Episode 29: How do we start to change?

Hello everyone!  Welcome to another episode of the Teaching and Raising Problem Solvers podcast.  

In this episode, we will reflect on the quote from earlier this week.  I’ll read it right now, just to get us back in thinking mode about this week’s reflections.  

This week’s quote was from Hunter Clarke-Fields and the book, Raising Good Humans.  As we talked about in the podcast earlier in the week, all the quotes and books that I pick for this are quotes that are meaningful for me, but also books that I think are really important in our journey towards change surrounding how we talk about behaviors.

The quote was: 

We aren’t ‘choosing’ to turn on our frustrated thoughts, helpless feelings, or physiological stress reaction.  We react in those moments on automatic pilot.  Our stress is running the show, often dictating our reaction.  Our words just fly out.  Often, our autopilot script is a replay
of the same language our own parents used in those situations.

As the point of reflection today, I wanted to talk about the difference between where you are right now in how you’re responding to dysregulation and where you want to be.  Who do you want to be when it comes to the adult supporting a child who is dysregulated?  How do you want to feel?  What types of thoughts do you want to have?

Because then we can start actually thinking and brainstorming around behaviors you can take to work towards changing those thoughts and emotions.  Remember I defined self-regulation in an earlier episode as the ability to be aware of and change your thoughts and emotional or energy states in order to accomplish a goal.  So if the goal here–the goal of future you–is to be a more present, regulated communication partner, then we can actively start to think about what a present, attuned regulation partner would feel like, and what thoughts they would be having.  We can start thinking about actions we can take to do that.

I want to give a personal example on today’s podcast episode.  If you’ve listened to earlier episodes, or if you’ve followed me on social media, you’ll know that my journey in the world of self-regulation and co-regulation started in late 2018/early 2019, when my son was in the toddler years and I recognized that his self-regulation skills were developing much differently than my daughter’s had.  I recognized that the traditional behavior methods that I knew, that I had been taught in school, weren’t working.  They didn’t feel like the right response.  So I went on my own behavior-change journey.

What it really took was becoming aware of what was happening for me; what was happening in my body, my thoughts, and my emotions, when my son was dysregulated and then figuring out what to do to cultivate a different experience.  So it’s multi-layered and I probably could create a 60- or 75-minute episode on it, but my vision for this podcast is short episodes, for quick bites.  Essentially, what I started doing was tapping into what thoughts I was having when my son, Troy, was dysregulated.  And the number one thought that was popping up for me was, “You are not in control.  You are not in control of this.”  

I’m not saying that as a positive self-talk mantra; I’m talking about it as the demon on my shoulder.  This nagging voice that was saying, “You are not in control here.  You have no control over this.  You are letting the situation run wild.”  And you can kind of tell how that creates its whole narrative, and how when your brain hears that message, when it hears, “You are not in control; you are not managing the situation,” it facilitates that stress response. 

Then it creates a whole host of other issues.  The stress response makes it difficult to be a present co-regulation partner.  So my work started with my own thought patterns and being aware of where my emotional and energy states were not only in those moments of dysregulation, but also throughout the day.  My own regulation journey has been evolving as I learn more about my regulation in the moments that span all the day, because when dysregulation happens for us, and for our kids, it usually is a build-up upon other moments that taxed our stress system that we didn’t acknowledge or have the time to acknowledge, to be able to replenish or soothe.  

So a huge part of my journey was being aware of that stress response in the moment, and being aware of the thoughts I was having–Oh, there’s that thought that I’m having.”  Just merely naming the thing is extremely valuable–as Dr. Dan Siegel says regarding kids’ feelings, “name it to tame it.”   For me, naming my thought without judgment tamed it, because it immediately made me realize and be aware of the thought, and allowed me to practice being aware of it without blaming or shaming myself.  That was huge. 

And just naming the thing brought me to a cortex level.  I was able to climb that staircase from that more stress response-based thinking to a cortex-based thinking.  “Oops – there’s my stress response coming in, saying that I’m not in control.  It’s trying to protect me, saying things are dangerous here.  But you know what?  This isn’t dangerous.  My son is not dangerous.  I am safe.  I am the adult, and my son needs me.”

That shift in thinking was huge.  So huge!  But I will share that when I started the journey, when I started becoming aware of my thoughts, I definitely second-arrowed myself.  I’d say, “I can’t believe I’m having that thought about my son, who’s so little!” My body would feel tense and tight, and I realized it would just spiral.  And I would wind up having to step away, or having to cut off the connection in that moment.  Being able to be a present, regulated, attuned regulation partner really came from me becoming aware of the thoughts, naming them and climbing the staircase to be a present regulation partner.  

You can do the same thing.  You have the capacity to do the same thing.  If it feels really hard for you to do this, as I mentioned in earlier episodes, please consider working with a therapist.  There may be parts of your past that you’re not aware of on a cortex level, on a bigger level, that are impacting your ability to be a regulated, present regulation partner.  

There’s no judgment here.  If we can name the thing, we can tame the thing eventually with support, with practice, with time.

All right everybody – thanks for listening to another episode of the Teaching and Raising Problem Solvers podcast.  I’ll talk to you next time.