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Have you ever walked away from a conversation thinking, oh, I didn't mean for it to come out like that, or maybe somebody said something to you and kind of stayed with you in the worst way? Because the truth is, our words build or they break. And most of us don't even realize which one we're doing. Welcome to the Building Resilience podcast, episode 226 Builder or the Power of Words and Nervous System Cues. Welcome to Building Resilience, a podcast where theory, practical strategies, and inspiring stories show you how to unlock your best life. I'm your host, Leah Davidson. As a certified life coach, speech language pathologist, and nervous system resilience expert, it is my mission to teach you how to be more resilient to life's adversities. I will show you how to manage your mind, befriend your nervous system, process your emotions, and even eliminate stress. It's time to do more than just survive. It's time to thrive. Let's get started. Hello everybody. I am so happy to have you back. I'm glad you're here. Today's topic touches on something that we all experience daily, how we communicate. But more than that, it's about how we impact the people around us and how they impact us. So my question for you that we're going to be talking about today is are you a builder or a wrecker with your words? Now, before we dive into the topic, please do me a favor. If you are enjoying the podcast and find it helpful, then please share with a friend. Leave a review. I would so appreciate it. And if you're watching this on YouTube, then please subscribe, subscribe, share, and like as well. I want to reach as many people as possible and with your help, it will allow me to do so. So the idea of being a builder, a wrecker is one that I had heard about years and years ago. I'm not even sure where, but it was something that I said in my home a lot to my kids. They would often get on each other and so I just asked them to think about whether they were being a builder or a wrecker. And. And while it's a concept that works for kids, I think it's a powerful concept that many of us as adults need. The concept, very simple, but powerful. In every interaction that we have, we have the opportunity to build someone up or break them down. But when we really take a closer look at communication, you'll see that it's not just your words that matter. There's so much going on behind the words because your Nervous system is always in the mix. And not just your nervous system, but the nervous system of the people around you plays a massive role in how your words are heard and felt. So let's start by imagining you're holding a hammer. And the hammer can be used to construct a safe, beautiful home. Or it can destroy something. It can knock holes in the wall, it can tear down the frame. So the same tool, different intention. And our words are kind of like that. They hold weight, they leave marks. So builders are people who use their words with care. They use their words to. To support and uplift and strengthen, and they speak life into others. They pause, they're present, they're grounded. They understand the power of tone and timing and energy. Now, builders are not perfect, by no means, because nobody is. So we also need to be mindful of that. But they are more intentional wreckers. Most often they don't even realize they're wrecking. So I don't think that they're necessarily being malicious, but they may use sharp tone, a sarcastic remark, a dismissive comment. And these things might seem small, but they can stick with somebody for years. And so wreckers may blurt things out. They may be all about defending themselves. So I want you to just take a moment and think, who are the builders in your life? Who are the wreckers? And when have you been each? Because the truth is, we've all played both roles. Often we're wreckers without even realizing it. We've all experienced wreckers, and that may be easy to spot, but it can be much harder to spot when we're being the wrecker. And I also want to point out that sometimes it's easy to spot a wrecker because they come out and say something. But wreckers exist by not saying things too. They can quietly fly under the radar by saying nothing. I was talking to a friend the other day and she was saying how annoyed she was that a company she had applied to had had totally ghosted her. And she was amazed. Well, we talked about how ghosting is becoming more and more common thing these days. People don't get back to you. They ignore your messages, they pretend not to hear, they change the subject, and then they maybe even gaslight you to think that you have issues for trying to follow up to get a response. Well, this is all a form of being a wrecker. You are wrecking communication. And you're equally sending somebody a wrecking message with your silence, as somebody else might be with their sharper words. And we can all be builders too. Think of someone who saw you and affirmed you and helped you feel regulated. And then think of times you've done that for somebody else as well. So just be careful that all or nothing black and white thinking, we are all a mix of both builder and wrecker. And the good news is we can decide and choose consciously, deliberately, over and over and over again who we really want to be. All right, so let's talk about how this ties into the nervous system. Communication doesn't just happen in your brain. It happens between two nervous systems. @ minimum, more if there are more people. So it's biological. Communication is relational and it's often unconscious. So have you ever said something with the best intentions only to have it completely backfire? Or maybe you received feedback and thought it was kind of, but it kind of hit like a punch to the gut? Well, that's your nervous system at work. Your nervous system and their nervous system is always scanning for one thing. Am I safe or am I in danger? Am I under threat? So even before you speak, your presence, your energy, your tone, your eye contact, your body language is already sending signals to the other person's system. That's why tone and body language and facial expressions matter just as much. So sometimes even more than the actual words. You may have had an experience where somebody said, I didn't say that, or that's not what I said, but you know that their tone and body language and facial expression and energy is communicating something different than their words. Now, when somebody feels safe to you, they stay in their zone of resilience. That's where understanding and creativity and connection and compassion live. But if their nervous system perceives any kind of threat, whether it's real or not, they will shift into a protection mode. And that could look like defensiveness or shutting down or lashing out or going numb. So if you want to be a builder, you have to learn how to send cues of safety. You need to be communicating from your own regulated nervous system state. Now let's talk about CO regulation just for a minute, because this is where things can get really powerful. CO regulation is when one person's nervous system helps regulate another person's. It is how our nervous systems communicate with each other. It's really how babies will calm down in parents arms. It's why you feel safe with certain friends. It's why a teacher's calm presence can settle a chaotic room. When you're regulated, grounded and calm, you become a source of safety for other people. And that's part of being a good builder. But here's the thing. And I want to say it very clearly. You are not responsible for somebody else's nervous system. You are responsible for your own energy, your own words, your own intentions, your own vibe, how you show up. You can't control how somebody else receives you. Because don't forget, some people are living in a chronic state of survival, which means their nervous system can always be on high alert. And then there's a case in that situation where even the kindest words might feel very threatening to them because they are in this hyper vigilant mode. Now, it doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong. It just means that their system can be interpreting everything through a lens of danger. So their nervous system matters too. It shapes how they hear, how they respond, how they show up. But again, it's not yours to fix. Your job is to speak from safety, lead with compassion, and own your own impact, but not their reaction. All right, so let's talk some practical real life strategies. I'm going to give you six ways you can be a builder starting today. Even though we're all going to make mistakes, there are things that we can intentionally do. And as with everything, I don't share this information. So you can go judging yourself for all your past failures, all the times you've been a wrecker, because we all have been. I share this so you can build awareness and start to lead with intentionality instead of reactivity. So how do we focus on being more of a builder? The first thing, start with connection. Before we go into conversations that maybe are a little tough or giving somebody feedback, we want to anchor in warmth, a kind tone, eye contact, a soft opening. This is where you can stop, pause, breathe, and regulate yourself. Because if you dive into a conversation with aggression, or you have sex, something to prove, or you're in a dysregulated state, you're actually setting the whole tone in danger. So it's going to be really hard to have a good conversation. So start with something connecting. Establish the love or the mutual support, the mutual desire for connection or acknowledgement that everyone has their own perspectives. While your feelings may be valid, they are not necessarily the whole truth. Feelings are true to you, but they're not necessarily the truth. So we want to start with connecting. If we're about to have a more challenging conversation, the second thing we want to do is we want to use grounded language. When we jump in and use words like always or never, these are words that will shut conversations down. They're words that feel like you're attacking people. And so in Turn. They'll feel attacked. Try speaking from experience. Maybe saying something like, this is how I feel. I recently had a conversation where somebody told me, this is how I feel. It may not be the truth or what you intended, but it is still how I feel and what they did by coming from it at this experience level. They left the door open for perspective. They left room for good intentions. They left the door open for grace as well. Rather than accusing you always or you never, which really relays messages of danger that will activate the nervous system system they invited in. Room for grace, good intentions and different perspectives. The third thing is regulate yourself first. And maybe this really should have been the first one, but it kind of is the most basic. All communication should be immersed in regulation. Hard to do, but that's what we're aiming for. Before you say anything, just pause. Check in with your own body, asking yourself, you know what I'm going to say. The safety sequence. Am I safe? Do I feel safe? And then acutely relax your body. Breathe. Loosen your muscles. Do the rag doll. Drop your shoulders. Then you can speak from your zone of resilience, not from reactivity. It can be hard to remember. So if you forget, you and me both give yourself grace as you learn new habits. It takes time and you will of course, miss up. Now, the fourth way you can work on being a builder is to be curious and not certain. So instead of assuming the worst, ask questions. Try something like, can you tell me what's going on for you? Can you tell me what happened? Can you tell me what's happening, what your experience is? Curiosity keeps the door open. Certainty can slam it shut. I used to always say to my kids when they were growing up, find expectations, explanations in charity. Why jump to the worst assumption? Give people the benefit of the doubt. There are often so many layers behind what people say and do. So get curious about those layers. Life is so much more enjoyable. Relationships are so much more enjoyable when they're driven by curiosity rather than jumping to assume bad intentions. Now, the fifth thing you can do is is acknowledge without fixing. Sometimes people do just need to feel seen and heard and not solved. And this can be a hard one for all of us. We often want that. We want to be seen and heard, but we don't realize that often we're so focused on us wanting to be seen and heard that we forget to give others that gift. You are important and unique just like everybody else. So acknowledge and just be. And this in turn sends a nice cue of safety to somebody else. The sixth thing you can do is set boundaries without blame. Being a builder doesn't mean being a pushover. For example, you may be in a conversation, but things are heading off in the wrong direction. So maybe you're going to stop and say, listen, I want to talk about this, but I need to feel safe too. Can we take a break and try this again in a bit? This is taking ownership, accountability. It is truly regulation in action. Now, I know what you may be thinking. Okay, what about if I've done all these things actively, tried to be a builder, and the person still reacts from defensiveness or shutdown? Well, this is the part that takes the most resilience. Just because you show up well doesn't mean the other person is ready to receive it. Because remember, they might be stuck in survival mode. They may interpret because of the lens through which they view the world, they may interpret kindness as manipulation. They may have their own internal wreckers that have nothing to do with you. And that's hard, but it's also human. We all kind of do it. So if this is happening, just come back to what's true. Are you doing your part? Are you staying grounded and regulated? Are you intentionally trying to be a builder? Because that really is enough. So just to sum things up for you, your words really hold the power to build or wreck relationships. So we want to choose them wisely. And safety and communication is always going to start with you. When you regulate your nervous system, you create conditions for connection. But you're not responsible for how somebody else receives you. You are responsible for how you show up. And co regulation is real. Your presence matters and so does theirs. Now, being a builder, it certainly isn't about being perfect. It's about being intentional and compassionate and curious and honest. And for sure there will be times when you'll mess up. You will make mistakes, you will be a wrecker, you will say unkind things, but give yourself a break too. Lots of self compassion, lots of grace. If you're trying to live as intentionally as possible as a builder, that is what you want to focus on. So I invite you to try to build even when it's hard, even when it's not returned. Because every time you choose to show up with a bit more safety, you're making your relationships a little bit stronger and you're building your own resilience. I hope you found that helpful and I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Building Resilience podcast. If you're interested in learning a little bit more about managing stress, Building resilience and leading a more purposeful life, then make sure we're connected on Instagram and Facebook @leah davidsonlife coaching. You can also subscribe to my weekly newsletter at www.leahdavidsonlifecoaching.com newsletter. Looking forward to connect.