micro moments of okness come in.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where, you know, I first started working with this with my trauma survivor clients in the beginning because you go to therapy because you're suffering.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we focus on reducing resolving what the suffering is about or where it's coming from.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we forget that in order to really thrive, not just survive, but thrive, we also need to actively experience safety.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for many people, we have to have that moment of feeling the embodied safety so we can compare it to the embodied danger because safety is not a cognitive experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't think your way to safety.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to your nervous system takes you there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's where those tiny micro moments came into being in my early work because my clients would have these tiny moments of feeling okay and okay was always looking for.
[SPEAKER_02]: not say for beautiful presented, but just okay, tiny moments, often it was when we were together in my office in that space where they felt they could relax, take a breath for a moment, tiny moment of ventral.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we started tracking those because that I truly believe, I think those moments are available to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: and they're sort of all around, but we don't pay attention to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we could learn to pay attention, then my clients would come back and say, oh, I had a moment when, you know, it was like I heard a bird say, the sun came out.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the, you know, I had clients who love the storms that we get in Maine and they would say, did you not just love that beautiful?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like, there's your moment, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we can find them and then our system begins to,
[SPEAKER_02]: to realize that, oh, there are these tiny moments, and they begin to accumulate and build.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's something about what you just said, where you said, I'm feeling so emotional during our conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just have to say, I'm just saying, okay, tears, whatever, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think it's because it's moving, it's moving to think about this for me, and then we're thinking about connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to go back to what you said.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you not notice that beautiful storm?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like they noticed it, but also they want to share it with you and you are having a moment of connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: just in them sharing with you about that storm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, these are such subtle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and they're so fast in our work.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we have to be slow to notice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're based on the science of the nervous system.
[SPEAKER_02]: right because when you said share one of the things we know is co-regulation is necessary for well-being and so for client one of the things we did was they would begin to to mark the moments they would begin to keep a list or you know send me a message or whatever they wanted however they wanted to do it and then we would talk about them the next week because that was the poll
[SPEAKER_02]: And as they were talking about them, I could feel them come alive for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, most of the time, although sometimes they're what I call glimmers, that's what we call these micro-moids.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're glimmers.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not a glimmer for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was okay, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what we want to remember, that you know, you might have a glimmer that for your system just really fills you for a moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for my system goes, oh, no, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Perfectly fine, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something for me about like what how our system lights up with the person wanting to share it to, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like even even if it's not, like it's the shared connection of, yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because for me, actually I find thunderstorms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I feel scared during thunderstorms.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it brings up like childhood memories of being afraid when, you know, there's loud thunder and I'm like, what's going to happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: If someone says, oh, that thunderstorm is so cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does not feel cool to me, but the fact that they want me to know that makes me feel like, oh,
[SPEAKER_02]: You can appreciate how it landed for them Yeah, and that's really As humans that's really what we're appreciating how did that land for you right here's how it lands for me how did that land for you?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's that's the beauty of oh
[SPEAKER_02]: connected right getting to know right that's which which deepens a friendship deepens a deepens a sense of where we're we're in this together right yeah right and and even in therapy as one is the client in therapy you know what we're doing is
[SPEAKER_01]: practicing these little moments of allowing a little more vulnerability, taking a chance that will be understood.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this nervous system, match or mismatch, just like in all of our relationships is constantly like, is this right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's interesting because you're talking about, you know, thunderstorms in my system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Loves them in yours, maybe not sometimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that there can be a mismatch in the experience, but an attunement in our nervous systems is amazing, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a lovely learning for both of our systems that we don't have to both love the same thing and yet we can really feel connected.
[SPEAKER_02]: For many of my clients, that was a beautiful, they call them autonomically disconfirming experience because they have an expectation that unless you agree something bad will happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really relevant to the current time that we're in as well because it feels like it feels like this happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost like it began to develop in around twenty fifteen twenty sixteen in the like lead up to the election and the way that people were talking about things.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were certain
[SPEAKER_01]: words that if you heard someone say it's like oh they support the other candidate and then it gives this oh not safe to talk with each other and then the same thing happened again and I know this is by design because we know that there was literally social engineering or you could even call it like psychological warfare that was happening through the way these messages were being conveyed
[SPEAKER_01]: during the time from twenty twenty through at least twenty twenty two you know whether or not someone thought that they should be masking in public or whether or not someone was vaccinated against covid or even where one lived with the differences in state policies and there was so much
[SPEAKER_01]: How can we keep ourselves safe and who is the enemy, you know, and I've never been so acutely sensitive to literally a word, you know, not safe, not safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, if I go to the grocery store today and, you know, I see someone walking with their cart who's already shopped.
[SPEAKER_01]: I might say, I could take that in for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not, I don't care who they voted for or I'm not thinking about their views on, you know, a number of super important social issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, there's a level of connection as humans.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, it's like if we had a,
[SPEAKER_01]: a car accident, you don't ask the person to you want to help.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, who they voted for, what their political views are, it's more of a shared human connection that's such a deeper level than that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love thinking about that when you were saying, you know, kids, I can take that card in for you and it helps that person and it helps the people who collect all the cards.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of benefit there and
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine the other person receiving that as a kindness and what that does in their system, how that lands for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they get in their car with a different experience in their biology.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because really for me, I'm always thinking about biology.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where it starts.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where we can, because when we are in that sympathetic me against you, us against them, we can't connect.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can connect with people who we've identified as our group, but everybody else is the enemy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, not because I've not chosen that my biology has chosen that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's interesting to think, so how do we change that?
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't change that by arguing with someone.
[SPEAKER_02]: We change that fighting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fighting or trying to convince them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can make you see it my way.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, well, only I am only open to even listening to what you're saying, if I'm in enough of that regulated state.
[SPEAKER_02]: If my biology has taken me to sympathetic fight or flight and anxiety, I am biologically unable to listen.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just a fact.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't.
[SPEAKER_02]: Something I don't want to, I cannot do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in Dorsal, I'm not really here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I may look like I am, but I'm not really here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can talk all you want.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not land anywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, if we simply come back to our nervous system.
[SPEAKER_02]: The question isn't really, how can I change their mind or how can I convince them the question is, what does their nervous system need to feel a little bit safer, a little more welcome in the world right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's again where we go to those tiny moments because that's all we can, that's all I can reach for in this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is exhausting to make it through a day.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is scary, it is hard work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me to think, I, you know, I need to really be regulated this day in order for it to be a good day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think people think about good bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good day or bad day, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we could get rid of that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: We could say, it's a day where I had more or less regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hear the moments that I'm going to reflect on in really safer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the benefit of these small moments is that you can return to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can bring them back to life.
[SPEAKER_02]: At the end of the day to day, I could go back and think about our time together and it's going to bring me warmth in my heart in a smile because that's what I'm feeling now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get the benefit of it again.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's lovely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guarantee you, the rest of my day is not going to be all warmth in my heart and smiles because it's just a regular day where we do a lot of different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so kind that you say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes me, it does make me feel really good that you feel that way about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we've talked about this before.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just feels comfortable talking with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's really nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt stressed before we started our interview.
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt like I had a lot to do today and had another interview ahead that I needed to do some reading for.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then when we came on camera, I just found myself, I playfully started singing to you, a good morning song, you know, and very out of tune.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I right away notice some tears come to my eyes just because as I sit with, you know, a connection with another kind human, you know, even that brings like the presence of, there's a lot of sadness that I hold too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so even just to be present right now, there's a lot of sadness, there's a lot of fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can have moments of connection and feeling regulated and disregulated.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did want to touch on that there's so much, I find it actually really great how much information there is out there on social media and educating people now about self-regulation, nervous system regulation, polyvagal theory,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also feel like there are a lot of kind of like hacks, which, of course, you know, it's a one minute video how comprehensive can it be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But on the other hand, they're sort of disconnected.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's sort of disembodied.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little disembodied fragments for embodiment and regulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like sometimes people might get the message that, you know, if you do it right, you can get regulated and you can be regulated and then you're regulated person and not a dis-regulated person and that's what we should all be striving for.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd love for you to talk a little more about that biology that you've already been sharing about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I will say, I'm going to just put out there in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am on no social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I get people who probably have no, I'm very limited idea of how much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do, but some of my colleagues will send me things and say, what do you think about this?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, ooh, because you're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like it's a shortcut to regulation with the belief that regulation is the place to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we got a bunch of different things going on there that the nervous system would not be in agreement with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the nervous system says, you know, regulation is where you end up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think nervous system hasn't inherent longing to be in regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that and knows how to get there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we'll only take us there when the cues of safety outweigh the cues of danger in our world, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Our personal world in this moment in time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you are disregulated, the first thing I love people to do is turn toward your nervous system and say, what's happening?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a reason for this.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's going on that my nervous system said, ooh, disregulation is what's needed for survival in this moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you say, hack, I think it is sort of a, you know, we have these hacks going on to get to regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, regulations helpful and we have to know why we disregulate.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I do want to have ways I can count on in the moment that will help bring me a bit of regulation because when I am totally in sympathetic fight flight or dorsal disconnect collapse, that's all I can do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I need to have a bit of a ventral available to me, but I build that over time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a slow patient persistent process for me to know this helps me come back like looking out the window.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is a way I can count on some things going on out there and it will at least bring me a drop of that sense of regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And disregulation is adaptive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the nervous system doesn't work on a good bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our brain make up the motivation, the meaning, all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if we can invite our brains to step aside, nervous system is simply taking you where things should need to be in this moment to be safe enough to survive.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's really what we're looking for.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we find those pathways back to ventral, then we can be curious about our dysregulated patterns.
[SPEAKER_02]: We all have them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what are those patterns?
[SPEAKER_02]: We can be curious and we can partner with our nervous system.
[SPEAKER_02]: But to always want to get out of dysregulation and just be in ventral, does a disservice to your biology.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I will say the other thing, your nervous system is not going to allow that to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your nervous system is going to get more and more activated, make take more and more intense action if you are always trying to escape, because it says, listen to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm giving you information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please listen.
[SPEAKER_02]: That information is necessary for you to make changes and the change is not to, you know, plunge your face and cold water.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what we want to do every time we're feeling dysregulated.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to be able to turn towards and say, oh, what do I need to know?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the other thing I do want to say that because I do talk about glimmers, glimmers, I understand are all over social media, somehow they escaped the therapy office and are now out there and running wild in the world, which is lovely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am all for glimmers, glimmers out there in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all for them being out there in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to say that when I started looking for glimmers with my clients, it was not to turn away from their suffering, turn away from their trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what glimmers do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't do anything to change what is activating you.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're a totally separate pathway from that.
[SPEAKER_02]: What they do do is remind you that glimmers are possible, that regulation is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they build the capacity for you to find your way back to regulation when you're dysregulated.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that then builds the capacity to turn toward your trauma and work with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was a whole reason why we want to focus on these micro moments so that we can process trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we don't want to lose that awareness when we're looking for glimmers.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't want to think, is this going to take care of everything?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not toxic positivity.
[SPEAKER_02]: What it's doing is it's helping you remember your nervous system is exquisitely able to hold both.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you hold a moment of regulation, you have more capacity to be with the suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is so beautiful and that's so meaningful for me like with glimmers.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how that's what they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: They allow us to be with what we feel the need to get away from because it's so intolerable.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a whole dilemma of trauma, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That there's something trying to get our attention and we can't tolerate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're trying to get away from feeling it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's what makes our nervous system feel so, ah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: We either feel, ah, as we're really pushing it away, or we're, you know, so anxious we panic to get away, or, you know, my home away from home, as you know, from our work, is that dorsal disconnect flowed away, just collapsed, you know, don't bother, give it up, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And our nervous system has those two choices.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's either the sympathetic fight or the dorsal collapse.
[SPEAKER_02]: and in service of helping you survive and not being with whatever is trying to come up.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're trying to build a new pathway where we can have a bit of that regulation to tolerate being able to be with what the suffering wants us to know, what we need to learn from that and how we can then process it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so turning toward is what we want to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So with, you know, on social media, we're only learning the hacks to turn away from.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this go away.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's best as possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just like overriding, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: The wisdom is that's here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it used to be, we'd take a pill or use a substance and now we, you know, turn toward something beautiful, you know, it's all in the same sort of of of of of of category of of getting away from my past bypass right override turn away.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we want to we want to use those moments of regulation to build the platform for turning back toward.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've said this with you before, but I want to say again, because I feel it's really relevant for everyone, you know, and I talked about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got a lot of that, but I've got plenty of the
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, and it's like, you know, I've described almost like long periods maybe six months of life of being feeling like being in a tunnel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I always say it doesn't feel like a tunnel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like a black hole and it feels like things are never going to be different and can't be different and there's nothing that can happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: to help.
[SPEAKER_01]: And glimmers, I often say, are like when you begin to go, wait a second, something's way out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, is that light colored thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in this blackness, but there's like a light colored thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a is something out there?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what like let's you see that you're in a tunnel.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, when we can tune into what else is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, yes, this is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I feel and what else is available.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, again, that's a beautiful both and of our of our humanness, right, that I can be in the depths of despair and there can be a spark somewhere that that catches my eye or catches my interests.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, I think about the grief journey I've been on where people are people have ideas about how you're supposed to navigate grief, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been happy that I know my nervous system, because I'm following what my nervous system says, and there are those times when there are long stretches of that, and I trust that my nervous system, something is happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, and that's when I do notice, oh, a bird just saying, right, or there was this beautiful sound of the rain, right, which doesn't then discount the the the grief process, but it adds to it's it's, oh, it's it's more than and that I think is the gift of the nervous system.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's more than one
[SPEAKER_02]: One state, one moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has these three states that it is moving in and out of in small ways all the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: If we can catch those moments, we're reminded that, oh right, and in this moment in time we're living in, I think catching those moments reminds us that goodness does exist in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, that kindness, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the thing I used to think do the right thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what the right thing is sometimes now, but do the kind thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can figure that out.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the kind thing to do for that nervous system, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I have to say, oh, got it right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to hold up your book.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're one of your, one of your many books.
[SPEAKER_01]: This glimmers journal is really a way to do exactly what you're talking about, reflect on the small moments that bring you joy, safety, and connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to say, I've got a page right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says, be friend of tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Got that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's, it's, I love that, you know, I thought this was going to be kind of a, what are the glimmers that you notice, but I like that it's actually a little bit more prompting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: like, you know, here's something you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Watch a creature fly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's sort of like giving the type of unexpected creative things that elicit curiosity, just in the prompt.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, no, watch a thing, a living thing flying.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's up there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think I love having a menu of things for my system and I know the nervous system loves choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So categories and prompts and then places for you to write your own.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just felt like that would be welcoming because again, we're always looking for way to invite the nervous system into an experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: No demand, no expectation, just
[SPEAKER_02]: an invitation so a menu and a bunch of different ways to look for things is really what I was wanting to do and it came out of people asking me all the time about glimmers and I finally said I probably could create something and people could then
[SPEAKER_02]: Go explore on their own.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, because really, I think, I mean, that's my quest, I think, is to help people be friend their own nervous system and then learn how their nervous system works and go out in the world with their nervous system, you know, work with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that's, that I think is, is what we humans are trying to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're trying to figure out our own experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: And our biology is a big part of that experience, you know, and it works around organizing principles that we've talked about a lot in polybagal theory.
[SPEAKER_02]: And within those organizing principles, we each have our own way, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You might go to a tree where I'm going to go and put my feet on the hot stone in my backyard, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're both getting us to the same place, but we're taking a different path.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's whatever resonates with each one with their own experiences where the place that they are in, the culture that they bring, the practices that are native to their being and their peoples, yeah, all of those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And probably especially needed in the challenging times we're living in right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just challenging around the world as is in a state of disregulation, I think, everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: And without enough people who can find their way to regulation,
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't engage in the conversations we need to have.
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't connect because we're in a survival state that's that's impossible to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, every time I'm regulated and I am with others or even just walking through the world and feeling regulated, I think, oh, I'm, this is what I'm, the energy I'm putting out into the world and other nervous systems are feeling that and are feeling perhaps a little bit safer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's I think that's within reach for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how to change the systems totally beyond reach.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I think about that, I totally go to despair.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I can work with this system and this system can then impact that system and that one and that one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I like that image of the ripple going out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to say the one thing about changing systems.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can feel impossible and hopeless to make change or for things to get better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when I'm in a certain grounded state or maybe in ventral, I can think of what could be possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think ventral
[SPEAKER_01]: gives us access to new ideas instead of just like, well, how are we going to make what's being broken back how it was or how we think it's supposed to be or what if a different way could be better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this, you know, actually,
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, I had a dream about this about, you know, that there's limitations to the way we look at things and, you know, the structures that exist, we see them.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know we have a lot of some people have more and some people have less trust and belief in the structures that have been created but the world is continuously changing which can feel so threatening to our systems and it's not like just oh well I I'll just watch and see what's going to happen and wait and hope somebody figures out what to do but it's more like what can we do what can we come up with together what can we collectively do versus
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's fight them all, you know, like just like them, get on like that whole.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just that gets you know where that's just the endless wars that we've had over history, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_02]: That creativity and seeing new options, hearing new stories can only happen from ventral.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that mental energy brings it alive and then we can move with purpose and passion and find a new path only from ventral.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, just all these reasons to find the micromoments and take a moment to notice them and celebrate them.
[SPEAKER_02]: because even doing that for a few seconds makes it makes a big difference in your biological system.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I always think too, they stitch together.
[SPEAKER_01]: They become more of an internal safety net web of safety.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something that grows in that it's not these isolated moments, you know, like stars in the sky.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're connected.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's relationships.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's a lovely way to think about, I think about gathering glimmers.
[SPEAKER_02]: We gather them and then they begin to find their way into connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as that happens, we the pathway to ventral just becomes easier to travel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: More accessible, more available.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that when I go to that place of hopelessness, I don't stay there for the next week.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, I organize, I look out the window and I'm back, you know, in an hour instead of what used to be probably two days, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's because my system has more access to that energy of regulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so grateful to you, you always explain these, we're talking about scientific concepts, but you explain these matters, these ideas, and really understandable ways that are
[SPEAKER_01]: relatable and you know we can all put into practice in our lives and that that's one of the gifts that you bring to the world I mean think about the impact of that I hope I hope I you know and talking with you and and all your listeners who are then going to sort of notice oh there there's a moment right yeah that that then that feels me with hope really
[SPEAKER_02]: That that is that that place of the power and the promise of these micro moments of regulation I think so I'm gonna hold on to that hope.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you Deb.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you as always for coming to therapy chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm always so not only grateful but nourished and enriched through our conversations.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really really appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: right back out to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to Therapy Chat with your host, Laura Reagan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information, please visit Therapy Chat podcast.com.