473: The Neuroscience Of Us Vs. Them Thinking with Sarah Peyton

Summary

Therapy Chat Podcast – Episode 473

The Neuroscience Of Us Vs. Them Thinking with Sarah Peyton

Hosted by Laura Reagan, LCSW-C
Date: March 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful conversation, psychotherapist Laura Reagan sits down with neuroscience researcher and author Sarah Peyton to explore the roots of "us vs. them" thinking. The episode delves deep into the neurobiology of divisiveness, the human need for belonging, and how early relational experiences wire our brains for inclusion or exclusion. They discuss how trauma, attachment, and unconscious internal “agreements” shape our perceptions, emotions, and responses to others, illuminating pathways toward self-compassion and inclusive connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding the Default Mode Network & Internal Experience

[04:55–07:43]

• Sarah shares her personal journey of investigating why the brain can feel uncomfortable and how trauma impacts the default mode network (DMN), the brain’s "internal tailor":

  • "My default network, as your listeners probably know, is the part of the brain that carries the automatic voice. And...the more trauma we've had, the more the needle of the tailor literally runs through the trauma center of the brain, runs through the amygdala." (Sarah Peyton, [05:35])

• She describes coping strategies (e.g., reading, addictions) to "turn off" the DMN and avoid the pain of self-criticism or shame.

2. The Amygdala & The Necessity of Self-Compassion

[08:27–09:14]

• The amygdala is "always looking for signs that things are not good" (Sarah Peyton, [08:27]). Sarah emphasizes:
  • “It needs a lot of warmth and kind of really good mothering. It's what our amygdalas need.” (Sarah Peyton, [08:35])

3. Attachment, Internalized Mothering & Healing

[09:57–12:20]

• Sarah recounts learning from epigeneticist Moshe Szyf that a mother's influence is "in every cell of our prefrontal cortex" and reflects on healing the "internal mother":
  • “We get to heal our own internal mothers...the mothers that should have been, had they been totally supported and loved themselves and kept safe from trauma.” (Sarah Peyton, [11:36])
• Laura notes: “That's what it comes down to, call it what we want, but that's what's really happening.” ([12:20])

4. The Neuroscience of Us vs. Them Thinking

[13:35–20:41]

• Sarah explains how humans are biologically wired for belonging, and how “blame” and “disgust” are easily weaponized to create in-group/out-group dynamics:
  • “One of the things that stops us from expanding the circle of love is...the human brain loves to blame.” (Sarah Peyton, [14:30])
  • She highlights the use of "disgust" by political leaders, which triggers exclusionary responses and oxytocin-fueled in-group bonding.
  • “When we are part of the in group, we get to feel…this oxytocin reward when we look at the people in the out group.” ([16:50])
  • The negative consequence: the more we bond within our group, the less empathy we have for others.

5. Empathy Loss, Dehumanization & Social Neurobiology

[20:55–23:08]

• “The more strongly we have the oxytocin rush of belonging, the less brain resource we have available... to have empathy and compassion for other groups.” (Sarah Peyton, [19:20])
• Sarah references research showing that people may not even recognize out-group members as human:
  • “Their brain moves them into the category of rubbish instead of in the category of humanness.” (Sarah Peyton, [22:17])

6. Agreements with Ourselves & Barriers to Self-Compassion

[25:42–28:21]

• Some people struggle to achieve self-compassion due to “internal agreements” made early in life that bar belonging or worthiness:
  • “If we have an agreement with ourselves not to believe that we belong absolutely...we are walking around with an internal sense of insecurity.” (Sarah Peyton, [26:18])
• This vulnerability can make us more susceptible to exclusionary group dynamics, seeking belonging where it is offered—even if it means excluding others.

7. Origins of Internal Agreements: Early Attachment & Emotional Expression

[30:11–36:01]

• Sarah references Beatrice Beebe’s research: by 4 months old, babies adapt their facial expressions to match their mothers' emotional availability.
  • “If our mother doesn't do sadness, then our face stops doing sadness unless great grief forces its way through.” (Sarah Peyton, [31:04])
  • Early attachment wounds translate into lifelong internal rules (e.g., "I'm too much", "I shouldn't be joyful").

8. The Neuroscience of Safety, Mattering, and Belonging

[36:04–40:50]

• The importance of the questions "Am I safe? Do I matter?" for the nervous system to enter a social engagement system (Polyvagal Theory).
  • "When we get a yes answer...the nervous system shifts gear into social engagement." (Sarah Peyton, [36:13])
• Belonging to a group can physiologically reward and regulate us, even if it means internalizing harmful exclusionary contracts.

9. Breaking Old Contracts: Restoring Suppressed Emotional Circuits

[41:25–46:17]

• Discusses how internal “contracts” suppress emotions (e.g., anger, disgust), leading to difficulty setting boundaries.
  • “If we've got a frozen disgust circuit...we can't find our own no.” (Sarah Peyton, [42:15])
• Therapy invites clients to welcome back suppressed emotions and renegotiate these unconscious contracts.

10. Practical Approaches: Working with Internal Agreements

[46:17–49:44]

• Sarah describes a structured process for identifying and releasing internal contracts—by articulating the vow (e.g., "I will not feel what I feel in order to be safe, no matter the cost to myself"), acknowledging the cost, and offering a new, compassionate blessing:
  • “I revoke this vow. Instead, I give you my blessing to feel all my feelings and to enjoy belonging with people who also care about dreams.” (Sarah Peyton, [49:32])

11. Self-Work, Therapy, and Intergenerational Healing

[50:14–52:26]

• The "Resonant Self Workbook" can be used alone or with therapists.
• Working on self-compassion and emotional availability not only benefits individuals but also transforms future generations and wider social circles:
  • “It changes our children's lives. And really, as therapists, it changes the lives of everyone that you are holding.” (Sarah Peyton, [52:12])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the power of disgust and belonging:

  “When we are part of the in group, we get to feel…this oxytocin reward when we look at the people in the out group.”
  — Sarah Peyton ([16:50])

• On exclusion and empathy:

  “The more strongly we have the oxytocin rush of belonging, the less brain resource we have available... to have empathy and compassion for other groups.”
  — Sarah Peyton ([19:20])

• On internalized mothering:

  “Our mother is in every cell of our prefrontal cortex.”
  — Moshe Szyf, relayed by Sarah Peyton ([09:57])

  “We get to heal our own internal mothers...that should have been, had they been totally supported and loved themselves and kept safe from trauma.”
  — Sarah Peyton ([11:36])

• On internal agreements:

  “If we have an agreement with ourselves not to believe that we belong absolutely...we are walking around with an internal sense of insecurity.”
  — Sarah Peyton ([26:18])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 04:55–07:43: Default Mode Network and personal experience of internal discomfort
• 09:57–12:20: Mothering, internalized relationships, and healing
• 13:35–20:41: The neuroscience behind blame, disgust, and social division
• 22:17: Dehumanization and the loss of empathy in out-group perceptions
• 26:18–28:21: Internal agreements and their impact on belonging and vulnerability
• 31:04–36:01: Beatrice Beebe’s research on early emotion adaptation in infants
• 36:13–40:50: Polyvagal theory—social engagement and physiological belonging
• 42:15: The "frozen disgust circuit" and struggle to set boundaries
• 46:17–49:44: Sarah’s practical process for renegotiating self-contracts
• 50:14–52:26: Intergenerational benefits of healing and the broad impact of resonance

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Additional Resources & Where to Find Sarah Peyton

• The Resonant Self Workbook is available for preorder at major online booksellers and will be released May 25, 2025.
• Visit https://sarahpeyton.com for resources, webinars, and live group opportunities. Topics range from the neuroscience of self-compassion to emotional healing and attachment.
• The original book, Your Resonant Self, is also available.

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Tone and Takeaways

Both Laura and Sarah approach the topic with warmth, humility, and a deep compassion for human struggle. Their discussion integrates neuroscience, attachment theory, trauma healing, and practical tools for both therapists and laypeople. The conversation provides clarity on how divisiveness arises within the brain, fuels social separation, and—most importantly—offers hope for connection and change through self-understanding and compassionate practice.

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For more on self-compassion, trauma, and holistic therapy, listen to prior episodes of Therapy Chat or visit therapychatpodcast.com.

Transcript

[TherapyNotes Announcer]

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[Podcast Intro Announcer]

This is the therapy chat podcast with Laura Reagan, LCSWC. The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. And now here's your host, Laura Reagan, lcswc.

[TherapyNotes Announcer]

Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.

[Laura Reagan - Host Introduction]

I'm your host Laura Reagan and today we are going to be hearing from someone who's been a guest multiple times on Therapy Chat. And this is a replay of, I.

[TherapyNotes Announcer]

Think it's the most recent episode with this guest.

[Laura Reagan - Host Introduction]

My guest is Sarah Payton, who is a neuroscience researcher and author. And Sarah is going to explain why it's so easy for us to be drawn into us versus Them thinking when we are in a fear response. And as I've been mentioning, that is something that's being used right now to terrorize people here in the us. The fear and spreading of hate is being used to create mistrust of our neighbors and anyone who doesn't think the same way as us. And we all know that what makes America great is the broad array of experiences and cultures that make up this country, and our differences make us better. Learning about other people's experiences that are different from our own enriches our perspective and takes us out of black and white thinking. But there are forces that benefit from us mistrusting each other, being afraid of each other, hating each other And I hope that this conversation with Sarah will help you gain some clarity and discernment in how you are thinking about things and remind you to return to your center. We are all connected. We are interdependent beings. Not only are we dependent upon connection with other humans for our survival, but we're also connected to all living beings and the planet. And if we forget that, it's to all of our detriment and the detriment of the planet. So I hope that you'll find this interesting. Sarah is full of wisdom and I'm very grateful for having had many chances to speak with her.

[TherapyNotes Announcer]

Quick note.

[Laura Reagan - Host Introduction]

I want to say that if you're going to Psychotherapy Networker, look at, look for me there because I'll be hosting the Trauma Therapist Network booth, and I'd love to chat with you. Until next time, thanks for listening.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Hi.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Welcome back to Therapy Chat. I'm your host, Laura Reagan. And today I am so thrilled to have the honor of interviewing a guest who was here with us back in 2018, Sarah Paton. Sarah, thanks so much for coming back to Therapy Chat today.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Laura, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

The pleasure is all mine and our listeners, I think, but I'm glad you enjoy coming here, too. You are the author of your Resonant Self, and you have a new book coming out in May which is already available for pre order called the Resonant Self Workbook. I can't wait to talk to you about that and your work. But before we even dive into it, let's just start off by you telling our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Oh, thank you, Laura. Well, I'm a person who got really curious about why did my brain work the way it did and what was happening inside of my brain that was causing it to be so uncomfortable in there. And the way that I kind of managed that before I got to the point of starting to learn about the inside of the brain was that I was just an avid reader. Because as soon as I could get my eyes on the page, what I started to understand once I started to learn about the brain was I could get my dang default mode network turned off. And my default network, as your listeners probably know, is the part of the brain that carries the automatic voice. And it's the part of the brain that's sewing us into our social lives, that's keeping the consideration of everything that we're juggling in terms of relationship and, and what has to be done and who's going to do it and who needs to be connected with and, and what's happening with the kids? And is everybody doing okay? And does our partner have depression? And I mean, just. And have we committed terrible acts that are making us feeling feel ashamed? It's just like a constant, ongoing kind of internal tailor that's sewing us all together. And the more trauma we've had, the more the needle of the tailor literally Runs through the trauma center of the brain, runs through the amygdala. And every time that we touch the sense of self, which is what the default network is doing, it's like we're giving ourselves an electric shock. So people learn to manage this in very different ways. You can learn to do it with addictions, you can do it with opioid addictions, you can do it with sugar addictions, you can do it with alcohol addictions. And you can do it with activities like always playing video games or always reading. And that's what I was. I was an always reader along with some other lovely chemical addictions. And it was so intense that if I stopped my car at a stoplight, I'd grab the book that was beside me so that I could keep my default network from attacking me. It was a knock down drag out of experience. And so I started to have experiences that began to gradually change my default mode network. And I was like, what's going on? What's happening with these healing experiences? What do they mean? What the brain can change? How cool is that? Neuroplasticity. What? So that's a little bit of an overview of my journey. It's been the journey of discovery and gradually making the inside of my brain a nice place to live.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Oh gosh. You have such a pleasant demeanor. Is. It's almost surprising to hear that it was ever unpleasant inside your mind. But I know that we all have, you know, our struggles and it's. It's even silly for me to say that. But I appreciate so much that you shared that that's your experience too. Because, you know, even when you were talking about the default network and all the. Or the default mode network and all the, you know, is everyone okay? Is my spouse depressed? Like, you know, that really made me think about how my brain works and the worry and fretting and. Yeah, you know, just like these little. Everything okay? Is everything okay? Like checking and, you know, it really made it easier to understand that concept for me.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah, that amygdala is actually sitting in there sending out these pulse waves, like throughout the brain, just checking on everything. It's like always looking for signs that things are not good. So. So it needs a lot of warmth and kind of really good mothering. It's what our amygdalas need. They need to be able to learn that we can. That we are strong enough and big enough to turn toward them to. Toward the emotional centers of the self. Carry the trauma seeds, you know, and the things that have been left here behind. My Difficult experience. We need to. We need to develop a trust relationship, which is a little tricky to do, but it's incredibly sweet work. Yeah.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yes. Your work has been so significant in what I have come to understand about healing trauma. Like. Well, it's obviously significant in more than just me, but with my clients, I find it's so powerful. The resonance that you talk about and, you know, that nurturing mothering of our amygdalas, it's so different from these, like, detached, clinical, you know, techniques that, you know, we sometimes hear about, like, how to. How to move trauma through doing something versus the nurturing warmth, which is something that just has to come through connection. Right.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. And I was so. I was so struck by. There's a. There's an epigeneticist up in Montreal named Moshe Giff Szyf, if anybody wants to look him up. I recommend his YouTube interviews rather than his scientific papers. Unless you are by training and epigeneticist. But he. I was at a. At a conference with him, and he said, our mother is in every cell of our prefrontal cortex. And I was like, what?

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

So I was like, OK, we've got 86 billion neurons, and the prefrontal cortex is roughly one third of the brain. Then I have 27 billion neurons in my brain devoted to my mother that are carrying my mother. And that was quite an intense realization. I was like, okay, I need some. I love my mom. My. My mom passed on some years ago, and I loved her still, but she was massively impacted by the trauma that she lived through as a little one, to the point where she didn't often remember things that had happened and couldn't exactly track who I was sometimes. So, I mean, we're talking about, you know, growing up in the shadow of a brain that was fractured by its own trauma. Right.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

So. So I was like, oh, my goodness, my mother is in all of these cells of my prefrontal cortex. What does this mean for me and my future?

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah, you're like, that's a scary thought away from her.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

And I would be fine. Call her on Sundays. So. But I love sort of this modern metaphor that we have with updating our computer systems with new software, and when ascending that we do get to update the moms that we carry within us. I often think of it as, like, that we get to. We get to heal our own internal mothers, and we get to see the mothers that should. That should have been, had they been totally supported and loved themselves and kept safe from trauma. So it's quite A journey to do mother upgrades, which I think is sort of the funny intention of all therapy, in a way.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah, right. It's really, that's what it comes down to, call it what we want, but that's what's really happening. You know, one of the things that struck me as we were talking before the, the recorded part of our interview is thinking about how right now, as we're talking, it's December 2020, and this episode, when people are hearing it, will be out in early March or late February 2021. Right now in the United States and really around the world, there's so much conflict and divisiveness and, you know, violence. And here in our country, politically, we're very divided. There's a lot of mistrust of people who have different views as well as the, you know, just the ongoing problem of systemic oppression and racism. And your work is about how we are interconnected, and right now we feel so divided as a, as a population. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about how your work and this, what we're doing in our brains, how it all fits together with how disconnected we feel and maybe how we can reconnect.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. Well, as you mentioned in the introduction, I have the new book coming out the your Resonance Self workbook. And this work comes from this wondering, really. It comes out of the wondering of why do our brains do what they do? Why do we do things that seem self defeating? Why do we cut ourselves off from others? I was reading a beautiful Rebecca Solnit article this morning where she said our humanness, our humanity, comes from our ability to expand our circle of belonging. Out to people who don't look like us, out to people who don't think like us, out to people that don't worship the same God we worship that. She said this is, in a way, she was saying this is our task is to expand our circle of love. And one of the things that stops us from expanding the circle of love is something that the human brain loves. It loves to blame.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

So in my progressive moments, may love to blame Trump for all kinds of things, and folks who are Republicans may, in their particularly conservative moments, really love to blame progressives for all kinds of things. And this is. This mobilization of blame and mobilization also of the experience of disgust is hugely important for us to begin to understand what's happening in our world right now. So for the last four years, we've been either, you know, watching with great delight or watching stupefied horror the people who are who have been running the show. And the facial expression that we've been seeing more than any other is a facial expression of disgust. And this is a very powerful and divisive emotion which I have the sense. I haven't actually looked at all of the current, more conservative or right wing leaders across the globe right now, but the ones that I have looked at, including the Prime Minister, including the phone, who's running Hungary, including Putin and including Trump, use disgust was almost a mastery that orchestrates a rising tide of exclusionary response. Let's keep the Syrian refugees out. Let's reclaim the white, make America great. Let's reclaim the white Russian world of ownership that the former Soviet Union had. There's this mobilization of a very vulnerable part of us as humans, which is the disgust circuit or the disgust, the whole disgust apparatus in the human body, which, which includes our facial expression, includes a visceral response. And, and when we admire and place our, our attention on a leader who is mobilizing the population with disgust, oh, it's so, it's so rewarding for human brains. We are so vulnerable to this kind of reward because it creates in group, out group. And in the in group, out group, we start to experience this rush of oxytocin and belonging that when we are part of the in group, we get to feel when we look at the people in the out group. So when the President of the United States speaks about immigrants with words that are connected to large groups of rodents or swarms of insects, then what we're getting is we're getting this oxytocin reward. I mean, sometimes I just sit and spend some time mourning our human brains and their vulnerability to being moved toward divisiveness. And I'm just, I've been speaking for quite a little time now. Is this, is this what you were thinking of when you asked?

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Lord, yes. Yes, very much. And it's. For one, everything you're saying is ringing very true to what I have observed. But also, I don't know about the disgust circuit. And so I think that caught my attention. It's pretty interesting. You know, I'm just. In a very basic way, and I hope you will expand on this, but what I'm thinking about is the oxytocin reward. And as soon as I think of oxytocin, I think of. Well, I think of breastfeeding. And when I think of breastfeeding, I think of nurturing mother. And it's interesting to imagine that we get a rush of the hormones that feel bonding.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

When we are excluding Others.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. And then there is a host of. I'll speak about this host of after effects, and then you can bring me back to any questions you have about disgust itself. But there's a host of after effects because as soon as we. We otherize a group of people, then we no longer actually are looking at their facial expressions very closely. We start seeing them. And so we stop getting the feedback, the nuanced feedback about their humanness and about their emotions. We lose our empathy when we move into the in group, out group experience. The more strongly we have the oxytocin rush of belonging, the less brain resource we have available to be able to be able to perceive and understand and have empathy and compassion for other groups. So there are a lot of neurobiological after effects of the experience of having more power than someone else as a human. And the more that we have power imbalances, the less we read people that we consider to be below us in the power structure. It's just like a natural part of our human brain is this kind of leaving of connection with others. And I think this is why Rebecca Solnit was saying that our human, their humanness, that our humanity depends on us having an expanded circle of inclusion. Because then when we.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

We're.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Then we're holding ourselves with humility, humility being the primary remedy for imbalance of power and the way that it trims off human brains.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

It's so interesting. You know, this wasn't what I was expecting us to talk about, but just as an aside, it's like, you know, people are always saying, how can people turn a blind eye to the pain of people who are being separated from their children when they come to the border of our country? You know, it's like, who could turn their backs on even the thought of those families being separated in that way? But then, you know, what you're talking about makes me understand in a small way that, you know, it's. First of all, it's kind of unconscious, and it's happening in the brain as a way to help those people feel more connected with each other. I guess the people who don't care about that or even want that. That type of separation to happen.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Right. It's a bit like that's an unnoticed, unconscious side effect of the creation of the circle of belonging. Those folks who aren't seeing it don't even know they aren't seeing it. If we think about Melania wearing her I don't care jacket when she went to the facility where there was family separation, then we can kind of feel how much unconsciousness is a part of picture. Like, there's not even a conscious awareness of evidence being undesirable or of it impacting people's humanity. The power of oxytocin and in group belonging is so great. Wow. Yeah. So. And, oh, I just want to say that it moves. In research that's been done with undergraduates, for example, when they look at somebody, a picture of someone who's homeless, they don't even put that person in the person category in their brain. Their brain moves them into the category of rubbish instead of in the category of humanness, with greater and lesser degrees of contempt and disgust connected with the imagery that's being used. Wow. We don't even know, you know, we don't even know that we are, in our human being, turned off.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

So this is interesting because it kind of feels paradoxical to, you know, we were talking about the. We were beginning to talk about how we're all interconnected and this is a way that we feel connected by being disconnected.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. You're absolutely right. And. And as we, you know, as we come with our humility and allow other people to be just as important in. In the world as we are to let the groups that we don't usually see, whether those are homeless people or whether those are people who wear national costumes that look foreign, or whether that's people who have a different skin color or people who have a different worship, a different sense of God. If we. If we allow ourselves to truly, we feel into that the joining and the welcome of each individual person. We often think about how. About how our world devalues so many. So many voices, so many brains, so many hearts that could be giving us so much. I like to imagine living in a world where every voice really does matter. Where a grandfather in Peru matters just as much as an Aboriginal person in Australia matters just as much as somebody who's sweeping the street in Tokyo matters just as much as, you know, as someone who's serving in Congress. This sense of an intention for inclusion is of great importance to. To our being able to remain emotionally alive to everyone. It's such a funny request, you know, our brains have kind of a natural limit at about 150 people, where beyond that, people can move into a blur of humanness, but a blur of humanness is much more inclusive for us than thinking that beyond that, people move into a blur of whiteness or molding to a blur of just Christianity and that everyone else doesn't really exist. So we get to, get to really leverage our human capacity to live out any values that we have of inclusion and of mattering and of paying respect and having humility with each person that we meet. It's quite well founded in research as well. It's being supported by most major religions.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Well, it's, it's beautiful to put the philosophical and the, you know, values into practice in neuroscience.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. And I had started out saying that one of the reasons that I wrote the youe Resonant Self Work book was because I was out in the world and I was teaching the science of self compassion and how we learn to turn toward ourselves. And some people just weren't able to do it. They just, they were just stymied. They had, they would read the book, they would do the meditations, but they didn't get the shifts that they were looking for. And as I was working I started to realize, oh, we have agreements with ourselves. We have agreements with ourselves that stop us from moving into self compassion. And we also have agreements with ourselves. Like if we have an agreement with ourselves not to believe that we, that we belong absolutely, that we matter absolutely, then we are walking around with an internal sense of insecurity which makes us vulnerable to the mobilization I've discussed to create in group outlook. And because it's so reassuring for sort of oxytocin starved systems. They'll get to belong because we're for example white or that we get to belong because we're Christian rather than Muslim or we get to belong because we're Muslim rather than Christians. You know, whatever the belonging is, it can be such a huge relief to a body that doesn't, that doesn't know how to agree to belong. And so that's what that your resonant self word allows and supports is an exploration of the different kinds of agreements that we have that stop us with ourselves, that we have, that stop us from believing these very foundational things. Again, the intention of therapy for people to have a sense of mattering, an absolute sense of mattering for people to have a sense of belonging, for people to know that their voice matters, to feel the capacity to mobilize, to take action, to be able to do something as simple as voting or to do something as complex as running for office, we want these things. We want an engaged and alive populace to be able to help counteract some of the forces that you were mentioning when you got up the subject of today's world. You know, the forces of systemic oppression, the forces of systemic racism, and of course this divisiveness that we are so deeply in the presence of.

[TherapyNotes Announcer]

Yes, Today's episode is sponsored by Psychotherapy Networker and Pessi. If you're a therapist, be sure to check out the Partner page, which is linked in the Show Notes where you can get discounted trainings with previous Therapy Chat guests like Courtney Armstrong, Dr. Leslie Korn, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, Dr. Tammy Nelson, Dr. Janina Fisher, Rebecca Rebecca Case, Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Lindsay Gibson, Deb Dana, Lori Gottlieb and many, many others. You'll find the link in the Show Notes to my Partner page with Pessi and Psychotherapy Networker where you can find all these discounted training. If you need CES, this is a great place to go. TherapyNotes is consistently transforming the way therapists manage their practices with continuous updates designed to save money and improve efficiency. Their latest Game Changer Therapy Fuel, a powerful and fully integrated suite of AI tools that streamline documentation so you can focus more on your clients. With AI features that help by generating progress notes from summaries or transcriptions, creating contact notes directly from client secure messages, and automated summaries of client history forms, TherapyNotes users are already reporting hours of saved time and energy. Some other recent feature improvements include automated recurring client payments, electronic secondary insurance billing, and their constantly expanding library of outcome measures. The best time to give TherapyNotes a try is now. Sign up for your free trial by going to therapynotes.com, clicking Start My Free Trial and accessing your first two months free with the promo code CHAT. See why TherapyNotes is the most trusted EHR for behavioral health professionals today.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Well, I'm I am really curious to ask you about these agreements with ourselves. How where do we all have them? Do some of us have them and how do we get them if we do?

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes, we all have them. Everybody has them. And they are in a way, they are again, to use this metaphor of software, they are a program that we've inserted that allows us to have a shortcut response to complex experiences and complex traumas. So this brings us on an almost cellular level to the work of Beatrice Beebe, who is a researcher, and her team who are researchers in New York City. And we mentioned Beatrice Beebe when we spoke together in the your Inner Resonance Therapy chat, Laura so it's not a completely new person in our space, but Beatrice Beebe, as you'll remember, was the woman who discovered that we, by the age of 4 months, start to edit our facial expression vocabulary and to bring it in accordance exactly with what our mother can easily do and reflect with her facial expression vocabulary. So if our mother doesn't do sadness, then our face stops doing sadness unless great grief forces its way through. But just in the regular nuanced, you know, ways that faces express emotion. By the age of four months, we stop expressing sadness. If the mother never gets angry and won't, turns away from or does not reflect an angry face for the baby, then the baby stops doing anger. And some of the things that people may notice. This is something I noticed myself was that I, I, when I was angry, I would cry. And the other thing I noticed was that when I would cry, I would try not to cry and I could feel my mouth kind of writhing. I would cry, but my mouth would be trying to smile. And sadness takes the corners of our mouths down. When we're feeling sad, you can just sort of pull them down a little bit and you can feel in your body a response. Our body is war wired to reflect viscerally what our face does. Like we're in this interesting continual loop between body response and facial expression. So what the body. So for example, if we have somebody pull their eyebrows together in an angry expression, even if they're not angry, their heart rate will go at. There's an absolute sort of interwoven cause and effect both between what the body's experiencing and how the face wants to express that and what the face is expressing and how the body tries to go right along with that. And so it's quite a profound thing for us to have facial expressions completely wiped out of our emotional expression.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah, I'm deep in thought and I think one question that came to mind for me when you were asking, when you were talking about the facial expressions in Beatrice Beebe's work is you kind of said how the baby learns not to show the expression that the mother doesn't resonate with. But what about if the mother's expressions. I'm thinking of a very fearful mother. Does it change the way the babies face appears more, you know, to show more fear or.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

I think that's one of her conclusions. Although that was less what she was. That's something that I haven't found precisely in her writing.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Okay, sorry.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Quite transparently, her work moves me so deeply that I, that I can read about a paragraph, a paragraph a month is usually enough for me.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

I know what you mean. I have, I have books like that and authors like that too. It's like small chunk goes a long way.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. And her, her work talking about the characteristics of, of disorganized attachment was that I, I spent about three years. Just really focused on to create a bit of an integration of that for myself. And it was. It was a revelation to work with it so deeply. So she may very well have written about an answer to this question, and I may not have found the answer yet, so. But what we do know is, for example, if a mother is very fearful and her face just stays in a fear response all the time, then that's when one of the things that people consider a precursor for disorganized attachment. You'll remember maybe Bonnie Badenrock and other authors writing that the disorganized attachment comes from the parent being terrifying or terrified.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yes.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

So we integrate into ourselves this deep sense of the world not being safe, of the world being irresolibly dangerous, and any kind of irresolvability lands quite harshly in an infant's body. So irresolvable grief, irresolvable fear, unquenchable rage. All of these things take babies away from their own natural fluidity and their own dance of exploration, self understanding, and of the kind of connection that leads to. To secure attachment.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

So, Sarah, the agreements with ourselves that you mentioned.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Are they made in that. In that first four months, or.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes. Thank you for bringing us back to that. That was exactly where I was going. There are all kinds of agreements that are made in those first four months. And one of the agreements, one of the types of agreement that's made, takes us back to our conversation about Stephen Porges and the hierarchy of safety that comes with an understanding of how important it is for us to have a yes answer to the question, am I safe? Do I matter? Am I safe? Do I matter? When we get a yes answer to the question, am I safe? Do I matter? Then the nervous system shifts gear into social engagement. And you'll remember that social engagement does all kinds of wonderful things for the human body. It makes the immune system work really well. It causes us to run on oxygen instead of on cortisol. The red blood cells literally pick up more oxygen. When we have a sense of being safe and mattering, and when we have this experience of being safe and mattering, our brains are working at their best, and we have a lot of cognitive flexibility and we can make good decisions, take a lot of things into account, handle complexity. There's just all kinds of lovely benefits of the nervous system being in social engagement and having a sense of mattering and belonging. And of course, you'll. And to tie that back into our conversation about belonging before, if you have a contract that says you don't matter, but you get to belong to a group of white people, then all of a sudden, your nervous system gets to work better and your immune system gets to work better. So, yeah, we were talking about some of the rewards that come from going into those circles of belonging and circles where others are excluded. So quite profound rewards that we have that we need to counteract the humility. But the contracts can take us into a frozen state. So mothers will turn away not just from sadness, not just from anger, not just from fear. But we know that avoidantly attached mothers will turn away from their baby's joy, that they'll diminish their baby's joy instead of supporting and encouraging the expression of life energy. And maybe you had the experience of having clients who say, I'm too much. I've always been too much. I'm always too much. This is the voice of this baby, of a baby whose mother has turned away from joy and diminished joy. Now a contract begins to be formed, an unconscious contract, an unconscious agreement where the child who has joy that's turned away from the result. When someone turns away from our joy, our joy is essentially dyadic. When someone turns away from our joy, then a shame hit comes. Cortisol. Yeah, and some people say that cortisol, that shame is the emotion that brings the largest flow of cortisol of any human emotion. It's like we're getting a neurobiological cattle prod to our heart with the flow of cortisol. And we go, oh, my God, this happened. My mother turned away from me, or my parent caretaker turned away from me because I was too much. I have to be less. And we create, with the help of the memory of the shame, we create internal prohibitions that stop us from expressing our self because we never want to have to have that. That jolt of shame again. We want to try to figure out how we can behave that will allow us to belong to our circles and to be able to have that experience of being safe and mattering that lets everything work well. Because our very first circle of belongings, our circle of belonging with our moms. So, yes, we start creating these unconscious agreements very early. And then we continue. Everyone continues to make these. As we go through present time with any kind of trauma or experience where we're not fully accompanied, we'll try to make up an agreement we can keep with ourselves that will keep us safe, that will keep us safe from shame, that will keep us safe from humiliation, that will keep us safe from exclusion. Is this making sense, Laura?

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah, very much. And now I'm just so curious about how, because when I think about something that starts so early, I know that as a therapist it can be very hard for us to reach that information because it's, you know, held non verbally. And it can be very hard for any client to be able to access that information, to be able to tell you, you, you know. Yeah, so now I'm curious about. So gosh, how, how do we reprogram those contracts? I guess.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes, yes. First things, I mean, something that therapists really notice with their clients. Quite soon into the therapy relationship, they'll notice, oh, this client can't get mad. This client is afraid of anger. Well, this client never expresses fear. It's a very interesting to begin to include a curiosity about disgust in our work with clients because if someone has a frozen disgust circuit, which can happen from early experiences of our disgust not being okay, then what happens is that they won't know when things are too much part of what disgust does, when it's a health issue, when it's in its healthy place, when it's in its right place, rather than being mobilized by leaders who use it to create in group out, group experiences. One of the things that disgust does is it gives us a healthy sense of disgust, gives us higher boundaries, lets us know when somebody is intruding or violating us. And if we've got a frozen disgust circuit, if we've made an agreement with ourselves not even to feel disgust anymore. And I'll talk about that in just a moment. Then what happens is that we can't tell, we can't find our own no. It can happen with rage. It can also happen with disgust that we'll lose our no.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

And that I see so much, so much.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah, yeah. So part of what we can welcome as when we're working with people is we can welcome in a way the return of nausea. We're not used to welcoming nausea. In the old days, before I started to understand this about disgust, when I was working with someone and they said, oh, I'm feeling nauseous, I was feeling panicked. I would like try to get them away from them. I would think, oh no, I'm making them sick. But instead if we go, oh good, we need the nausea. And so part of what's happening in the therapy experience is that the therapist has a wider window of welcome through emotions than the mother originally had. The therapist is saying, hey, where's the anger? Hey, where's the fear? Hey, where's the disgust? And welcoming it when it comes, which is a beautiful counteractive experience to these early experiences that are pre verbal. Because much of what's happening in the therapy relationship is also nonverbal. And so becoming aware of our own facial expression vocabulary is of great importance. When we're sad, does our face get to show sadness or do we try to hide it? Do we get to have outrage and fury on behalf of our clients? Not enough. Not expressed in a way that would scare them, but in a way that gives force and emphasis to our longing for their protection and a longing for something better for them. It's quite. Without even knowing it, these are the tools that every therapist is using. And when you start to look at the contract work, if you're starting to get interested, the contract work actually is quite extraordinary for allowing previously unallowed circuits to come back on worry. So if we say, you know, do you have a contract, Sarah? Do you have a contract not to feel anger? And then people will often say, yes. I even remember the day that I did that contract when there was the middle of a domestic violence scene at home and I was like, I'm never going to be that person. You know, this is a greater traumatic experience of closing down emotional expression. But people will often have access to. Once we start to ask people often to touch the. The deep in order tools that come with the contract, I will not be sad in order to never burden anyone. And of course, the person that we're never burdening is probably our mother, but it gets globalized out. So if we hold, you know, you said, what do we do with things that are nonverbal? And what we do is we burn. We remember that the amygdala has no sense of time, that the amygdala. We talked about this in our, in our first conversation, that the amygdala has no sense of time and it creates trauma tangles. And what's hard about that is then that people have to live with ptsd, the intrusion of traumatic memory. But what's wonderful about that is that the amygdala is forever available for resonant support.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

I think I like that perspective, you know, when you said that about the never being like that with the domestic violence scene, you know, I immediately thought of for myself when I was a kid, not a domestic violence scene, fortunately. But it was just a moment of thinking, I am not going to cry at school. Like, I think I was probably like seven and you know, saying this year I will not cry at school. And you know, like reevaluating at the end of the year. Well, I didn't quite make it, but.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

I'm gonna try again next year. I will never.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

I will not cry at school. And. And once I learned how to, you know, somehow learned, like, it wasn't like I did it like, okay, step one, step two, step three. But when I learned how not to cry, when I felt like crying, I was so proud of myself. I was like a triumph. I conquered the, you know, sensitivity that I was always told was too much. So that resonated so much for me. Like, I can remember just making, as such a young child, that conscious decision to try to change that about myself. And, you know, of course, later it became problematic that, you know, I couldn't access what I felt.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Right, right. It's a. It's a beautiful example. So if we got to work with you with the unconscious conscience process, we would be saying, is the contract something like, I love. Solemnly swear to my essential self that I will not. It's almost like we have to not. Not feel. I will not feel what I feel. And then you would say in order to. And then you would fill in the blank there. In order to. You can. If you want to. We can.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah. I think it was to be safe. Just to. To be safe.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

It sounded like it might also be belonging to be safe. And.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

And then the last part of the contract is such an interesting part, is the. Are the words, no matter the cost to myself. And with those words, we begin to feel into the consequence and. And the after effects of. Of the contracts, the cost of the contracts that we've made. I will not feel what I feel, not at a cost to myself. And then once we have that. See, it's so unusual to use words to describe these internal agreements that we have. Once we have used the words, then we get to. Then we get to say, essential self of law. Did you hear the contract? And that part of us gets to speak. Well, sometimes the part says, no, I didn't hear the contract. Then you say it again. But often the part says, yeah, I heard that contract. And then we get to say, do you want to keep it? Do you like it? Is it good for Lord? Yeah, exactly. And then I find it very useful myself to actually formally release the contract and to say, I release you, Sarah, from this contract. I revoke this vow. And then to say, what will we do instead? And instead, I give you my blessing to. And what would your blessing for yourself be? Instead of, to feel all my feelings and to enjoy belonging with people who also care about dreams.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

And to create. To create a community where people get to have their feelings and share and talk about and how important it is. Yes. Which is what you've done.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

I'm trying. Well, that's so beautiful and really powerful. And it makes me wonder, with the workbook, is it meant to be worked by someone on their own or is it meant to be worked with a therapist together?

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Just like the first book, the your resonant self book, it's very much available either or for people to do with therapists, for people to do with peer groups, for people to do on their own journaling processes. I've even had people start to do this kind of work with their cell phone recorders that record their own process and listen to it or record their voice of the part of the voice of the part of the self that has the contrast. And then they get to listen to it and think about it.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

So there are many creative ways to work. And the more severe our trauma is, the more we need therapy, support. I mean, I. Yeah, I have really severe trauma and I love therapy.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

I love therapy too. It's like, where else can you just talk about yourself?

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

I know.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

And someone just wants to listen. No matter how much you want to talk about yourself, they just, they want.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

To hear it, you know, and they're wondering about us with more curiosity. And they become a part of the upgrade of the mother upgrade. That's the most wonderful thing. You know, we find people who are resonant and who understand us, and they become a part of the new. The new 27 billion neurons.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

And that's so powerful too, that whole image of the prefrontal cortex that you mentioned with the billions of cells and the mother being 27 billion neurons. Because it just makes me think, whenever I hear about epigenetics, of course, I think about intergenerational transmission of trauma. And when we replace or reshape the cells that weren't mothering us the way we needed with ones that are more nurturing, then we have more to pass on.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

More to pass on. It changes our children's lives. And really, I mean, as therapists, it changes the lives of everyone that you are holding.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah. And everyone they interact with. And that is the interconnectedness.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

That is the interconnectedness. Yes, yes, yes. And it allows for an expanded sense of belonging so that we don't have to create our belonging in divisiveness.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

That is so my wish for us as a culture to stop trying to spread violence and war around the world and spread connection and community.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. And thoughtful long term consideration of our actions.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yeah.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

And how we're even connected to our planet.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Sarah, I am so grateful for the work you're doing. Truly. It's very unique and really, I know it's influenced by so many others and you always share that. But what you're doing isn't like what anyone else is doing that I've seen. So I'm really grateful for what you've created to share this with all of us.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Thank you so much, Laura. I'm just delighted. I love our conversations. Me too.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

So where can people get the new book? I know it's in pre order availability right now.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah. At your friendly online bookseller. So if you're someone who enjoys Amazon, it's listed for pre order on Amazon and other online booksellers and it's coming out, it will be sent out on May 25th. So if you order this and you'll get the first copies as they come out the press.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Wonderful. And then for everyone who just can't wait if they don't have the youe Resident Self book that's already available.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yes, yes, that's there. That's very available and I'm sorry, go ahead. No, that's right.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

I was just going to say can you tell everyone where they can find all the good stuff you're doing?

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Oh yes.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Yes.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Sarahpaten.com Now a new working website where your products will be delivered to you without the intervention of my beloved help desk person. We just rolled out the new website this last week so it's very exciting.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Sarahpaten.com Congratulations on that. And I know that's a big undertaking and I know also that you have many offerings on your website. Will you just briefly tell people kind of what type of stuff they can find there?

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Yeah, there are, there are a lot of webinars about any subject that you might imagine would be interesting ranging from the neuroscience behind cutting and what we can do relationally and with resonance to begin to remedy. A series of presentations about, about attachment and Beatrice Phoebe's work and how it has an impact for us as adults and what we can do about it. Lots of presentations about different kinds of emotions. An entire 90 minute presentation on disgust. Just wonderful. Life changing. So all kinds of presentations like that. And then also live offerings with the kind of work that I do with groups doing family constellation work even online. How do we make our brains good places to live?

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Oh gosh. And everything that I've experienced of your work has been wonderful and incredibly helpful. So I encourage everyone to go check out your website.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Thank you.

[Laura Reagan - Host]

Well, Sarah I just want to thank you again for returning to Therapy Chat today.

[Sarah Paton - Guest]

Thank you so much much.

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