[SPEAKER_00]: Therapy Chat Podcasts Episode 499 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_01]: I welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Laura Regan.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this week, I'm bringing you a fascinating conversation about the vestibular system.
[SPEAKER_01]: How it impacts us throughout development and throughout our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: How sound impacts it?
[SPEAKER_01]: How trauma impacts it?
[SPEAKER_01]: My guest today is Kim Bartel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kim Bartel is a Canadian Occupational Therapist, a multidisciplinary speaker, mentor, and both selling author, who is active in supporting people in many contexts.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's passionate about understanding complex behavior, neurobiology, trauma-sensitive, and neurodiverse-affirming practice, sensory processing, attachment, movement, and mental health.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2025, Kim was honored to receive an award from a touch for innovation in the treatment of children with trauma, and with 41-plus years of practice, she's still learning every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can hear the interest in the passion that both of us have for this topic and the conversation, and I hope you'll learn something like I did, let's dive right in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Laura Ragan, and today, I'm so happy to be finally connecting with someone I've wanted to talk to you for a long time, Kim Bartel.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kim, thank you so much for being my guest on Therapy Chat today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Laura, thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I too have been anticipating this conversation with you, and I'm honored to be a guest in dialogue in your podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: busy person we were trying to coordinate time zones when you were in Australia and I was in the US and you know the day and a half or whatever difference I was like I can't figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we finally made it happen so here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super thrilled to be talking with you because you're so knowledgeable and I heard you speak in 2023 at the Master Series in Oxford about
[SPEAKER_01]: this is what convinced me after I had been kind of circling around it for years to finally go ahead and do it to, you know, do it for myself and become certified in the method because the video you showed just I admit I came in about a third of the way through so I could have missed some other videos but this one video that I saw that you showed just really
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe realize just how powerful it is for co-regulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to talk to you about that in so many other things, but before we get into it, will you just start off by telling our audience a little bit more about who you are and what you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, that's always such a wow question to start with.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who are you and what do you do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who am I?
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a human who has a deep love for humanity and my mission in my work is to support the conscious evolution of the human spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: My occupation is complex in that I am an occupational therapist by trade.
[SPEAKER_02]: hand-embrace us in my learning about neuroscience, as it applies to therapy, in psychotherapeutic process, and this is my 42nd year of being a clinician, and that makes me a junior
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the capacity to have so much vast experience, both as a learner from patients, clients, as well as a teacher, teacher of clinicians all over our world.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think I like to start with what it is that the why, what is my why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Each moment that we evolve brings us to a greater awareness
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, along with that, can you say more about how you are supporting the evolution of human consciousness?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in a wide variety of ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Occupational therapists are kind of unique, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think we're unique anyway.
[SPEAKER_02]: In that the training that we have brings us into a very global human holistic perspective.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that when we are studying occupational science, as it's called today, it looks at mind, body, spirit,
[SPEAKER_02]: heart, emotion, and all the interactive components that make up why we do what we do and how healing is a journey rather than a destination.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a very unique profession that sits in that medical realm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for me, consciousness is a state of awareness of how I am embodying my day-to-day experiences that are coming from within as I interact with the world around me, as well as with the people around me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, with increased awareness and connection, the capacity to stay connected,
[SPEAKER_02]: to those experiences in their full realm of the range of what we experience as humans.
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe gives us a chance to elevate our ways of relating, relating to each other, and to the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so how do I do it?
[SPEAKER_02]: In a wide variety of ways, teaching, having conversations,
[SPEAKER_02]: an in-person program we call moving to higher ground, which is a five-day program for clinicians to come and treat kids, kids or my specialty, by the way, in-person and receive support, as well as personal growth alongside their clinical skills.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's an example of embodiment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Embodied learning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the only kind of learning.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like any more.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like to experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm real.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not just talk about it in a heavy way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just what you shared there really got me thinking about the limitation of the medical view of our organs as having certain functions.
[SPEAKER_01]: our heart pumps and makes our blood circulate and sends oxygen to the brain and but there's a coherence in our heart that's different from that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And our gut is turret digest our food and it's where our immune system is but so much more happening in our gut just just when you were talking about the evolution of consciousness I was thinking.
[SPEAKER_02]: on that holistic way that we are truly mind-body connected, that, you know, the mind doesn't just live in your head, but it is a cellular state of interconnectedness and communication.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I can, I have an example that I just learned.
[SPEAKER_02]: from a colleague, his duck-based Gabriel Cram, he was just talking about how in embryology in embryological development, and this was an online workshop I was listening to, in as cells fold on each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point, in our embryological development, the heart is higher than the head in position.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, wow, and then it migrates.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he describes it as sliding across the front of the brainstem.
[SPEAKER_02]: where it sends in little shoots, makes me think of a tree, a little branches into the brainstem, specifically the nucleus ambiguous, and becomes part of the heart vagal connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is, you know, the beginnings in many ways of Dr. Portes' ventral vagal system, that right away at one point in your development as a being, your heart is the boss.
[SPEAKER_02]: and sits in front and then connects into the brain, where they are actually one for a short period of time, and then the heart migrates further into the chest, but the connection lives on in the way that it's wired together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just was fascinated at that piece of information that made me feel this idea of interconnectivity between heart and mind,
[SPEAKER_01]: not just know it, isn't it interesting how even the words describing these connections have a resonance that we can feel like a felt experience, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so far beyond just memorizing the names of the different parts of the brain and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh gosh, there's so much more to discover.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have to say people like you, and Dr. Porgis, and Gabriel Kram, and people who are doing these explorations, it's also Sukarta.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unbelievable what can be found.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so much beyond just
[SPEAKER_01]: to how we work and what's really happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, Laura, it also helps us end humbles us to stay curious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because just when you, or at this, at least this is what happens to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to think I know something.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, uh, uh, there's, you know, more to know, and more to,
[SPEAKER_02]: expand into and sometimes stuff to disregard, then.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's some of the learning that I had when I began my career is so vastly different today that it requires a humility, an evolution, so to speak, of understanding how we are really made.
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe all the things we think today,
[SPEAKER_02]: In 20 years from now, we'll say, oh my gosh, I really had that wrong, too, or there's much more to it than the way I thought about it in 2025, so it's it's important to stay in dialogue like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a great point.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no reaching and then you know what there is now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've seen myself in my career so far how the new discoveries in this field in the field of trauma and attachment are just happening so rapidly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It almost just forces you to have an open mind about, we don't know what they'll figure out next.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, it just keeps growing, growing, and it's very, very exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an exciting field to work in, for sure, never boring, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So something that I wanted to ask you about that is not something that most of us in the mental health field learn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the things I deeply value that I've learned from the field
[SPEAKER_01]: the sensory system, you know, and of course I know like this much about it, which is mind-blowing, compared to what we didn't know in the mental health field and what we don't typically learn, but I guess maybe either part of that or related to that is
[SPEAKER_01]: the vestibular system and how it contributes to our ability to feel safe in our bodies and and to orient to our environment and to connection with others, how it relates to the vagus nerve.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love if you could teach us a little bit about that, maybe just in relation to what would be relevant for understanding how sound healing works, you know, how sound impacts us, the ear, all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your question is a big one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wanted to say as a start to your question for those who might be interested in perhaps
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a book that was just recently published called The Handbook of Childhood Trauma in Dissociation.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was written edited by Jill Hose and Anna Gomez.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in it, on chapter 21, is a chapter by me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's called Psychosensory Intervention for the treatment of children with complex trauma and dissociation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Given that this is a shared love of a conversation trauma and dissociation between you and I, I thought you would, you would like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you know there isn't it's a big it's a big volume as book but there hasn't been a lot of of a compendium for kids in history so it's kind of a a really beautiful weaving of different ways of supporting children.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, psychosensory is a theory that I put together of combining sensation, movement, psychotherapy, attachment, play, relational interventions, neurobiology.
[SPEAKER_02]: and seeing how trauma lives in the sensory systems.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as an occupational therapist, historically working with children, who often came with a traditional diagnosis of either ADHD or learning disability or autism or varying, you know, waste paper basket terms that they would come to the clinic with.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've found myself
[SPEAKER_02]: landing in trauma over and over and over again, where when children who had experienced developmental trauma, for example, and had dissociative histories of self-protection,
[SPEAKER_02]: that that state of disembodiment was actually coded within how they process sensation, that looked a lot like other diagnoses where the child's capacity to know where their body is in space or make their movements be smooth or feel safe with touch or connection.
[SPEAKER_02]: that these things we had a nice little category for, in our sensory integrative therapy, and it wasn't clear that sometimes when you are in the process of embodying, feeling you, for sometimes the first time, it's not fun, and it also isn't always feeling safe, and subsequently the child may
[SPEAKER_02]: may look more disregulated, and many therapists along the way in history, I thought, well, what I'm doing isn't working, and what I have discovered is it's the combination of how I show up in those moments as the child person starts to come into connection with
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the OT lab, so to speak, we have lots of equipment that we use at our disposal.
[SPEAKER_02]: My favorite is Lycra, which is a Spandex material that gives you a sense of compression and containment to your body and a boundary for your body.
[SPEAKER_02]: What I know about trauma is that all traumas in some way seem to include some kind of boundary violation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that feeling of, this is me and this is not me, is an embodied experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a profound way to put a history or a story of attachment, disruption of developmental trauma together with a new way of experiencing your body.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the vestibular system is fascinating in your question because it is the most primitive sensory system.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the first one in your embryological development to be fully developed.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, you know, you're swimming around in an aqueous environment and you'll never have that much vestibular input again in your lifetime unless, you know, you live on the moon or underwater, you know, the the womb.
[SPEAKER_02]: is a contained space.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where the baby, first learns, I'm different from you, I'm separate from you, and that these, if the nervous system is wiring up in the way that it was designed to do, then the developing brain learns self-differentiation, at least at a very basic
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of times where that wiring doesn't wire in the way that it's supposed to.
[SPEAKER_02]: For a wide variety of reasons, but the vestibular system doesn't have its own cortex.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, your eyes has its own cortex, the occipital cortex, and you have all of the temporal lobe for sound.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: You have the sensory motor strip for perception and touch, your vestibular input goes everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: It impacts all aspects of human function, emotion, cognition, motion, time and space.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when that system is struggling, it's kind of like the platform upon which other systems scaffold from don't work so well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this vestibular backdrop allows me to feel gravity, my reference point to the ground, hence the word, you know, groundedness to feel safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: in an upright position.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I don't know about you, but I never think about that at all until I had vertigo.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you can't think about anything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that reference of this is me in an upright position and how I map everything in relationship
[SPEAKER_02]: is combined with that spatial knowing, so that I know where that sound came from, or I know where that object is, or is there something in the periphery of my landscape that I need to know is part of threat.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when Dr. Port just talks about in his polyvagal theory, the term neuroception,
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, I call it the satellite dish that helps us know at a very, and I'm pointing to my gut, right, at a very primitive intero-enteric knowing am I safe or am I not?
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of that sensory information that comes from within my body is
[SPEAKER_02]: Part of my knowing, you know, your gut has its own brain.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that information from within me is put together from the information that's coming from outside of me in a millisecond.
[SPEAKER_02]: Telling me, am I truly safe here or not?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or relatively safe?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that becomes what we call an expected experience, where like a prediction that from that early knowing that I live in myself, that's how I expect the world to be and then my brain is a comparator saying,
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to drive or do, you know, 90% of the things that we do.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would be too slow, so the vestibular system has a lot of feeding of information constantly for readiness.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, what do you think about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a few things that are coming to my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: First thing that came to my mind is one of my children when they were a baby had a strip of business.
[SPEAKER_01]: So both eyes were crossing and the baby had surgery at seven months of age and the baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: just not saying which baby it was just after privacy but the baby was my I was you know a new mom so I wasn't I was tracking the developmental milestones to the extent that I understood them but the baby wasn't sitting up yet before the surgery and as soon as they came home from the
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, something about depth perception or something was impacted with why they weren't sitting up and probably if they hadn't had the surgery, they would have had that developmental delay of not sitting up in the timing that is typical.
[SPEAKER_02]: Laura, this makes me excited all of my occupational therapy colleagues that are watching this and listening to this podcast because they will love this.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll go, yes, thank you for being such an awesome mom for describing it this way because this is what we're trying to explain all the time, especially to physicians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that we call it the vestibular ocular reflex.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I have a workshop that I give called the vestibular visual system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I don't separate them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're one system.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the vestibular system which lives in your middle ear inside your inner ear is sending information directly to a part of your brainstem that helps eye muscles work so that you can
[SPEAKER_02]: and to coordinate your two eyes together.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if there is a challenge with the vestibular system, it'll impact the eyes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if there is a problem with the eyes, it will impact the vestibular system because they are, you know, interactive in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: in how they're wired together and and so something that seems so subtle like asterbismiss has impact on the neck muscles because the neck muscles sit in between the head and the trunk has an impact on your inner core muscles which is helping you sit up so it's it's an interactive function that all
[SPEAKER_02]: We hope to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, and I think about the way that this child when they played sports, it was like, there was a lot of with soccer like going for the ball, but just missing it, you know, and later we realize that their eyes weren't working together.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that just makes me wonder too.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, these things are things where in the medical world, it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: you got the surgery, your eyes aren't crossing, you're good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And meanwhile, it looks like there's possibly some impacts of this and how do you even find out what they are, you know, or what they could be or what could be different, and then how do you address those things?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's like a rabbit hole in a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But an important one, you know, because if we scaffold this conversation
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and talk about vestibular and visual functions as a result of trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the eyes, let's start with the eyes for a second.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are often a outcome measure of constant states of stress.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when children are exposed to chronic danger, their
[SPEAKER_02]: and this includes the eyes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So peripheral vision becomes often dominant over central detail vision, which keeps you in this big open-eyed state of vigilance, where you are constantly noticing and scanning for danger, which you can look like distractability.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's the nervous
[SPEAKER_02]: of using or of harnessing are a reflex that we all have, but for heightened protection.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you actually see an adaptive change in the visual system to be less focused and to be more oriented to the outside world.
[SPEAKER_02]: in anticipation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this changes how the mind, I always say the mind is behind the eyes, is able to connect to what it's doing because if you're busy protecting yourself, it's harder to get down to maybe learning in a classroom for how.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this baby actually had a traumatic delivery that I believe is why they had strabismus because, well, and the cord was wrapped around their neck.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were in distress.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a trauma for the child to be hypervigilant toward for the rest of their life, potentially if it's not addressed in some way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what's so amazing about us as humans is our capacity to heal and adapt in spite of those horrific unaddressed.
[SPEAKER_02]: The birth trauma is one of the least talked about, I think, forms of trauma and such a common human experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: And often the fact that I just think about the number of
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in my life, and you know, you survived and that's champagne material, and then there's usually not a consideration of what that survival took.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right from your, from your soul, from your being, to manage all of that
[SPEAKER_02]: That dilemma that you had at the beginning, and don't forget, in addition to the negative aspects of trauma, there's amazing resilience and resourcing that comes from that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So true, and I want to name too that in what you were speaking about earlier with children with attention issues and various things that end up giving them a diagnosis that
[SPEAKER_01]: The traumas they may have experienced are so often overlooked.
[SPEAKER_01]: The parents will say, well, they haven't experienced any trauma.
[SPEAKER_01]: The parents thinking, I'm not abusing them.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's abusing them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they haven't experienced any trauma, but if they had a traumatic birth or a traumatic experience in utero, that's traumatic and it's impossible for that baby or that young child to be able to tell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was really hard for me back then when that happened, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the child knows that isn't no, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the knowing is so deep within, but it's not intellectual language-based understanding, right, which makes that kind of trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was going to use the word tricky, but that's not even the right word.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so foundational in the landscape of that person's life, the lens through which they live without even knowing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I first had that conversation with Dr. Bruce Perry so many years ago, when he started to talk about the neurosequential model.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the different timings of trauma and how that would impact different functions of the nervous system as they evolved.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one other thing I was going to remember to say is the vestibular system is really connected to anxiety.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you don't know where you are in space, it's very anxiety-producing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and in your hippocampus, which is part of memory, formation, and referencing of where, where I put my keys, for example, this is highly receptive to the vestibular system, and there are special cells in the hippocampus called place cells, which actually help you know
[SPEAKER_02]: where things are in relationship to you and remember that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this has been shown to be impacted by trauma that dissociative experiences disembodied experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the Ruth Lanius's work.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really has an impact.
[SPEAKER_02]: The vestigorous system has a deep impact on organization, identity, sense of body awareness.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, the sensory systems play a big role in mental health and well-being and because they are so much a part of how we experience the world, including relationships, which are sensory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, my mind is just...
[SPEAKER_01]: all over the place like just all these thoughts and associations to what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: So another thing I wanted to say that came to mind when you were talking about the vestibular system is myself as a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: When when I was a little kid, I ran around and played like all the other kids and everything was rosy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my parents split up my mom moved out and she had been my primary caregiver.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my mom left and I lived with my dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a safe person, but my mom was like really my primary caregiver.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after my mom left, gradually, over the years, I became uncoordinated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I couldn't dance, I couldn't kick a ball or play that way, and I'm getting emotional when I think about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, I struggled to do math all of a sudden when I had always found school easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, it's really, it's so hard to make these connections with the way your brain works and these experiences that were.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, they were traumatic, but it's like not exactly a trauma symptom in the way that we normally think of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, oh gosh, you know, what you're saying, I'm feeling, and trauma is such an eye of the perceiver.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this word is so important because I think the dialogues around trauma have led us to think or become
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we all have an image of what from it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything that disrupts the authentic sense of expression of self.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the feeling of safety can be coded as traumatic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the loss of a parent is one of the single most intense traumas we can experience in humans.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that I think that's important for the listeners that when someone tells a story of their experience, they need to be met in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Irrespective of how traumatic it sounds or not, who asks,
[SPEAKER_01]: to someone else, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I feel like that's one of the biggest challenges in this work is to challenge the public perception of what trauma is, because even when you were sharing about working with kids who have these challenges that look behavioral or they look neurological, maybe like neurodivergence,
[SPEAKER_01]: And now there's this big movement to a lot of people being late diagnosed with ADHD, but I'm asking myself, has trauma been ruled out as the source of this interruption or this challenge?
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I don't want to negate anyone's experience, but on the other hand,
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how they are, and they have to figure out how to thrive in the world as they are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus this is an effect of something that happened that doesn't have to stay like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would think that most people would prefer not to suffer with challenges that they have to learn how to live with when they could be addressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's up to each person, but
[SPEAKER_02]: It's neurodiverse affirming practice is a big part of being trauma sensitive and helping us to all see each other through a sense of acceptance.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a beautiful.
[SPEAKER_02]: aspiration of evolution for sure and you know what I have experienced in this journey with families and with clients many of the kids that I treated are now 40 so they're no longer there no longer kids and you know still have relationships with them one of the things that happens is that you see that change across time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you a very concrete example.
[SPEAKER_02]: Last week, this is vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_02]: I went for a hearing test and I came out and the the audiologist was very good, very kind and he said you did very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I could tell by his face there was a butt coming and he said, and you have a hearing impairment.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was fascinating, it doesn't matter how much you know, it hits, it hit me, like a wave of, wow, you know, there's, you know, there's, you know, there's, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: there's aging, there's imperfection, there's difference, all the things that we each face every time we had a, it was a little mini shock, little mini shock wave, and my first response was,
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, something must have been wrong in the test.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I laughed at myself because one side of me said it, and the other side said, well, there's denial for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I said, hmm, I guess that means, this is what I said to him, I need to be aided.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, you always have a choice, and I thought, well, that was interesting, because I didn't perceive it as a choice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then here we are, one week later, and this is coming in the future.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just starting to settle into the idea of this place of what's that going to be like?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, how is that going to change my other senses?
[SPEAKER_02]: how is that going to help me in my interactions?
[SPEAKER_02]: How is it that I didn't even know like all of that reflective process?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm thinking, I'm thinking, that no matter what there is trauma, meaning, if I might identify with a neural, a neurodiversity of some form,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to have this process in me of landing in a knowing of about myself that requires something different than maybe I expected and that that's in and of itself it's going beyond the label moving into the label rather than saying oh well don't forget the trauma right now this little shock whatever experience of a diagnosis.
[SPEAKER_02]: is a window into exploring more and more of, well, why do I respond that way?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that often, that is the path into the trauma, rather than it's this or this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been a very fascinating experience in working with those with difference, especially as adults when they're late diagnosed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I often think to myself, you know, what does it feel like to have a diagnosis when you're 60
[SPEAKER_02]: need that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for some it's like validation of all the suffering I've had for all this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for others it's like, now I can begin to explore myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_02]: The diverse views of which we enter into this journey of self discovery really.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I hold them both in mind all the time because in my perspective, we all have continuums of shock trauma in our psyche and our being and it's on our timelines.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel the same way and an attachment wounds which many people look at as being different from trauma
[SPEAKER_01]: but because we're not living in a way that's really aligned with our true nature and living in civilization and modernity, we don't have the ability to connect with small groups the way that maybe we're meant to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we can find ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying there's none, but we're disconnected.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're in this hyper-individualized culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of violence in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a lot of deprivation, there's a lot of greed, and all of those things lead us to experiencing new traumas throughout our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: and how we cope both in the moment and across time shapes the way we move.
[SPEAKER_02]: So our bodies, you know, they inform us, but they also are recipients of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So muscles become collapsed.
[SPEAKER_02]: They become hypertense, systems are immune systems, have an impact on them, our organs work differently, our hormones work differently because they are designed to keep us in alignment with what we are experiencing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So each of our bodies shape all of their functions to what we are experiencing.
[SPEAKER_02]: and I find that knowing that, at least helps me to be kinder to myself and to try and get ahead of it, so that if I feel something in my body or I notice something talking to me instead of responding from fear, it's a way to say, ah, you're giving me a little bit of information.
[SPEAKER_01]: you have such a broad knowledge base with your 42 years of your career and your continued curiosity it seems and I would love to sit at your feet and just ask you questions for hours an hours but we can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: So for now, will you talk to our audience a little bit about how the
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the vagus nerve, I asked Steve Porter's that question once, what is the connection between the vagus nerve and the distributed system?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he, his response was, we don't really know him.
[SPEAKER_02]: So specifically with respect to that particular system, we don't have a true interconnection, but what I want to say is everything is so interconnected, period.
[SPEAKER_02]: The vagus nerve is not the only nerve or the only part of us that is responsible for regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Regulation takes your whole brain.
[SPEAKER_02]: How, however, all parts of our brain connect into autonomics.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I like to think of it with clarity.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like many roads lead to Rome.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's all this weaving of because our autonomic nervous system is both our output for survival, as well as our registrant of danger.
[SPEAKER_02]: and safety.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's interfacing with everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when one aspect that we do know for sure about the vagus nerve is that the semicircular canals, which are little hoops that sit inside the vestibular system, that give the brain information about the direction of movement and the speed of movement,
[SPEAKER_02]: they're predominantly driving an up-regulation because you don't want to fall on your face when you're in the bus, when it stops.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need that readiness and sympathetic, please know all of us need to be reminded, I think, is not negative.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a necessary element
[SPEAKER_02]: in play, in function, in balance, in coordination.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the stipular system is mostly connected to that more sympathetic side.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now there is one branch that we have some evidence that says, and this is the horizontal, the spinning hope is very connected to the vagus nerve because it can make you puke.
[SPEAKER_02]: and vomit, vomiting is parasipathetic, vagal, which, you know, most of us think of that is completely not fun, but it is highly protective.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what gets toxins out of you and throwing up when you are sick or when you have had too much input is
[SPEAKER_02]: it has an inherently protective function and so this spinning can be a quick way to help you feel more down-regulated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people who are really really in the out-fringes of their need for down-regulation towards a more rest and restore space.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rotation can be very helpful for them,
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the treatments that I have for many clients I call it office chair therapy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where you just do a few little spins on your office chair, it changes your breath, changes your...
[SPEAKER_02]: capacity in your sense of connection to yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: It activates your diaphragm, which is part of your inner core.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's got lots of different outcomes, this rotary function.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one other thing Steve did to say in my question was, when you hang upside down, there are barrel receptors in the arteries in your neck.
[SPEAKER_02]: that monitor blood flow to the brain, that change your blood pressure.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when you're upside down, you don't want all that blood to go just to your head.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the barrel receptors inform your heart to change the heart rate and the blood flow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is very ventral fagle, you know, very, and so inversion.
[SPEAKER_02]: like in yoga or inversions are vestibular, but they are also autonomic.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think it's it's important when we think about the understanding that many of us have about the vagus nerve, we think about it exclusively like the social engagement system, but there is so much more to the
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes so much sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Dr. Ariel Schwartz, I've done a lot of training with her.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she has shown in her trainings how helping ourselves using balance to kind of bring you back to center.
[SPEAKER_01]: So even though you're you're standing on one foot or something so that you're actually off balance.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, then how that regulates your
[SPEAKER_01]: system.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that would be such a cool conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wouldn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I should have you and Ariel on together and oh, what a what a utopic opportunity that would be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, glorious for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And add a sip back in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, so could all up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's so much more than just trying to be regulated.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so much more than just trying to be in ventral vehicle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know that part of the idea of polybagal theories that it's our survival.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's literally our life and death are managed by this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the true nature of gratitude that we have to have for that I call it Norton Antivirus, running in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I could just really learn from you for hours and hours and hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know you said that you were recording a course with Pessy that's about sound in the kind of the like the mechanics of sound healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really interested in that too.
[SPEAKER_02]: that particular conference is in the month of August.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's called the Polyvagal Practice Summit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_02]: By Pezie, on the 28th and 29th of August.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there are lots of wonderful speakers, but there is a strong sound music listening theme to the conference.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be sure to link to that in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I partner with Pessie often so they'll probably give us a special discount or something for people to sign up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for telling me about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we come to a close, is there anything else you want to share with our listeners that you're doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll write about the
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when I think about what we're doing, we're headed out on another world tour, starting in September, three, three, four different continents, and there, there's a, so our website is Kim Barthel.ca, and wide varieties of connection, but mostly trauma-sensitive practice, work, themes around regulation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Attachment matters is my brand new course, which we're opening in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sydney and Melbourne in November, and this is attachment 2025.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been studying attachment theory since I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was 30.
[SPEAKER_02]: But a real current deep dive into how do we think about this in our life today?
[SPEAKER_02]: and our clinical practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you for asking the upcoming events in wonderful 2025.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put a link to your website in the show notes and so the attachment matters is in person, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is actually all of the work in the fall is in person.
[SPEAKER_01]: beautiful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Back on the road.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm so grateful that you could sit down for a little bit of time and be with me and can it was lovely to be with you today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being my guest on Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm, thank you, Laura.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to Therapy Chat with your host, Laura Reagan.
[SPEAKER_00]: LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information, please visit Therapy ChatPodcast.com.