← Building Resilience
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- [00:00]
Leah Davidson
Have you ever had one of those moments that completely threw you off? Like when somebody's reaction blindsides you and you're left thinking, where did that come from? I remember those chaotic mornings when my kids were little. Just asking them to put their shoes on could turn into a full blown crisis. Tears and resistance, the works. And let's be real, I lost it plenty of times too. And it's not just with little kids. If you think it gets easier as they grow up, well, teens and young adults can still hit you with attitude or meltdowns can happen and leave you wondering what just happened. And again, I'll admit, sometimes I'm the one having the meltdown. Maybe you've been there too. Well, today we're going to break down why we react the way we do, why our kids react the way they do, and most importantly, what's really happening in our nervous system in those moments. Because once you get this, once you understand this, everything shifts. Welcome to the Building resilience podcast, episode 221 through their lens, how nervous system shapes our relationships.
- [01:13]
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, 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.
- [01:51]
Hello everybody. How are you doing? I hope that that things are going well for you and for your nervous system. Before we get started today, I just wanted to put a little reminder out there that my journal is for sale on Amazon. It is a guided journal for your mental health, for emotional well being and nervous system care. My dream is to reach as many people as possible to teach them about their nervous system so they can feel hope, so they know they're not broken. They know that they're not alone. They can learn about their nervous system, about befriending their nervous system, because it really does change so many things. So if you have the journal already, then thank you and will you please help me spread the word? And if you don't have it, what are you waiting for? It's the perfect companion to everything that we talk about here on the Building Resilience podcast. It is called Resilience the Journal and it is found. There's going to be links in my show note in the show notes, but it is found under my brand, my stationary brand, which is called Resilient Brilliance, in case people search it. You search for my name, you're not going to find it. It's called Resilient Brilliance. The journal's name is Resilience and it is a mental health journal for emotional well being and nervous system care. Just to give you a heads up, I am working on a few other mental health journals and other products that I'm super excited about and I am so grateful to all of you for your support. All right, let's get to today's topic. I want you to think about this and even picture this in your mind. Every single person you meet is literally wearing invisible glasses. And these are not your typical frames. They're shaped by every experience you've ever had, Every relationship, every trauma, every joy, every cultural message, everything that you've absorbed. So you know how your phone camera has filters? Some of these filters make things warmer. Some cooler, some sharper, some softer. Well, your nervous system is like having a filter that you can't turn off. It colors everything you see, everything you experience, everything that you feel. And the crazy thing is, most people don't even know that they're wearing these glasses. We think we are seeing reality as it actually is, but we're not. None of us are. So let me give you a real example. Now, I know someone, and I'm sure you know somebody like this, too, who keeps ending up in relationships that aren't healthy for them. From the outside looking in, it's so obvious we've all been there. Watching somebody we care about repeat the same pattern, thinking, why can't they see this? Here's the thing. Their nervous system is actually doing exactly what it's supposed to do. It's seeking what is familiar. So if you grew up in chaos, chaos will feel like home. If you learned early that love comes with conditions, you might keep choosing partners who make you work for their affection. If you grew up in a home where love was expressed through achievement. Maybe you had parents who celebrated your A's or your sport victories well. Your nervous system learned that being good enough means constantly proving yourself. So now you might find yourself in relationship or in jobs where you're always trying to earn approval, you're always pushing to be better, never quite feeling like you can rest. Or maybe you grew up with a parent who was unpredictable. Sometimes they were super loving, sometimes they were completely checked out. Well, your nervous system Learned that inconsistency is normal. So when you meet someone who's actually stable and consistent, your nervous system might find that it's boring or uncomfortable because it's looking for the familiar roller coaster of emotions, because that's what it knows how to navigate. Here's another one that I see all the time. If you grew up in a family where conflict meant danger, where arguments led to somebody leaving or shutting down, your nervous system probably learned to avoid conflict at all costs. Or maybe conflict wasn't good, but it represented passion and excitement. So now you might find yourself people pleasing or shutting down during disagreements, or maybe even leaving relationships the moment tension shows up, or being attracted to the conflict, thinking that extremes and these ups and downs mean passionate love. All these examples, your nervous system is trying to protect you from what it learned was unsafe. Now I know some of you are thinking, okay, if we start understanding this, oh, it's because their nervous system is doing this, or their nervous system is predicting this, predisposed for this, aren't we just making excuses for bad behavior? And I want to be really clear. Understanding someone's nervous system is not about excusing their actions. It's about seeing the fuller, more complete picture. So you can try to respond intentionally rather than reactively. So think of it like this. If someone is wearing sunglasses indoors and they bump into you, knowing that they're wearing sunglasses doesn't make the bump hurt less, but it might change how you respond. Instead of just assuming they're rude, you understand they literally can't see clearly because they're wearing sunglasses inside. So maybe you have a challenging relationship with a parent. Maybe every time you share a new idea or a project, your parent immediately jumps to all the potential problems. So maybe they seem unsupportive or criticized or diminishing. And we can call these people joy thieves, but what is it that they're trying to do? What is their intention? Well, if you start looking at nervous system patterns and get curious, maybe you'll learn that your parent, for example, maybe grew up in a family that lost everything during an economic crisis. Maybe your parents nervous system learned that early survival meant spotting problems before they happened. Now if you can understand this, then maybe you can start to see how your parent responds differently. Their behavior may not change, but your experience of their behavior may change. Or when you see things through their lens. So seeing life through the lens of someone's nervous system gives you a whole new world of understanding. Now how do we spot nervous system patterns in real life? How can you be A detective for nervous system patterns. It comes down to some basics of the nervous system and some awareness. Essentially, you want to first start out to see if you can spot the main states the nervous system states that somebody is in. So team Hyper. This is the fight or the flight. And what it often looks like is defensiveness, anger, anxiety, or a little bit jittery, needing to do something. Or maybe it's worry, overthinking, spinning, ruminating. If somebody's in team hypo, you can think shutdown, disconnection, brain fog, collapse, feeling sorry for themselves. There can also be a state of freeze where you often see that deer in headlights feeling where there's energy, but they're shut down at the same time. And then lastly, Team Resilient. This is where people are fully present. They're connected, they're curious, they're able to engage thoughtfully, and there's a little something extra to consider. Someone else's state will influence our own state. So have you ever noticed how one person's anxiety can fill a room and it can kind of spread like wildfire? So you want to be aware of other people's states as well, and you want to be aware of your own because they feed each other. So think about somebody in life who maybe triggers you. Maybe it's a family member, co worker, friend. What state do you typically see them in? And what state do you go into when you're with them? Now, understanding all these things is great. I understand where you're coming from. If I understand the lens through which you're seeing the world, what your nervous system state is, I understand that your state of your nervous system is going to fuel my state and vice versa. So understanding is great, but we do need some practical tools, and this is what we want to look out for. Instead of reacting to somebody's behavior, we want to learn to recognize their nervous system state and then respond accordingly. So here's what I mean. First of all, we want to use what I'll call a nervous system detection tool. We want to be able to spot patterns in people. So instead of trying to just regulate ourselves, the first thing we want to do in situations is just notice somebody else's state before we react to them. So we can ask ourselves, is this person in team Hyper? Is it fight or flight? So looking for signs, rapid speech, irritation, over explaining defensiveness, pacing, worry. Are they in team hypo? Are they shut down? Are they quiet? Are they slow? Is there no response? Are there blank stares? Are they avoiding or are they Team Resilient? Do they seem present, engaged and connected. So an example could be, instead of thinking, oh, my teen is so disrespectful, think, are they stuck in fight or flight mode right now? Are they overwhelmed and shutting down? When we are triggered by somebody's reaction, just take like a two second pause and label their nervous system state before we respond. And just doing this can increase your compassion and prevent unnecessary escalation. It doesn't excuse anything. It just helps us and prepares us and allows us to decide who we want to be, how we want to show up. Now, the second thing we can do is we could work on reframing things and shifting our interpretation of behavior. So once you spot a nervous system pattern, you can actually change the story you tell about that person's behavior. So for example, in a partnership, maybe your old story is, my partner never listens to me, they don't care about me. A new story could be, maybe they're in shutdown state. Maybe they're struggling to engage. I wonder what's going on for them. Or in a work environment, old story, my boss is so critical, nothing I do is ever good enough. The new story could be, maybe their nervous system is wired to spot threats because of past experiences. So when someone's behavior triggers you, instead of assuming intent, ask what might their nervous system be protecting them from? If I knew their backstory, how might I see things differently now? Thirdly, we want to try to regulate through connection. When you understand somebody's nervous system state, what can happen is you are able to adjust your energy to influence their energy. So if somebody is hyper, you see them anxious and defensive and spinning out. You can slow down, you can soften your tone, you can lower your voice. If somebody is in more of a shutdown, a hypostate, you can gently bring in the energy. Small movements, warmth in your tone, inviting, not forcing, connection. So instead of matching somebody's dysregulated state, which is what we often do, I see your anger and I raise your anger. We can try to offer the energy they need to shift. So if your child is panicking about homework, instead of just saying, okay, just calm down. You can model calm by slowing your own breath and lowering your voice. We can match the regulated state that we want to try to invite them in to. Now, the fourth thing that we can do is we can help others understand their own patterns too. Once you've built awareness, we can try to gently help others see their own nervous system lens if they're open to this. Because remember, there's no forcing so instead of blaming, we can help them name what's happening in a very neutral way. So instead of saying something like, you always get defensive, we could say something like, I notice when we talk about this, it seems really stressful for you. Do you feel that too? Or if your teen is shutting down, instead of saying, why are you ignoring me? Try it seems like this conversation is feeling overwhelming. Do you need a break? If your parent is super critical, instead of saying, you're so negative, try I wonder if pointing out risks and problems is your way of protecting me. So the goal is not to fix people, but to offer them a new way of seeing themselves. And maybe you don't feel open to say something, but you can offer these reframes to yourself as well. When you start seeing through the lens of the nervous system, everything changes again. It doesn't mean you're excusing bad behavior, but it gives you the power to respond instead of reacting. And when you change how you show up, you change the entire dynamic. So next time somebody reacts in a way that surprises you, pause. Get curious. Ask yourself, what lens might they be seeing through? You don't have to agree with their perspective. You don't have to agree with what they're doing to understand that their perspective is real for them through their lens. The more we can understand that we are all viewing things through the lens of our own nervous system, the more we'll be able to change our relationships. I hope you found this helpful and I'll see you next time.
- [16:34]
Thank you for listening to the Building Resilience Podcast Experience. 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 connecting.
- [17:02]
Sam.